Mr.HDR Loc: Thailand

I shoot in Raw and JPEG at the highest setting, on a good shooting day I will shoot between 300 to 400 shots. I find that for me viewing JPEG's is a quick way to sort out the rejects quickly. I shoot mostly for HDR photographs so AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing)is a given. This of course reduces the number of actual images that I have to work with but this process does take time.
Regarding the actual question it is an interesting one, as pixels increase with each new generation of cameras we see that the size of JPEG's increase well.

TheDman Loc: USA

I knew you'd have no answer to those links. It's not that you haven't seen anything to convince you to shoot RAW, it's that you can't post-process.

amehta Loc: Boston

I completely agree with this. I haven't been willing to bother, but I believe Nikon Capture NX2 does this.

Elrique64

I hate to say this, but most DSLR's have been able to do this for a very long time. My old Nikon D80 was able to do this, as are both of my D7000 and D7100. Your D800 is also capable of doing this, and unlike the D80 and D7000, but like the D7100, the grey card no longer needs to fill the frame, just the selected focus point.

For that matter, you can get something like a ColorChecker Passport and use it to make a camera profile at the start, then adjust WB on all the subsequent raw shots. Can do this with a grey card as well. Setting a custom WB is covered in the manual.

Mike G.

amehta Loc: Boston

That's why I throw out these silly comments, so someone can tell me it's already an option. Twice in two days! Thanks. :-)

blackest Loc: Ireland

I think the pentax software does too, but I haven't tried it out, if it has the option to save as tiff or similar then it could be a useful intermediate step prior to using photoshop ect. Even if all you want is to crop you will be decompressing and recompressing the jpeg file a second time which is bound to lose a little more information. I guess you can prove it if you checksum the original jpeg open and save it again with no other operation in between. if the checksum is different then you must have a slightly degraded image. kind of like taping a cassette tape.

WNC Ralf Loc: Candler NC, in the mountains!

Did not read all the posts so this may have been posted, if you convert to B&W then you are loosing a lot of info you could use in the conversion. Plus most software will make the jpegs with the camera settings in post.

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

Shoot what you like. RAW is never going away. I am glad you shoot in JPEG just fine but I don't think you are creatively using and truly optimizing your photos with raw. Cameras are not perfect. I never saw a photo I could not tweak or rescue in raw.

zneb240 Loc: New South Wales - Australia

Original Poster here. Thank you very much to all those who have been generous with your time to share your knowledge on this subject. At 13 pages with no serious flames is not bad - particularly given that many photographers have strong and often opposing views on this subject. I have certainly learned a few things from this thread. Not surprisingly, most did not agree that raw files were likely to become obsolete in the foreseeable future. But that's now in 2014.

I'm still left wondering what the future holds though. Obviously there will always be photographers who wish to record an image, take it home and process it to their personal liking - much like painters still take up paint and brushes to create an image as has been done throughout human history. Whether these photographers process a raw file as we know it, or something else which is already significantly part processed in-camera, remains to be seen.

However, I believe that cameras will evolve to accept much more sophisticated instruction (pre-processing) and will be capable of turning those instructions into the finished image as we envisage it. Of course we'll evolve apace - much like our grand-kids have as they blaze away on their latest device.

As time is fast becoming our scarcest commodity, we readily embrace anything that saves time (or at least appears to). Generally, more and more folks are finding they have less and less time and cameras are now capable of producing images straight out of camera which are technically near perfect. This saves time as they require little or no further post processing to satisfy many photographers (the camera having firstly been properly instructed or programmed). And I'm not referring to snap-shooters, I'm referring to serious and discerning photographers.

Some commented they enjoy processing images and like to tease out every piece of data to create the best possible result - meaning the best in their subjective view. Perhaps in years to come, yet to be born photographers will look back to the way our generation did this business, shake their heads and say, "Why didn't they just tell the damn thing what they wanted and leave it up to the machine?" Well the answer is there was no alternative as the machine was not yet good enough back in 2014. I suspect that will change in time, however fortunately I won't be around to see the change. I say fortunately, because I love playing with my raw files, when I think it's necessary, the way I do it now.

Again, thanks - Warren :thumbup:

Hankwt Loc: kingsville ontario

Bravo Warren...... well said !!

Mark7829 Loc: Calfornia

The joy of working with in raw is like an artist with every tube of color available. JPEG is an artist with few colors, and therefor few choices to experiment and expand. I don't see any future in limiting our creative abilities. If anything, our choices will expand as we have seen with the number of pixels we can frame. I don't think the camera will ever process our images in the manner you speak of. But I do see camera giving us the ability in post processing to do even more including spot on infrared, 3D imaging, and new printers that print with the textures of the brush stroke up to full scale models of what we photographed. You will always have the choice. And in order to have that choice we will capture more information, not less - not just jpeg but enhanced raw+++ or what ever that could be.

TheDman Loc: USA

I don't think so, simply because people aren't going to know what processing needs to be done to an image until after they see it. Lots of my processing involves detailed masks and local color/contrast adjustments, and you're just never going to be able to tell a camera to do those in advance.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

:-D

Kuzano

Well, only one wrong word in your statement. It's not can't... it's won't.

For a variety of reasons....

If you had memorized my posts (they are memorable), you will recall that I did do post processing for about 5 years. In fact, I did teach a community education class on Photoshop and Photoshop Elements each, during that 5 years.

However, I began to begrudge the time spent in front of the computer, as my primary business since 1987 has been computer teching and consulting. The teaching was a sideline. Photography was a sideline.

Consequently, I took the skills with film from the 60's through to the current time, and applied myself to IQ without the crutch of digital. I shoot about 75% film and the rest digital, w/no raw and hardly any PP.

I also let go of my Anal Retentive side, and went for "good enough to high quality". No perfect image is easy to attain, given all the digital power in the world. And film just feeds a different part of my makeup.

But, it's been fun Yakkin' at someone who works so HARD to attain the best.

Lots of lesser stuff has been sold over time, and that doesn't bother me at all.

Another considerations for me is that I turned 70 last year. My vision is good, and I have great mobility. But, I definitely plan to minimize the work I do in front of a computer. The excercise is better than the glare.

Lastly, I'm proud of what I shoot and my final images. And people are still buying.

:|

Pepsiman Loc: New York City

Remember! Not all cameras can shoot in RAW...