Why I photograph in JPG (1 Viewer)

[Chris van Rijswijk]

Any self-respecting photographer would be shooting in RAW, wouldn't they?

Otherwise you’re not a real professional and you don’t get the most out of your photos. A starting bird photographer will shoot in JPG file type, but will allow themselves to be persuaded quickly by more experienced colleagues to never do this again.

A RAW-picture is better and sharper; there is a larger colour gamut achievable and there is less noise, the white balance can be adjusted afterwards; I could go on and on. In JPG that’s all impossible. So don’t use JPG, because it’s only for losers.

Honestly, I have to make a confession: I’ve been shooting in JPG for years...

Read more: http://www.birdshooting.nl/index.php/en/blog-en/139-waarom-ik-in-jpg-fotografeer

 

[fugl]

JPG's less work, certainly, but for best results RAW wins every time. One has to take the trouble to master it, of course, but that's easily done.

 

[Tiraya]

I have been solely using JPG because I take a lot of photos and I don't have time to sort them all out as RAW requires. I am not a professional photographer, I take photos for records and for submitting to iNaturalist and citizen science projects. Minor exposure corrections are possible in JPGs, and that's usually all I need.

I have never noticed poor colours although I do add a bit of saturation to several of my photos.

 

[iveljay]

Storage is cheap - shoot both if necessary.
A lot depends on the equipment you use, (some seems to have been designed with Adobes profits in mind), and most importantly the expectations of your audience.

It is an old argument going back to the days of film, there were those who spent much work in the dark room, producing perfection and others (like me) who didn't - shooting mainly reversal that demanded a right first time approach with cc filters to balance the light and very accurate exposure evaluation, incident readings etc., and if I was doing negative work paying a specialist to produce the best possible results from my instructions. I had a dark room which I used when I had to but tried to avoid.

With in camera focus stacking and other innovations that can only be carried out with jpegs, I am afraid that I am working far more in the camera and less on the computer, mainly slight treaking and cropping.
On the rare occasions when it is needed I still have raw to fall back on.

I do what is right for me, other people should do what is right for them, if you don't know - learn how to get good using RAW etc., then you can make up your own mind.

 

[nikonmike]

Been shooting raw since my D70 days,but with the improvement in cameras and sensors i am questioning it more often,to say you cant do any work on a jpeg is wrong you can do a fair bit now with the file size and quality.

When ask why i dont shoot jpeg i often say because ime not good enough.

 

[CalvinFold]

I shoot JPEG mostly because of my camera, which can't do acceptably fast burst speed with RAW. But I still process those JPEGs with the Adobe Camera RAW filter. I still pre-sort using Adobe Bridge. And honestly, when I do shoot in RAW (usually for long distance or flash photos), the quality is only a little better on my camera.

So really, RAW or JPEG doesn't change my process or the time spent much at all.

And I've seen JPEGs off much better cameras than mine and frankly they are gorgeous, and more than enough for online use (any honest to goodness DLSR is automatically overkill for online photos, really).

So assuming the same amount of basic prep and post-processing work, RAW is really most useful for rescuing shots that might not otherwise be acceptable, for getting those truly magnificent "National Geographic worthy" photos, and for getting the best foot forward in print.

Sorry Chris, I read your article but working in printing and graphics myself, the RAW saved as Photoshop (PSD) is the accepted way these days. TIFF is a good backup, JPEG never. This has less to do with printing as it does with how the RIPs printing your file manage the color. The TIFF actually may produce better color from the RIP (printer) than a JPEG, and your printer could be seeing what you are not. I could go into more detail on this if you'd like, we've tested it to death at work. ||

By the same token, most RIPs prefer PSD over TIFF anymore, so it's possible your printer doesn't know his job as you imply. |8.|

 

[njlarsen]

I wanted to avoid answering (due to time), but OK, here it comes: I use ACDSee instead of Adobe. I use ACDSee because it is the easiest to use system for managing photos I know. For the managing part, there is no difference between RAW and jpg. For adjustments afterwards, the only difference is because my processor is old and the larger file size of the raw is measurable (I expect to upgrade my PC before too long).

I shoot both jpg and raw. With high iso images, which I am often forced into by shooting in tropical forest, I have a strong preference for working with the raw image, it just gives to my eyes a better balance of detail and noise than the automatic noise reduction that went into the camera producing a jpg. For the rest of the images (less iso) I usually go with the raw image anyway, the process is just about the same as it would have been from the jpg.

Niels

 

[ammadoux]

Hello, very interesting discussion in this thread. so wonderful to know that some real fantastic photographer such as yourselves here do shoot jpeg.

never felt that i need to do raw when i was using Olympus 4/3 or m4/3 bodies, that only factor that contribute to the IQ is the lens, all Lumix 100-300mm, Sigma 50-500 and the new 40-150mm pro as so wonderful.
But now as using my new equipment Nikon D7200 + Nikkor 200-500mm i am very disappointed in the results. i knew Nikon's Jpeg is inferior to Olympus and Sony but never thought it would be that disappointing.
wonder if i will start to do Jgep+raw, or i shall get ride of Nikon system and go back to Olympus.

but then i have to admit i am not 100% comfortable with DVF.

 

[nikonmike]

Hello, very interesting discussion in this thread. so wonderful to know that some real fantastic photographer such as yourselves here do shoot jpeg.

never felt that i need to do raw when i was using Olympus 4/3 or m4/3 bodies, that only factor that contribute to the IQ is the lens, all Lumix 100-300mm, Sigma 50-500 and the new 40-150mm pro as so wonderful.
But now as using my new equipment Nikon D7200 + Nikkor 200-500mm i am very disappointed in the results. i knew Nikon's Jpeg is inferior to Olympus and Sony but never thought it would be that disappointing.
wonder if i will start to do Jgep+raw, or i shall get ride of Nikon system and go back to Olympus.

but then i have to admit i am not 100% comfortable with DVF.

Have you done the jpeg settings on the camera,normally upping the sharpening and tweaking the others gives good results.

 

[ammadoux]

Have you done the jpeg settings on the camera,normally upping the sharpening and tweaking the others gives good results.

until now i am not familiar with many of the camera settings. i can only set the exposure mode, ISO, WB.

 

[nikonmike]

until now i am not familiar with many of the camera settings. i can only set the exposure mode, ISO, WB.

As a longterm Nikon user i can say that if you dont tweak the jpeg settings your jpeg will be rubbish,Nikons leave the factory with a low setting on jpeg sharpening,i cant remember how much as i shoot raw but the sharpness wants to be around the 5 or 7 setting, you can add a little to the saturation and contrast to try it,you should then see a vast improvement.

You also need to ensure you have the jpeg at its highest setting for quality.

 

[mart46]

An interesting thread, and I suppose it really depends on how good your camera is a creating the jpegs in the first instance. I shot Canon digital for years - Raw only for all my work (weddings and portraits) and had my workflow down to a tee, with great results. Last year I switched to Fuji (an X-T1 and X-T10) and set both cameras to shoot Raw + Jpeg.

I can honestly say that I have not looked at a RAW file for 6 months, the Fuji jpegs are just outstanding. Whether its a portrait, wedding or wildlife, the end results are great.

I think if I was still shooting Canon (or Nikon) I'd stick with raw, however I'm getting very close to setting the camera to shoot jpeg only - and for a professional, that's a little scary !!

 

[ammadoux]

As a longterm Nikon user i can say that if you dont tweak the jpeg settings your jpeg will be rubbish,Nikons leave the factory with a low setting on jpeg sharpening,i cant remember how much as i shoot raw but the sharpness wants to be around the 5 or 7 setting, you can add a little to the saturation and contrast to try it,you should then see a vast improvement.

You also need to ensure you have the jpeg at its highest setting for quality.

thanks so much i will do that, and give it a try.

 

[dave598]

Hello all interesting conversation here. I shoot in RAW for several reasons and they are mine alone.

1. When you shoot in JPG you are allowing the camera to make all of the decisions for you. I know that it is a pain to go through all of your photos, heck I have ones that are almost a year old sitting on my hard drives that are in raw but I get to them. (I just posted one in the gallery this morning that was over two months old. And yet I always have a little time here and there to go through my photos.). Now Photoshop users will balk at letting the camera make all the decisions for you by shooting in JPG, why not you can edit them in Photoshop. But if you do not shoot in RAW there are a lot of fixes etc. in Photoshop that you cannot use.
2. I am human I make mistake and when you shoot in RAW you can correct your mistakes.
3, When I go out birding and shooting photos I take at least 700 photos and will use maybe 10 to 15 and each one of those I tweak.

We each make our own choices when doing photography but I have found that if I shoot in RAW I can correct and make each photo that I choose to use better.

 

[Dave Boyle]

I find the one real benefit of RAW is being able to change the white balance. Especially in wildlife photography where your subject can quickly move between different lighting conditions or you suddenly see something you want to photograph in the shade after photographing something in full sun in RAW its not a problem at all, just one click of a button & you can completely transform a photo

A friend of mine recently realised she'd been shooting in fluorescent mode or something for days & all her photos were blue. She was shooting jpegs so she was screwed. If she'd been using RAW there would have been no problem

 

[dave598]

I find the one real benefit of RAW is being able to change the white balance. Especially in wildlife photography where your subject can quickly move between different lighting conditions or you suddenly see something you want to photograph in the shade after photographing something in full sun in RAW its not a problem at all, just one click of a button & you can completely transform a photo

A friend of mine recently realised she'd been shooting in fluorescent mode or something for days & all her photos were blue. She was shooting jpegs so she was screwed. If she'd been using RAW there would have been no problem

I learned that lesson the hard way when I was shooting a fire. I had some great shots, or so I thought, and when I looked at them on the computer afterwards they were so screwed up I could not save them. So now when I reset my camera before heading out I always take the time to make sure I have it in RAW.

 

[Chris van Rijswijk]

Many thanks for so many substantive comments. Everyone has their own preference… ;-)

 

[fugl]

Many thanks for so many substantive comments. Everyone has their own preference… ;-)

Not to mention their own rationales. . ..

 

[njlarsen]

Hello all interesting conversation here. I shoot in RAW for several reasons and they are mine alone.

1. When you shoot in JPG you are allowing the camera to make all of the decisions for you. I know that it is a pain to go through all of your photos, heck I have ones that are almost a year old sitting on my hard drives that are in raw but I get to them. (I just posted one in the gallery this morning that was over two months old. And yet I always have a little time here and there to go through my photos.).
snip...

The bolded part is where I actually disagree. I find it no more difficult or painful to go through a set of raw photos compared with a set of jpgs.

If you, like me, come home from a trip with 5000 photos+, then yes it is a lot of images and it takes a lot of time to go through, but the time is not related to which file-type you are using.

Niels

 

[CalvinFold]

If you, like me, come home from a trip with 5000 photos+, then yes it is a lot of images and it takes a lot of time to go through, but the time is not related to which file-type you are using.

+1 to this.

I average 1200 or so photos just from 3 hours at the local protected space park...RAW and JPEG are not only sorted and pre-processed the same, the post-processing is exactly the same. Same Camera RAW processing, same photo adjustments, etc.

Camera RAW might mean a little less messing around, less noise and minor JPEG issues.

Only time-saving argument I see is that simply having a better camera, lens, and skill might mean the JPEG straight from the camera will need no adjustment at all and usable as-is. RAW on the other hand always needs to be converted to some other format before it can be used, at minimum.

In the interest of reality and fairness to the complexity of the subject of speed/efficiency though, I'd call it a draw.