PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I shoot JPG. The camera gives me ~8 MB files per photo, more than enough detail for my purposes. The largest I print is 8X10 and I rarely do that. My images are for viewing on a computer monitor. I save the original in an "archive" folder and all PP is saved separately. Perhaps my editing skills are limited, but I have no idea what I can't accomplish PPing JPGs.

Dragonophile

I agree with Eagle65. I shoot in jpeg only and mostly in auto mode. I use a image editor named Zoner Studio and I find it gives me great flexibility in editing jpegs. Now, I am not a professional so my requirements are not that stringent. But I found that all the fussing with aperture and shutter speed wasn't getting me any better pictures than simply auto mode and then editing with Zoner for contrast, color tint & temperature, exposure etc. I can lighten shadows and darken bright spots. Actually it has dozens of functions I have never even used for jpeg manipulation.

Also, I have edited the same jpeg a number of times without any IQ loss I can see. My best photos get printed in a book of glossy pages at 9X14 and look pretty good.

That being said, the best statements I have seen are those saying use what works best for you and your needs. Obviously my needs are not to sell my photos to critical editors or make them absolutely perfect. If that was the case, I am sure I would go raw. But for me, jpegs and quick editing work fine and I never have to worry about filling up a storage card or hard disk. I have nearly 15,000 photos of ships and birds both on my computer hard disk and backed up on the Microsoft cloud. I suspect Microsoft won't go out of business unexpectedly and leave me high & dry!

Jack 13088 Loc: Central NY

I am a raw only type. All files get catalogued and managed thereafter with Lightroom ASAP. JPEGs could go the same route but editing results with Raw will often be superior. I manage all the images that I have the copyright for in LR regardless of origin. If I did studio work where editing is not needed I would surely shoot JPEG and ship it. But I am decidedly an amateur. Likewise a sports photographer who shoots rapid fire would be slowed down. In any event the images on the camera's display are JPEGs processed with the camera's settings so they need to be set with care. If you take a strobe shot with WB set to tungsten the display is going to look like a smurf convention.

Eagle65

I paid a lot less than people pay for Nikon and Cannon that weigh 3 times as must and I still get equal performance. I paid $899 for the body. Nikon and Cannon body only with close to equal performance go for $1,200 to $1,900! Read the reviews on the camera, and the 2 new ones from Olympus that are setting new standards.

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

And what, pray tell, does your purchase choice have to do with raw and jpeg?

Eagle65

A camera has to do twice the work to put the images on the memory card. It takes twice as long to copy them from the camera to a computer. They take up half again as much space. There is free software that can convert the ones you need to JPEG in batch in a few seconds. When doing high speed photography it slows the camera down when it has to process images twice. If you go to an air show where the Thunderbirds or Blue Angles are performing try to take only one picture of the planes coming from opposite directions when they just pass each other at 300mph! At 10 fps you can get the best picture!

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I shoot jpeg cause I shoot birds in flight and I can record faster in jpeg. Besides, I consider myself and excellent photographer who really does not need to improve my shots in post production. That said, I will use post production for small enhancements that really doesn't make a difference if I shoot jpeg or raw. I get 20X30 prints of outstanding quality in jpeg. For me I need nothing more.

ftrevino56

I shoot in both so can edit later

Eagle65

JPEG images are not faster. The camera always gets the image data from the sensor in RAW format. It is converted to JPEG and saved on the memory card. There is no camera with an image sensor that records the image in JPEG format. A JPEG image is a compressed file. I also have pictures of birds in flight, that is easy. I have a picture of a hawk catching a dove in flight! Try to take a picture of a race car going 200mph when the front of the car starts to cross the finish line. I can't even do that (unless I have a lucky day) without the aid of a really fast camera that can take multiple images! Ask a sports photographer (a professional) how he takes those one of a kind pictures!

georgevedwards Loc: Essex, Maryland.

I used to use both all the time, just to play it safe. For many years jpg is all there were, RAW was the interloper. Photoshop in those days would not recognize NEF (Nikon's RAW) for instance. Then I had to use a DNG converter. But Photoshop Cloud is the only way to go for serious photographers; that too I did with great reluctance but for $10 a month it soon became obvious it was the way to go, you get automatic updates for all the new stuff, including the RAW/NEF recognition. Why pay hundreds periodically to update? When I got a 24mp camera, I needed to have more room to save the bigger files. Again, I feel a serious photographer needs a lot of megapixels. You can't crop effectively without them. Very reluctantly I decided to try to shoot with just RAW. I found I really had no use for all those jpg negatives clogging up my camera memory card or my computer itself. I used to waste hours of time when I needed space, deleting jpgs or putting them on discs, etc. to free up hard drive space. It is just a useless luxury for those who don't do much photography or maybe have some need to jpgs ready all the time unprocessed. Personally I find processing necessary, so I wouldn't use a straight jpg from the camera anyhow. My conclusion: use camera jpg if thats ALL you need, no RAW. Otherwise ou can always make a jpg yourself during processing, which is what I do at the end and put my own "extension" of .web on the file name. Jpgs are useless pretty much except for transmitting wirelessly like on the web, where they are necessary. Of course if you are not a serious photographer you might want to just just jpg on your camera to save space; but in that case I would question why you are even using a DSLR. If you are serious at all about photography it makes no sense to use jpg on the camera, just use RAW.

Eagle65

As I said before, to get both the camera has to do more work! You don't care because all you ever do is take one image at a time! I have to have the shutter speed, F stop, and ISO selected before the event even happens. Anyone can see a bird in a tree or flying through the air and get a shot. The shots I want to take cannot be seen until the car gets to the finish line and then I only have one chance to get the shot. You can take them again and again as long as the bird is still in view. Obviously you do not understand high speed photography. I do not understand what point you are trying yo make. ANYONE CAN POINT A CAMERA AND TAKE A PICTURE AND ANOTHER AND ANOTHER! I have one chance to take one picture of a once in a lifetime event. I am done, you make no sense trying to prove you take pictures like most armatures on the planet do.

Eagle65

Go bother someone else!

LoneRangeFinder Loc: Left field

You may have missed the point which was that we all use language and terminology as a reference point for understanding new concepts and in commentating with others. Sorry I wasn't more clear. The reference was to the applicability of the film negative as a way to distinguish (and perhaps stress the importance of) raw files from jpegs. Dave said it was not an exact correlation (and I agree); I was saying that it's still a " culturally relevant" way to communicate the difference. The differences here is that you (and Dave) are thinking in precise terms-- my point was that it's still a useful way to communicate.

You actually helped make my point!

Eagle65

I did not miss the point. You do not know how your camera works.

I also said to not bother me anymore!

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

You seem to be all in a spin! "armatures"?