I shoot RAW whether I'm shooting on assignment for a pub or just for my own enjoyment -- with two exceptions. When I've had to do a few shots for the Times at the auto show, I shot jpegs, because the turnaround time was right now. When I shot virtual tours of apartments and houses, which consisted of about 300 exposure and color-temp matched pics per location, I shot jpegs. But even for a massive three day shoot that I now do every year at an event called the Mopar Nationals, where I might shoot as many as 600 frames a day, I shoot RAW. The extra bit of control yields a better finished product, which makes my work more valuable to the customer. Paul On Apr 19, 2011, at 3:44 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
> The green mode discussion caused me to appreciate two different modes > photographers can work in. When you press the shutter, are you looking for > the file produced to be a final product in and of itself, or are you thinking > of the entire workflow, and treating the RAW file as merely one stage in > producing the final product? > > The people that I expect wanting the final product from a shutter press would > be: > > Snapshooters are the obvious ones. They don't care about the process, they > often just want a recognizable photograph of important moments. I've heard > people wax eloquent about their NEX because they don't need to know anything > about photography to get pretty good photos, they just aim the camera, it > figures out where the faces are, focuses on the faces, does it's digital > magic and gets better photos than they ever could. > > Professionals on assignment are another obvious group wanting finished photos > to spring from their camera like Athena from Zeus's head. The more time they > spend diddling with photos, the less money they make. They aren't > necessarily looking for the best possible photo, they're usually looking for > a photo that is good enough in as little time as possible. > > I expect that the people who look at the raw file as the equivalent of a > negative, rather than a final product would be people who want the best > possible photo, or folks who are trying for some artistic vision that can't > be achieved inside the camera. > > Realistically, the above descriptions aren't really of different people, but > of different immediate goals. If I just need a photograph of where I plan to > mount an attic fan to show my contractor, I don't need sufficient > photographic quality to make a 20x30 print to hang in a gallery. I just need > to convey the critical information. If I'm shooting an event, and could > trust my camera to get everything to JPEG in sufficient quality to post to > the web or make prints without using lightroom, I could probably shoot > directly in JPEG. If I need to go through lightroom anyways, then JPEG > doesn't really save me anything over RAW. The percussionist the other night > was commenting that when photographing for customers to post on the web, he'd > just set his camera to 6MP JPEG, and appreciated the much smaller filesize. > In the same vein, every so often almost everyone finds something that they > want to take the best photo that they can of, and will use every tool at > their disposal. > > One of the things that I need to learn is to recognize what my goals of the > moment are, and how to best fulfill them. I've been working on projects on > the house lately, and have to keep reminding myself that when I'm doing > construction carpentry, I don't need to work to machinist tolerances. > > > -- > Larry Colen l...@red4est.com sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
