anyone shoot in RAW? (DSLR)

[Carolc]

People keep encouraging me to shoot in RAW. I've been trying to decide whether to shoot my upcoming trip in RAW (or RAW with jpg), but I'm a little scared!. I spent one day shooting raw at a local theme park, and I was a little overwhelmed by looking at all the photos in Lightroom when I got home. Not even sure where to start. I think the RAW plus jpg = about 10MB per shot. My camera can only use 2GB memory cards. I think I have about 4 of them.

Any thoughts?

[Fioontje]

I always shoot in RAW. It takes a whole lot of memory ( I have a 4 GB card and shoot around 185 RAW pictures) and so much time, but when I want to adjust my pictures in Photoshop, the results are so much better than when you work with Jpeg.

I'm planning to buy some more memory cards for my camera and bringing my laptop with me on our trip. During our 4-day trip to Disneyland Paris, we already made almost 2000 pic's, I don't wanna know with how much I'm gonna get home after our trip to WDW

[Chef Minnie Mouse]

How do you shoot in RAW?

[MelissaD]

My current camera is outdated enough that I don't even have the option to do so. LOL My husband bought one for himself a few months ago though, and he had the option to shoot in jpg+raw, so I encouraged him to try it for a while. He's stuck to it, but he hasn't played with the photos yet.

[Carolc]

Originally Posted by Chef Minnie Mouse

How do you shoot in RAW?

Most DSLR's would probably have this option. I would guess that most point and shoots do not(?). I shot my entire trip in RAW+jpg. I have yet to go thru them all. The jpg file size is pretty small (less than 300kb), but it's enough to be able to see the basic image. I think I used about 7 or 8 GB.

[kathleena]

Sorry if this posts twice, I did a reply but it's not showing up

I have a P&S that shoots in RAW - Canon Powershot SX1 IS. I went to this after I decided my DSLR was just too heavy and I sold it to my step-daughter. I have two 4GB card to accommodate all the extra files.

But I think PSCS4 and Lightroom have RAW processing. I got into the CS4 one by accident once and need to go back and figure out how I got there! Once I do I'll stop taking in RAW.

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/co...&modelid=18301

[Sand]

When our first child was born I realized how important it was to capture time thru photography. ALL of the pics we took with our point and click camera were blurry. UGH! Since then I have been trying to learn as much as I can, outside of point and click with my DSLR camera (Nikon D5000).
Now having a second child, I haven't had a lot of time for much but still try and research as much as possible. (Our girls are 2 and 4 now).

We are going on our first DCL cruise this October. Thru our cruise DIS thread one of the passengers is a photographer that uses a Nikon D80. I have admired his work on other DIS photography threads so I was really excited to discover we were going to be on the same cruise. I pick his brain every chance I get! So getting to my point, Dave does not shoot in RAW simply because it it to large. According to him he prefers to shoot jpegs and just adjust the saturation or white balance with Topaz Adjust http://www.topazlabs.com/adjust/ or PSE. He is really getting into HDR photography now (High Dynamic Range) http://www.stuckincustoms.com//hdr-photography/. The HDR is more of a dramatic look. It would look great on the walls but, in my opinion, not great for scrapbooking. I personally care to shoot jpegs capturing the unusual, fun, magical moments then edited with PSE. Bottomline, Dave and I both agree raw vs jpegs comes down to personal preference.

[TanyaH666]

When I first got my camera I tried shooting in raw+jpg for about 50 photos. This was before I had started dig scrapping so I didn't have PSE yet. I was turned off simply by how long it was taking to upload the pictures to my computer! I should try again just to see the difference now that I know how to use Photoshop, but I hated how long it took to transfer them.

[WenRob]

Here are my responses to why I shoot RAW from the lens thread:

Okay RAW. The benefit of RAW is that the camera doesn't throw away all the extra info so you can pull a couple of stops either way without trashing your pic. Blow some highlights? Shooting in jpeg, tough patootie, they're gone, can't get them back. In RAW you can almost always get most of them back. Under expose pretty bad? Jpeg it looks pretty bad when you try to bring it up because the info just isn't there. RAW you have at least two stops leeway and can rescue some pretty bad shots. YOU decide what your pics are going to look like not the camera. It seems hard at first but once you have a system down you'll never go back.


Here's a good example of why I shoot RAW. I'm guessing my camera metered for the sky rather then the kids. Of course it's the only one showing DS being brave enough to get an autograph (he's hidden behind DD but you can see he was there!). No way would this look half as nice had it been shot in jpg, there wouldn't have been enough info.
Before: After:

[TanyaH666]

oh man, you sold me!! LOL, i am switching my setting to RAW as we speak!! haha, at least i will give it a try for a while =)