Is this even still a valid argument?
Why are there still people shooting JPEG?
Are these the same people who hunt for old, standard definition TVs on Ebay?
Maybe their still holding on to their 5 inch floppy disks because, they argue, that’s a better way to save data than solid state drives.
4K TVs vs standard definition.
Solid state drives vs. floppy disks.
RAW vs. JPEG.
I hope these comparisons help you see that there is no argument for shooting JPEGs.
JPEGs are the 1980s floppy disks.
I only shoot RAW and would never think about going back.
The ability to use programs like Lightroom and On1 PhotoRaw to adjust minute details and bring out detail in shadows and highlights is incredible. And to making changes in these programs is non-destructive.
That means the original RAW file remains unchanged. You can go back to that file a year from now and make a completely different edit. Try doing that to a JPEG that you converted to black and white and now your client wants to see it as a color image. Opps. Maybe TNT still has some of those people on staff that they paid to “colorize” all the classic B/W movies.
Let’s be honest. Things happen. You are rocking away and taking photos for hours and suddenly you realize that you accidently changed the f-stop from f-8 to f-4 30 minutes ago. And it’s a wedding, or paid gig where you can’t go back and re-shot the shots from 30 minutes ago.
Good luck saving those JPEGs in photoshop. Every edit you make to a JPEG is destructive. Pixils are changed. Pixils are lost forever. You…..can’t…..go…..back once those changes are saved.
RAW files are much larger than JPEGs because they contain a lot more data.
If your photo is two stops under or over exposed, a raw file just uses other pixils, when you change the exposure slider in your editing software. You’re not changing any date in the RAW file, your’re just changing the date used to show the capture.
OK, lets stop talking about it and go look at some photos that are over and under exposed.
I went out and took some photos of the spring wildflowers here in Texas.
I set the camera up to shoot RAW and jpeg, so we can take the same overexposed image and see the difference when we are editing the RAW file vs. when we shoot a jpeg file.
I shoot everything in RAW only. I don’t think there is any good reason to shoot in jpeg, unless you don’t own Lightroom or On1 Photo Raw.
If you have your first DSLR camera and your most experience in digital photography is using your cell phone, you probably don’t own a software program to easily convert RAW files to jpegs.
