Wedding: JPEG vs. RAW

[biostockman]

1). He actually told us that he shoots primarily JPEG and hardly ever shoots RAW. I found this very odd myself.

2). Yes, he did bring about 20+ 8x10's and they were all terrific shots, the guy does have a great eye.

I'm feeling really iffy about this guy.

You should be, who would want a photographer that produces "terrific shots" and has a "great eye"? I suppose you feel "iffy" when you eat food that looks at tastes good......or when you go to a surgeon that has an excellent track record and happy patients?

You as a client should only worry about his past results and how your pictures will turn out. It should not matter to you what gear he uses, what modes he uses what post processing software he uses.......

BTW, if he is letting you do the post processing please confirm what Craigslist city you found him on

Like someone had stated earlier, he could have only shown us his top 20+ photos. And I didn't find him on Craigslist. It's been like pulling teeth to get someone to give us the RAW images, this photographer has agreed to only giving us JPEGs. We're paying enough to get the RAW images, IMO, but aside from that I assumed pros shot RAW 90% of the time, hence my question on this forum.

 

[Overread9]

Out of interest how come you are after the RAWs so much? Remember most photo purchases with a photographer are for finished prints or print ready files - that means everything from shooting to editing is done by the photographer (or their team).


As said earlier most are unwilling to part and put RAWs into a customers hands and those that do tend to charge a lot (if they are good).

 

[biostockman]

Out of interest how come you are after the RAWs so much? Remember most photo purchases with a photographer are for finished prints or print ready files - that means everything from shooting to editing is done by the photographer (or their team).


As said earlier most are unwilling to part and put RAWs into a customers hands and those that do tend to charge a lot (if they are good).

You're right, certainly most are unwilling as I've experienced. We're paying him to edit a certain amount of images. I'd really like the RAWs for our own needs for down the road and to do any editing on photos we like.

 

[Robin Usagani]

Here is the thing... all the files that I like I have RAW, PSD, and JPEG. 3 different files. What do you guys recommend? Delete RAW and just keep PSD and JPEG? What do you do?

 

[Tee]

I can't get past the fact that you want to process the photos he is taking. Is that really the reason you're concerned he is shooting JPEG?

I'm sorry but if I was the photographer, I would probably be "iffy" about you.

 

[Idahophoto]

Here is the thing... all the files that I like I have RAW, PSD, and JPEG. 3 different files. What do you guys recommend? Delete RAW and just keep PSD and JPEG? What do you do?

I am not sure who your question is towards so if its me Ill answer and if not I guess Ill answer anyways but whoever can offer there two cents. How many images do you keep? I mean really. I may take 20-30 or more shots of a scene, but in the end Ill only keep a few of the ones I like maybe 3 or 4 out of them and delete the rest. I only keep the ones I like the best. In a situation like a wedding or work you are doing for someone else its a impossible call as you never know what the client will like. You may hate a pic they love or vise versa so here I burn the images to a DVD to store them and I charge it to them. At less than a buck its more than fair and you figure 2-3 copies I would keep on hand of each disk. They pick you print and deliver and if they want more later rinse and repeat. I do this on my regular files as well where I have like a dozen DVDs worth of files in case my PC ever crashes (Gods have mercy) I have back ups. So HD space is really a non issue. I have only a 250GB HD and I am still sitting pretty with all my photos and MMO games, CS4 lightroom2 and tons of music files I have installed.

 

[ghpham]

I've never seen so much absurdity in a thread.

1. You hired the photographer to take your wedding pics.
2. You seen some of his work and they seem to be good.
3. You are now coming on to a forum asking a bunch of strangers whether you should or should not fire him based on the fact that he is using....JPEG over RAW?? WTF??

Why don't you ask him for references, and call the people he have done work for in the past to see if they were satisfied. You pay him based upon the results, not how he achieved it. In the old days of film, would you ever have ask a photographer how he does his work in the lab when creating the prints?? do you expect the photographer to give you the negatives??

A big WTF to those who say he should use RAW and be fired otherwise. Only an amateur would make such a ridiculous statement.

 

[ghpham]

If I worked as a press/sports tog then I'd be shooting jpeg to hit the picture desk on a deadline, as a wedding tog I want the best quality my tools can provide, I shoot raw+jpeg, the jpegs get a slight tweak through batch processing and go out as proofs, the album selection from raw gets whatever is required, I process, not my camera.

If he shoots jpeg imo he's lazy, or, inexperienced, because if he was that good he'd be working for NG or some other large publication, anyway he wouldn't figure high on my choice of togs for a wedding.

The OP wouldn't be on my client list either, no-one, without exception get my raw files to mess around as they choose. The work produced is the benchmark if you like the work pick him, if you have reservations about anything drop him like a sack of $hit. H

:er: what an amateurish statement.

 

[Sam6644]

It's not like you can't edit jpgs.

I really don't understand what the issue is.

 

[Idahophoto]

I've never seen so much absurdity in a thread.

1. You hired the photographer to take your wedding pics.
2. You seen some of his work and they seem to be good.
3. You are now coming on to a forum asking a bunch of strangers whether you should or should not fire him based on the fact that he is using....JPEG over RAW?? WTF??

Why don't you ask him for references, and call the people he have done work for in the past to see if they were satisfied. You pay him based upon the results, not how he achieved it. In the old days of film, would you ever have ask a photographer how he does his work in the lab when creating the prints?? do you expect the photographer to give you the negatives??

A big WTF to those who say he should use RAW and be fired otherwise. Only an amateur would make such a ridiculous statement.

Fact is fact whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. Bottom line is simple as I said before. He is purposely doing a act that will needlessly degrade the work he is being paid to do when there is no reason in the world to do so. None! That is not professional no matter how good the persons skill is. If you want that kind of work anybody who knows a guy (or woman) with a camera can get the job done.

 

[Sam6644]

I've never seen so much absurdity in a thread.

1. You hired the photographer to take your wedding pics.
2. You seen some of his work and they seem to be good.
3. You are now coming on to a forum asking a bunch of strangers whether you should or should not fire him based on the fact that he is using....JPEG over RAW?? WTF??

Why don't you ask him for references, and call the people he have done work for in the past to see if they were satisfied. You pay him based upon the results, not how he achieved it. In the old days of film, would you ever have ask a photographer how he does his work in the lab when creating the prints?? do you expect the photographer to give you the negatives??

A big WTF to those who say he should use RAW and be fired otherwise. Only an amateur would make such a ridiculous statement.

Fact is fact whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. Bottom line is simple as I said before. He is purposely doing a act that will needlessly degrade the work he is being paid to do when there is no reason in the world to do so. None! That is not professional no matter how good the persons skill is. If you want that kind of work anybody who knows a guy (or woman) with a camera can get the job done.

If you can set a white balance correctly and read a light meter, can anyone explain to me the fantastical benefits of shooting raw? Printers don't print raw files, websites don't display them, when people look at the final product they don't know whether it was shot raw or jpg...

 

[ghpham]

I've never seen so much absurdity in a thread.

1. You hired the photographer to take your wedding pics.
2. You seen some of his work and they seem to be good.
3. You are now coming on to a forum asking a bunch of strangers whether you should or should not fire him based on the fact that he is using....JPEG over RAW?? WTF??

Why don't you ask him for references, and call the people he have done work for in the past to see if they were satisfied. You pay him based upon the results, not how he achieved it. In the old days of film, would you ever have ask a photographer how he does his work in the lab when creating the prints?? do you expect the photographer to give you the negatives??

A big WTF to those who say he should use RAW and be fired otherwise. Only an amateur would make such a ridiculous statement.

Fact is fact whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. Bottom line is simple as I said before. He is purposely doing a act that will needlessly degrade the work he is being paid to do when there is no reason in the world to do so. None! That is not professional no matter how good the persons skill is. If you want that kind of work anybody who knows a guy (or woman) with a camera can get the job done.

Many professional can output better Jpeg than you probably can using RAW. The truth is in the prints. If the prints didn't look good, then why in the world would the OP considered this photographer in the first place. Again you have no understanding what being a "professional" means (hint: it has NOTHING to do with shooting Jpeg or RAW).

 

[MichaelPieren]

I'm by no means an expert at post processing, but my understanding is that while RAW images do contain more information and are able to be manipulated more than jpegs in post they are really only necessary for very large prints. If the photographer can get the correct exposure out of the camera jpegs should be fine. If you want to put your alter shot on the side of your house or on a billboard than maybe RAW format is what you need.

 

[Idahophoto]

Many professional can output better Jpeg than you probably can using RAW. The truth is in the prints. If the prints didn't look good, then why in the world would the OP considered this photographer in the first place. Again you have no understanding what being a "professional" means (hint: it has NOTHING to do with shooting Jpeg or RAW).

Maybe he can, I don't recall ever stating anything saying he can't. You are also missing the point on what I was saying. Having not looked at his shots I have no idea how good he is. Maybe he is the greatest of all time, probably not, but who knows, maybe. Thing is it don't matter. I would fire him for being unprofessional not on how good he was. You use a portfolio to determine that before you hire him. Reread my post.

For the record It is true I would never give out the RAW files. I have only done one wedding (Not the area I want to do) The prints I gave came off of Tiff files which is what I always save as. Yeah I could of used JPEGS but again a strive for quality and producing the best quality I can, especially if being paid.

 

[Flash Harry]

If I worked as a press/sports tog then I'd be shooting jpeg to hit the picture desk on a deadline, as a wedding tog I want the best quality my tools can provide, I shoot raw+jpeg, the jpegs get a slight tweak through batch processing and go out as proofs, the album selection from raw gets whatever is required, I process, not my camera.

If he shoots jpeg imo he's lazy, or, inexperienced, because if he was that good he'd be working for NG or some other large publication, anyway he wouldn't figure high on my choice of togs for a wedding.

The OP wouldn't be on my client list either, no-one, without exception get my raw files to mess around as they choose. The work produced is the benchmark if you like the work pick him, if you have reservations about anything drop him like a sack of $hit. H

:er: what an amateurish statement.

No, that is a professional's opinion, one which is totally supported by professional wedding togs over here, I don't know any at all shooting jpeg for critical work.

With photography in days of old we shot medium format for weddings, not because we wanted to lug heavy gear around but we did want the larger neg/file to work with, I don't reckon having a format which deteriorates with every opening to be conducive to good photographic practice and stick with the view that only a lazy pro will shoot in jpeg.

We know that in today's lazy/want everything yesterday/cant be bothered/to read/learn/work hard society its a bit too much to actually earn your fee but if you want to constantly give the best service, both in terms of quality and performance then having those large raw files is the way to go.

"Many professional can output better Jpeg than you probably can using RAW. The truth is in the prints. If the prints didn't look good, then why in the world would the OP considered this photographer in the first place. Again you have no understanding what being a "professional" means (hint: it has NOTHING to do with shooting Jpeg or RAW)."

Do you get paid for this work, if not then STFU, if you do then you have certain obligations to the client regarding quality which don't include in camera algorithms. H

This professional statement should speak volumes to you.