Originally posted by betsypdx The RAW files are F, P, and F1 (PDL's forensics were almost right - but I've doubled checked three times, including downloading them myself and E is definitely the jpeg).
I got all three right (and for a logical reason, I might add). Where's my prize? :--)
Quote: But, my point was not that either jpeg or raw is better than the other.
No, that's MY point.
Quote: What I do think is that the whole "if you don't shoot raw, you can't be a serious - or good - photographer" argument is ridiculous since most of us don't publish in glossy magazines or enlarge our pictures to poster size.
Sorry, this is a
straw man. I don't recall anybody -- on this list or anywhere else -- ever saying that you can't be a serious photographer if you don't shoot raw. Anybody who DOES say something that stupid doesn't deserve a response.
Sigh. Let me take one more stab at this.
Everybody shoots raw, willy-nilly.
We all
shoot raw whether we like it or not, because that's how our cameras work. The issue isn't how you shoot, the issue is whether you let the camera do the raw-to-jpeg conversion for you and in the process throw away a lot of data received initially by the sensor, or whether you keep all that data and convert later on in your computer. There's no getting around this simple fact, and anybody who denies
this is simply not in possession of the facts.
You may believe that the data the camera flushes down the digital toilet is not important. Of course, you won't really ever be sure about this, since you let the camera throw it away before you had a chance to look at it and decide for yourself. Still, this decision -- to let the camera decide -- is not too risky, because cameras in fact do a pretty good job at converting raw images most of the time, and so letting the camera do this for you is not an unreasonable compromise.
But there is simply no getting around the fact that the decision not to save the raw file is a practical compromise. Not saving as raw doesn't make anybody a bad photographer, or not serious, any more than buying a camera that costs only $500 makes someone not serious, or any more than shooting 35mm in the past made someone less serious than someone who shot medium or large format. There are plenty of different ways to be serious about photography, thank goodness!
I have more patience with this topic than some of our knowledgeable but curmudgeonly fellow listers because, well, perhaps because I spent two decades as a university professor and I know that what's boringly old hat to me may be exciting news to somebody else. The dslr has really attracted a mass market just in the last year, and a lot of those new users have never tried raw, still don't really understand the issues. For them in particular, it's important not to cloud the issue here with irrelevancies. This issue is a simple, practical and technical issue.
Summary: The cost of converting to jpeg in camera is hard to calculate, because it's pretty hard to put a value on data that was thrown away before you see the image. The cost of shooting raw files is simply monetary and much easier to calculate. THAT IS REALLY ALL THERE IS TO THIS ISSUE.
Will