I don't understand why this is such a volatile subject. I alter most of my photos with the thought that my cameras did not see what I saw. This is my opinion. Why should anyone care whether someone can take a "great" photo and not alter it or not? I think that if someone continually takes photos that don't need altering they must be a pretty damn good photographer, better than me. Then again what do I care, or why should I care? Why should anyone care? Maybe it's just someone looking for an argument or looking for attention.

I have no idea. However, I know a significant portion of all serious photographers use raw capture at least part of the time.

Raw files contain all the dynamic range of the signal recorded by the sensor. That's about 15 stops on a full frame camera, 14 stops on an APS-C camera, and 13.5 stops on a Micro 4/3 camera, assuming you are working with the latest 2022-2024 cameras.

JPEG files can contain about 5.5 stops of dynamic range, regardless of the sensor size. Photo paper can reflect about a 5-stop dynamic range. So the challenge becomes, "How much dynamic range do I need to compress, either in the camera's JPEG engine, or in post production, to avoid the appearance of burned out highlights and plugged up shadows?"

If you can control the scene brightness range (often a BIG IF), JPEGs will give you all the detail you need. In a studio, give me two umbrellas, a strip soft box, and a background light, and I can light a portrait so that every bit of a subject's face, hair, and clothing has detail in it. Outdoors, in bright sun, I'll need fill flash, and/or reflectors, to do that, because the scene contrast (scene brightness range) is too great for the camera to "stuff into" the narrow dynamic range of a JPEG.

But if I record raw files, my post-processing software (Lightroom Classic) can "pull up" the tones in the shadows, and "pull down" the tones in the highlights, so they are not too dark or too light to be seen in a print or on a monitor. I also have MUCH better control over white balance, if I didn't set that correctly at the camera. The overall exposure latitude I have is a few orders of magnitude greater, as well.

Think of it this way: If you made slides on film, you had about 1/3 of an f/stop OVER-exposure latitude, and maybe 2/3 of an f/stop UNDER-exposure latitude. To get a good result, you needed to be very good at metering the scenes you photographed, because the processed film IS the slide. Slide film processing is rigidly controlled. All color correction had to be done with filters over the camera lens. All exposure correction had to be done via lighting control and exposure control.

If you made color negatives on film, you had about two stops of overexposure latitude, and about 1.33 stops of underexposure latitude that could be recovered with a scanner. A good professional lab technician could adjust color balance (white balance) and exposure, and when digital scanners came along, we could adjust contrast, too.

So advanced photographers know all this, and when image quality is a high priority for us, we choose to work in raw capture mode, or at least hedge our bets by using raw plus JPEG capture.

For high volume work under controlled lighting conditions, such as school students' portraits, parts catalog photography, and situations where absolute perfection is not a requirement, JPEG capture is often a preferred approach, especially for professionals who know what they are doing, and who can save lots of time and money with it.

For events, such as action sports, weddings, corporate events, run-and-gun photojournalism, and other unique, non-repeatable, priceless moments, raw capture is preferred.

However, there are times when capturing JPEGs and raw files is the best approach. If I need great files for printing later, I need raw, but if I also need JPEGs to project in a slide show at the end of the event, I will record BOTH raw and JPEG, and sort them separately on my laptop for later processing and immediate projection. If I cover an event and need files for an editor, ASAP, I'll also capture raw and JPEG, and send a few JPEGs selected on my laptop, via the hotspot in my iPhone.

I hope that answers your question.

Another can of worms. Is raw an image that you can look at and tell whether it's flat, contrastless, and not reflective of the scene's colors?

My position is that it is not an image because to produce an image from raw data takes application of parameters that may not be included in the raw data file metadata. e.g. you have a wide range of white balance settings (temperature AND tint) that will affect the colors in the resulting image. Until that processing occurs, I don't believe the raw data can really be described as an image. Yes, there is software that will show you a bitmap of red, green, and blue dots, but I don't call that a real image because it doesn't look like what the final demosaiced image looks like.

Going back to CamB's post I don't believe that 'Most here shoot RAW.' There is another thread working on that with a poll (although I don't really think forum polls can really be accurate because participation is not controlled). The rest of CamB's post I consider accurate.