RAW vs JPG, should I start shooting in raw?

[Dweller]

I want to keep many of my images until my grandchildren are old.

I have spent a good bit of time thinking about this and finally settled on a tape backup system. Currently I have everything on 2 separate machines and a 3rd copy on tape. The weak link now is that everything is here in the same location. If I had a fire or a meteor destroyed my house, I would lose it all.

I need to look at off-site backup of some kind but don't like the idea of another monthly bill.

Maybe we could start backup group within TPF. We each offer to hold backups of others files. I have a TB of drive space going unused right now and can add more pretty easily. I will have to chew on this idea for a while to see if I can come up with an idea that would be safe, easy to use and secure.

 

[manaheim]

I have spent a good bit of time thinking about this and finally settled on a tape backup system. Currently I have everything on 2 separate machines and a 3rd copy on tape. The weak link now is that everything is here in the same location. If I had a fire or a meteor destroyed my house, I would lose it all.

I need to look at off-site backup of some kind but don't like the idea of another monthly bill.

Maybe we could start backup group within TPF. We each offer to hold backups of others files. I have a TB of drive space going unused right now and can add more pretty easily. I will have to chew on this idea for a while to see if I can come up with an idea that would be safe, easy to use and secure.

Ooof... tape. That will get expensive quickly. I had a DLT running for a bit, but my storage just got too big to practically use it. Granted, I'm backing up 15meg raw files. Not as bad as Bifurcator, but still not fun.

The cross-net backup thing is a neat idea. I was chatting with a buddy of mine about it. Not entirely sure how to best implement it, but it would be pretty slick.

 

[Bifurcator]

DATs are cheap. I use them for storing jobs. Very fast BU and Restore! The thing with tape is that they're very susceptible to natural radiation and EM of all sorts so they need to be stored in proper storage containers. Also they're not great for searches and random access. That works for me tho because the unwritten rule for Jobs is that you have to keep the data from 3 years only and I almost never want to deal with the data or search for anything after I'm done with the job. The work is intense and you get pretty sick of it pretty fast. Think of editing the same set of images for a month or two everyday for 8 to 12 hours and you can get a feel for what I mean.

 

[manaheim]

DATs are cheap. I use them for storing jobs. Very fast BU and Restore! The thing with tape is that they're very susceptible to natural radiation and EM of all sorts so they need to be stored in proper storage containers. Also they're not great for searches and random access. That works for me tho because the unwritten rule for Jobs is that you have to keep the data from 3 years only and I almost never want to deal with the data or search for anything after I'm done with the job. The work is intense and you get pretty sick of it pretty fast. Think of editing the same set of images for a month or two everyday for 8 to 12 hours and you can get a feel for what I mean.

Have you considered creating a small secondary searchable archive? I'm personally still working out the details on this, but I have an idea of some combination of a gallery with very small thumbnails that supports searching based upon EXIF data and filenames.

Right now I'm using Coppermine, but it's a little flaky so I'm looking for something else.

Granted you said you don't care after three years has passed, but even with a three year span thats a LOT of data for folks such as you and I who shoot a LOT.

 

[captblue1]

what is your plan 2 - 5 years from now?
http://www.pcworld.com/article/124312-1/do_burned_cds_have_a_short_life_span.html

I have personally seen many cds and dvds that have become unreadable. One was so bad that the layers were pealing away. of course that was a dvd i left in the back of my car for about a year. but i have seen cds and dvds that were in cases or on the desk become coasters after a couple years.

 

[manaheim]

If you're asking me, my intention is to cycle my media every 2-3 years onto larger capacity media and hope for the best. I'm going to lose an occasional disc. Nothing I can do about that. I'm not personally willng to have multiple terrabytes of storage spinning all the time, and that's what it would take for me to keep my images alive and kicking with "zero loss".

I do buy better than average media and stick with the companies that produce high-quality DVDs intended for long-term archival. All I can do is hope that will minimize loss a bit.

Anyone that stores their stuff on plain-jane media is asking for trouble.

 

[Bifurcator]

@manaheim
I use iPhoto for the thumbnails. If follows along with the cataloging software automatically which also has it's own icons. iPhoto is pretty sweet for free!

The reason I don't care about the "jobs" after 3 years is that's a professional courtesy standard in Japan and I think other Asian countries too. If it were up to be I would trash them about a week or two after they were received. It's thousands and thousands of sequential animation frames, 3D object data, motion data, texture data, a few other things. The texture data is useful to keep and some object data is too. I've kept about 40 gigs over the past 15 or 20 years of useful or reusable stuff.


@captblue1
So far I've been keeping all important (to me) images on multiple DVDs plus they're always on my current machine. I also cycle the DVDs on occasion. Additionally, since I keep two or three machines from every batch of render farm nodes (usually 24 or 48 machines in size) I additionally store all my photos on one or more of them before I remove the power cord and use it as a night stand or door-stop. So I guess in a way I'm storing them on hard drives too but not actively. I'm waiting for some technology to come along that's cheap, fast, and boasts of a 100+ year lifespan.

 

[dEARlEADER]

look how many view this RAW vs JPG thread has....... amazing.... this gets discussed every two weeks and still generates more views than any other thread.... clearly this is an issue that people are having trouble with...

 

[Mav]

look how many view this RAW vs JPG thread has....... amazing.... this gets discussed every two weeks and still generates more views than any other thread.... clearly this is an issue that people are having trouble with...

Because there's no right or wrong answer and so much conflicting information, which is why people keep on asking. The confusion and "failure of the system" is multi-layered.

I haven't followed this thread, but I like how *Mike* put it over here. RAW/TIFF or higher bit file formats are "sturdier" and will hold up to heavier image manipulation better, but for the most part 8-bit JPEGs hold up just fine.

 

[AmberBella]

I don't see why, if you have the space, you wouldn't just shoot in both JPEG + RAW. The thing about a JPEG is that it IS edited...it's just that the camera chooses what it thinks is best. Sometimes my camera is dead wrong! I know better by using my eye than the camera does by using whatever algorithms it has. It takes me..a newbie...about 60 seconds to process a raw photo. If I'm processing a bunch from the same session, that can be 60 seconds for 100 photos. Because I also shoot in jpeg I can leave the snapshots alone and not waste the 60 seconds on them.

 

[manaheim]

I don't see why, if you have the space, you wouldn't just shoot in both JPEG + RAW. The thing about a JPEG is that it IS edited...it's just that the camera chooses what it thinks is best. Sometimes my camera is dead wrong! I know better by using my eye than the camera does by using whatever algorithms it has. It takes me..a newbie...about 60 seconds to process a raw photo. If I'm processing a bunch from the same session, that can be 60 seconds for 100 photos. Because I also shoot in jpeg I can leave the snapshots alone and not waste the 60 seconds on them.

I'm going to try arguing the other side for fun.

What I think some people on here would say is "If you shoot it properly and set the camera correctly, you will have very little need for RAW because the image will need no post-processing."

I think they would also say "Anything you need beyond the proper camera setup is going to be minor enough that you can do it in JPEG."

They're probably right if you're good enough to get the perfect shot every time and you are either fast enough to setup correctly or have enough time to do it. I'm not, and I often don't, so I shoot RAW so I have some fudge factor. <shrug>

 

[dEARlEADER]

I'm going to try arguing the other side for fun.

What I think some people on here would say is "If you shoot it properly and set the camera correctly, you will have very little need for RAW because the image will need no post-processing."

I think they would also say "Anything you need beyond the proper camera setup is going to be minor enough that you can do it in JPEG."

They're probably right if you're good enough to get the perfect shot every time and you are either fast enough to setup correctly or have enough time to do it. I'm not, and I often don't, so I shoot RAW so I have some fudge factor. <shrug>

:hail: Bravo!

 

[dEARlEADER]

I haven't followed this thread, but I like how *Mike* put it over here.

lol Mav... you have a handful of posts on this thread...

 

[Mav]

lol Mav... you have a handful of posts on this thread...

I should have said I stopped following it.

 

[Mav]

I don't see why, if you have the space, you wouldn't just shoot in both JPEG + RAW. The thing about a JPEG is that it IS edited...it's just that the camera chooses what it thinks is best. Sometimes my camera is dead wrong! I know better by using my eye than the camera does by using whatever algorithms it has. It takes me..a newbie...about 60 seconds to process a raw photo. If I'm processing a bunch from the same session, that can be 60 seconds for 100 photos. Because I also shoot in jpeg I can leave the snapshots alone and not waste the 60 seconds on them.

Poor poor Canon shooters. Nikon makes this much easier and has much better JPEG processing IMHO. I've said elsewhere that if I shot Canon I'd be far more likely to shoot RAW.