JPEG or RAW

[Jake_Sully]

I know everyone has their personal preference but what do you like to shoot in?

[lblavr]

raw (+ basic jpg,only to have a quick preview available on the computer)
the possibilities of correcting raw files are so tremendous especially in photoshop
and in combination with nikon capture nx2 ,using its powerful selective control

[azza33]

Decided recently to shoot in both modes

[Torurot]

Shoot both. Rarely ever do anything with the RAWs as they are time intensive to process. They are there more as "insurance" against errors in my cameras Professional "P" mode.

Memory cards are CHEAP today vs five years ago.

[manarak]

yes, but...
continuous shooting in RAW+JPEG is seriously limited to 3 or 4 pix.

[Torurot]

It's not. Depends on both the camera and the card speed. Buy fast cards, it DOES make a difference. SERIOUSLY how often do you machine gun your shots?? Not that long ago 3-4 frames/sec was VERY fast. Now that is common place. Check the specs of some of the New Sony (and other brands) cameras.

[Snick]

I stopped using raw+jpeg, it was noticeable slower than raw only.
It also burns more battery...important when you are scuba diving and changing the battery is not an option.

[Torurot]

It's slower because of the massive amounts of data that have to be moved and written. With my camera ~12meg all up (Raw + Jpg). Newer cameras are moving ~20 meg and more per frame. FASTER cards help with this. I have a number of compact flash cards. MY fastest Lexmark card has no perceptible wait time. One is SO SLOW it's only used as an emergency card. With the cost of cards plummeting I should have binned it, but five years ago that was an expensive card.

I can only say the point of Raw + Jpg is an "insurance". It's rare that I do anything with a raw. Shoot only Jpg and you better get your shot right every time as manipulation of the image is not so easy/flexible as with the Raw.

A poor shot is still better than no shot.

[manarak]

I'm using a Sandisk Extreme III card, supposedly one of the fastest with a throughput of 30MB/s

But after 3 or 4 frames, the camera turns black for 2 or 3 secs, and I can't take pics for that time.
The file sizes are between 7 and 10 MB for the JPG and between 22 ad 29 MB for the RAW file.
That's humungous.

[Torurot]

Exactly. Look how much data it's moving, but the question is what are you photographing at such speeds/many frames? If only you had brought the 5D you would have got the bigger/faster in camera buffer! Next time..

The older Extremes "only" did 30mb/s

Give one of these a spin and see if you still have to wait. Not cheap, but if you REALLY need that speed you are going to have to pay.
http://www.sandisk.com/product....sh-card


Beware of the millions of 'sandisk' fakes. I have one and it's a DOG

[manarak]

the 550D uses SDHC...
http://www.sandisk.com/products/imag...me-sdhc-cards-