As the photographic world knows, or at least loudly claims, amateur photographers shoot JPEG files and pros shoot RAW. I know this because photographers who make these claims trumpet them loudly, often with wearable memes like “I shoot RAW” t-shirts. There are even a few pictures floating around the web of photographers wearing such gear while holding a film camera, and at least one popular webizen has dubbed film to be “real raw.”
The day your camera was born, it was set to make JPEG files. When you pulled it out of that good-new-smelling Styrofoam clamshell and charged up the battery and were ready to shoot, you were shooting JPEGs. There’s nothing wrong with that. JPEG is robust and easy to use. Almost all of the images you see on the web, and every image you see here richardbarron.net, is a JPEG file.
When I first tell my students about raw files, I explain to them that while you might like the results of shooting JPEG files, those files are married to your camera settings. If you have your camera set to “vivid” color, for example, you are stuck with a vividly-colored image. The same goes for white balance – you are mostly stuck with the white balance you set in your camera – except that you can get white balance very wrong when you are shooting. RAW files are a great way to avoid this marriage of settings. Although your RAW file might be tagged as vivid color or tungsten white balance, you can change those values as soon as you open the image.
Why is this? The biggest reason is that JPEG files contain 8 bits per channel, meaning they contain 256 brightness levels per color: red, green and blue. RAW files record 12 bits of data, creating and storing 4,096 brightness levels per color, or 14 bits, creating 16,384 different brightness levels per color. Add to this the fact that we paid for all those colors when we bought our cameras, and then throw most of them away when we make JPEGs, RAW files make even more sense.
My students and I were shooting recently on the bridge over the pond at the Pontotoc Technology Center, and ran across some beautiful light. We took turns posing for each other, and the JPEGs looked great right out of the camera. In fact, since I had my settings on vivid, the images popped beautifully, and really made a great first impression.
I shoot in many circumstances that require settling for incorrect or ugly white balance, under or over exposures, and challenging lighting scenarios (like sports and spot news), and I am always glad when I can fine tune everything back at the office.
I can’t begin to count the occasions when having a RAW file saved an image. I tell my students to start by setting their cameras to shoot both JPEG and RAW files, but as the years go by, I have less and less use for that tagalong JPEG.
Hi Richard,
nice site, thanks a lot!
I keep telling beginners that shooting JPEG is like tossing away film negatives and sticking with that one crappy drugstore 4×3 print for eternity.
That usually works.
It’s mostly older people who shot film once and then ‘gave up’, and generally struggle with all this today’s tech (I f.. do 🙂 You-tube-Sony-Kids are the opposite, teaching me how to process video to make it look like the latest Nolan Production… well mad.
:-))
The ‘problem’ with RAW-photography is that it is entirely software based and three times as time consuming as ancient shooting, where post consisted of rolling back film, dropping it off at shop, give a few meagre instructions like ASA- push (for contrast) and of course, most dramatically, shelling out the hundreds. Jpeg was the ultimate revolution then but was even more difficult to change than a neg or slide.
Today, all I personally still care about, while shooting, is my focus and focalpoint (but that is about to change too, soon being proper able to shift focal plane in post..!!!). The Rest is all done in PS. Even cropping I do in post, especially I must say, as I can take my time to get it perfect. I oftentimes shot fairly wider than i see my frame. Because it is the 2nd most important step in photography! Also i like to use zooms and thus need to bend back distorttion anyway.
But the biggest plus, similar to film days, is that I don’t know what I will end with, that I actually enjoy the process at my desk, to not know what the final image will exactly look like in the end. Often not the same anymore from what I thought I would like the shot to look like on location. Thats so great.
So, yes, a lot has turned 180 degrees. Other things not at all. What was like 80% shooting and 20% developing (if not even 90/10) is now 80% photoshop. It has become a 2nd profession, on top of the old one, similar to pilots… and that’s why I can not blame anyone for saying that digital/RAW was the end for their photography and that they don’t want it and thus can not do it.
There is damn good film photography out there still (although most of it has been scanned in at some point…to be able to print it and lastly to compete with digital… More like artists marketing I fear, like Christopher Nolan insisting on shooting up to 70mm… (not sure about him anyway :-))
Today’s photos, certainly in flat or neutral colour profile, are designed to look crap, because they are ment to be enhanced in post anyway.
And, if we look closely, the principle idea of how to reinterpret the camera’s work, has not really changed much since darkroom days: cropping subject, dodge ‘n burn, cutting paper and masks, dying paper, framing and thus creating an unique piece, at best one of art, were the difficulties in the darkroom. Still are.
Not sure if costlier but certainly way more time consuming, than my today’s desk.
I freaked out when I realized that I can shoot our galaxy, showing all the colourful madness going on up there, with “nothing” but my beloved FXNikons and an 1.4 or 2.8 on a tripod.
Shooting Andromeda gave me the ultimate chills btw, to sit in a pitch black nature hearing owls and catching that tiny tiny bit of light that had just travelled for 2.5 million years… Now, thats RAW! At that point I did not know that it would take me another year to get the final photos that I had envisioned. The very first edits where thankfully mind blowing enough to go for the full photoshop process, only to go back to that Greek island one summer later, to do 20k pixles stichings and even astro stackings for noise reduction.
Ok, astro-photography is the most extreme argument for RAW but it showcases exactly what a RAW is designed for and what these cameras are capable of: extreme freedom of creativity, to do and show things ‘no one’ has ever seen before.
Welcome to the new world. Digtial democracy. In which there is still room for all of us. From highest end, internally illuminated, 8foot tall, exibition slides all the way to snapchat. So, I say what every photographer says: it is us who create the pictures! I know, truism at its worst. But true. If one is totally happy with a mobilephone shot (in 9:16…), well… Great!!!!!
Anyways, cheers from Berlin/Germany.
Keep your spirits up mate, make the best out of these weird times and use it for your creativity – and stay rich!
😉
Philip