globetrekker Loc: Bend, OR

Greetings, Hogs. I had a whole post prepared on why my lens does not appear on the profile list. But in researching this, I checked my camera image quality setting. I was sure I was shooting in RAW. But - doh! - I see I was not! (The dash means RAW not selected, right? So just three RAW settings in my Canon 60D.) I currently mostly shoot birds. And my PP skills are modest, using Lightroom Classic (LR 5). Is there any reason not to go with S-RAW, in order to get the smallest file size? Or would M be a good compromise? I’m concerned about disk space, and don’t want to use up more than I need to, given my modest PP skills. Thanks for any advice.

JohnR Loc: The Gates of Hell

Why do you need to shoot RAW? especially as you have "modest PP skills"

globetrekker Loc: Bend, OR

Well I have SOME PP skills, and obviously RAW gives you more to work with.

Rongnongno Loc: FL

S-raw is a lossy format, avoid it at all cost.
Use canon default raw format, anything else is just not good enough.
As to the comment over JPG... Anyone still shooting JPG and learning PP will regret not having shot raw to start with, I know, I did and I do. There is always time to convert/export after.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

I always shoot in full-size RAW. If you do, you leave yourself the option as your PP skills improve to go back and re-edit. By the way, I just saw a 14TB hard drive offered for $189. Storage is truly cheap. Go with the full-sized RAW files.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

bleirer

Apparently you can only get raw in creative modes, not basic modes. Using the smaller raw also knocks out a lot of pixels going down to 2592 x 1728 in sraw. So you paid for an 18 megapixels camera but will only use less than 5 megapixels. At least shooting jpeg you get full resolution.

Another option would be to shoot full raw but store the raw elsewhere after you have your edit saved in jpeg. I or 2 terabyte external portable drives are cheap.

globetrekker Loc: Bend, OR

Thank you. When you say Canon default RAW, you mean the labeled RAW (not M RAW), right?

globetrekker Loc: Bend, OR

Appreciate the reply. I have 1 TB free on my hard drive right now, so I won't face disk space issues for a while yet.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That is what I do, about once a year I copy / move my Images files from Photoshop use to two duplicate external hard drives. I get by fine with a 1 Tb HDD in my PC. I also don't "spray and pray" when I shoot. I do shoot RAW; 14, 16, 24 MP cameras. I do everything big as possible with the highest IQ possible. I do keep my best and favorite JPGs on my PC for Sharing and Printing.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

When shooting RAW, you Always, Always, Always want the maximum pixel resolution available from your camera. The standard / full-size RAW from your EOS 60D is 18MP, where the other formats deliver M RAW at 10MP or S RAW at 4.5MP.

You must process your RAW image files; and therefore, want the maximum pixels and maximum color detail as input to the editing process via full-sized RAW files.

globetrekker Loc: Bend, OR

Thank you. The thing is, before realizing that I wasn't shooting in RAW, I didn't feel I was missing out on any PP possibilities in LR, given my modest skills. Do you think I'll get better PP results, at a given PP skill level, if I shoot RAW? Or am I wasting disk space until/unless I get into more serious PP?

Orphoto Loc: Oregon

I agree with the above. In addition we rarely get as close to the birds as we might like, especially the twitchy ones. Keeping a full resolution image adds to you flexibility later when cropping.

BebuLamar

I do very little PP and I always shoot raw. Shooting raw allows me to make the adjustments in the raw converter like white balance, contrast, saturation etc... after the shots were made.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

It depends. You get the most out of LR by developing and working with your own presets where you can process a large volume of images with just a few keystrokes to quickly achieve a consistent look and feel to the RAW files. Honestly, you'd be repeating / recreating much of the same consistency the camera performs when creating the JPEG. But, the RAW then gives you the maximum data to process each image uniquely to finish, if / as needed, after application of the preset defaults.

There's nothing wrong with shooting and editing JPEG. As I've been shooting almost exclusively film for about 3-months, it's been only the scanned JPEGs I've used for processing. Here and there, you (I do) run into an issue where the JPEG format limits your ability to adjust the WB and / or specific colors, but only when the SOOC image has some serious exposure issues.

I think you're only wasting diskspace / time if you capture both JPEG and RAW. I think this is the worst of both worlds, not the best. If you become a dedicated RAW shooter, you may not be the best editor, but that can / will change over time as you develop skills and the experience that comes from working on more and more images. And, you can always come back to the old RAW with new ideas or technology or technique from the future.

The thing I like most about RAW is the file is always there, as is came from the camera from day-0, awaiting your ability to edit the image (or re-edit anew). I've also been revisiting older work now imported into my LR catalog. My first EOS body was Dec 2005, but it wasn't until 2011 that I started shooting exclusively in RAW. There are images in that 2006-2011 range where I can enhance the work with advanced editing technique and ideas, but many times, I wish I had the full data from a RAW rather than being constrained by the JPEG. It's not too often, but frequent enough.