RAW or nothing?

Rick58 · Sep 11, 2012

I've read the importance of RAW for editing. But what of all the camera's out there that don't have that capibility? Are they not even worth considering? Are there average and above cameras made today that DON'T offer it? I mean, beautiful photo's were made back when people said RAW they were talking about meat.

MLeeK · Sep 11, 2012

I don't know of a DSLR that doesn't offer raw.
As for the point and shoots and higher end point and shoots-IMO it really doesn't matter much. The average point and shoot user doesn't know or care. They can take a good picture and the camera does it all. That's all they want. The higher end point and shoots that we are looking at for pocket cameras are all offering it.
If I were buying one I'd be looking for one with raw.

sm4him · Sep 11, 2012

I really can't answer the question about the quality of cameras out there that don't have the option to shoot raw, but I can tell you that I am a fairly recent convert to the awesomeness of shooting raw.

I bought my first DSLR last August, but kept shooting jpegs until about April. I just didn't *really* see the point of raw--it seemed like a big waste of space and it meant that I HAD to process every single picture I wanted to do anything with; I couldn't just look at the jpeg and decide to leave it the way it was. And honestly, I figured raw was really just for professionals; amateur hacks like me didn't need to bother.

But people here kept saying "shoot raw," "shoot raw," "shoot raw" and giving reasons why. So, I decided to try shooting raw. I will never go back to just jpegs again. The control it gives me over things like wb and exposure alone are well worth any extra processing time. I've still got a LOT to learn about processing--how to batch process to save time, how to achieve better results, and all that--but it's just like learning how to develop your own photos in a darkroom, it takes some time to learn, but it's definitely better than sending them off to a lab and letting someone ELSE control the end result of YOUR photos.

And yes, people were producing beautiful photos back when raw just referred to meat--but they had those little things called "negatives" to work with!

2WheelPhoto · Sep 11, 2012

Rick58 said:
I've read the importance of RAW for editing. But what of all the camera's out there that don't have that capability? Are they not even worth considering? Are there average and above cameras made today that DON'T offer it? I mean, beautiful photo's were made back when people said RAW they were talking about meat.

nice snapshots

Overread · Sep 11, 2012

RAW is not the be all and the end all. It is a great feature and the ability to refine and control the specific editing applied to a photo is very empowering for photographers to have at their finger tips. Certainly there are many situations where RAW can improve significantly over what was possible with just a JPEG.

That said there are some applications where RAW isn't used - even on the big cameras that support RAW. Such would be sports and journalist photography - where the photographer often has to have the photos sent to the editor for selection and then print within moments of them being taken (esp in todays world with online publishing). In that situation there isn't a need for RAW since the photographer and the editor won't be making much if any changes outside of a crop - and thus the advantages of a RAW go to the wayside in favour of the decent instant JPEG.

Indeed auto JPEG processing can do a decent job. It will give you a "decent shot" under most conditions just like auto mode can give you a decent shot. It may lack some refinement that you could have got with a RAW - but for most printed applications and online publishing it will be more than suitable.

As for cameras that don't have RAW mode that is a more tricky question to answer. This is mostly because RAW mode tends to be something "good" cameras have whilst the lack of it tends to be something that the "weaker" cameras have. Weaker in this context generally meaning that they are marketed and designed more for the point and shoot crowed as opposed to the photographers. So they will likely be point and shoot cameras with all the inherent limitations that point and shoots have when compared against DSLRs and the like.
Of course sometimes what you need is a small, simple to use camera to get the shot - and if its what you've got you can make it work. That said many, if given the choice, will want to shift to the better quality cameras most times.

JerseyJules · Sep 11, 2012

I was considering shooting with RAW but what program would be needed to edit RAW files? Would Gimp work? or do I need Photoshop?

Rick58 · Sep 11, 2012

JerseyJules said:
I was considering shooting with RAW but what program would be needed to edit RAW files? Would Gimp work? or do I need Photoshop?

I use Photo Pro x3
It's cheap, but it works

2WheelPhoto · Sep 11, 2012

JerseyJules said:
I was considering shooting with RAW but what program would be needed to edit RAW files? Would Gimp work? or do I need Photoshop?

Google Adobe Lightroom 4 and download the free trial. You'll love it.

Rick58 · Sep 11, 2012

What prompted the question was my dad was looking to buy a low-end digital and he was looking at a Sony HX200V. I started doing some reading on the camera and found it didn't offer RAW when even my bottom of the line A230 does, which is several years old. Both made by Sony, it didn't make any sense to me why a $400 camera today wouldn't offer it.
Don't jump on me, $400 is nothing for a quality Digital. In fact one can easily pay much more for just a lens, but 400 bucks is still 400 bucks, especially when the same company's offered RAW years ago on their botton of the line machine.

BTW, he eventually bought it and didn't care about RAW. I'm going to do some side by side tests to see if there is any difference between his and mine, both on JPG to be fair.

I mentioned in another thread that the 200v uses a Ziess Sonnar lens. There was a day when you couldn't buy a better lens, but as mentioned, a mass produced Sonnar won't be the same Sonnar found on a Hasselblad.

What I'm really curious about is the x30 zoom???

480sparky · Sep 11, 2012

JerseyJules said:
I was considering shooting with RAW but what program would be needed to edit RAW files? Would Gimp work? or do I need Photoshop?

In it's native format, GIMP will not. But you can install UFRAW and make it work.

But if you camera saves raw (it's raw, people, not RAW. There's no acronym here!), it will have software with it.

KenC · Sep 11, 2012

The zoom is probably partly digital, which means the camera is just enlarging the image the same way you could in processing. The quality won't be as good, naturally.

As for raw, the best analogy to film is that shooting directly in jpg is like having someone else develop your bw negatives for you, or even produce prints for you. They don't know under what conditions you exposed the film or how you like your images to look, so they won't come up with something as good as you would by doing it yourself.

Overread · Sep 11, 2012

Rick - I suspect the reason its missing is because whilst the camera is not by any mean cheap, its still being marketed toward the casual user. That is a user who wants a simple to use camera that they can point - shoot and get a print ready file from. They've no demand in that market segment for RAW mode and indeed the idea of RAW mode would confuse most of them (esp since they would never see the gains unless they first learnt to edit - which is going beyond what most of that user group really wants from their camera).

MLeeK · Sep 11, 2012

I think it was overread who said its not the end all to beat all. She's right. Raw is awesome and all that but its not absolutely necessary to produce top notch photographs.
Someone else said photos taken in JPEG are just snapshots and that's not true either. There are plenty of great photographers who do not shoot in raw and they produce beautiful, quality work. Its just a matter of if you are going to USE all of that data or not. Some studios are shooting for volume and shooting raw is a waste of disc space and time. It works for them.

TheLost · Sep 11, 2012

JPEG (.jpg) is a lossy compression format. This means you are loosing data to reduce file size. Most cameras let you adjust the level of compression so you can pick the quality of the image. However, you'll never get back the full data of the image. Camera's will also apply their image and color correction to the file (tone, white balance, sharpening.. etc) making it almost impossible to undo later.

'Raw' is a generic term meaning a file containing 'unprocessed' data directly from the cameras sensors. Most manufactures include the camera settings inside the raw file (tone, white balance, sharpening.. etc) but it doesn't modify the 'raw' data. This lets you change and adjust the image much like developing/processing your own film did back in the film days. Having the raw data lets you bring out detail in shadows, correct white balance and in general have more control. Most raw formats will still compress the data... Nikon's NEF raw format gives you the ability to use a lossless (larger files.. no loss of data) or lossy (smaller files... loosing a small amount of data) compression.

Shooting 'raw' adds more work to the process since you have to convert the final image yourself... but you get more control over that final image. Most software will let you use presets that speed up workflow.

If you want to shoot raw... I would recommend downloading Adobe's Lightroom beta and having a go at it. For most people, once you go raw you never go back