Ah, the age old question: should I shoot RAW or JPG, or both? It is a dilemma that many photographers face, especially now that the JPG engines of many of today’s digital cameras are so good compared to just a half a decade ago.
As any professional will tell you, there are three very good reasons to shoot in RAW. First, they give you far more flexibility in post-production, especially in the case of images that require heavy editing or retouching. Second, if you misjudge your exposure or encounter a scene with very high dynamic range, it is more likely you’ll be able to adjust or even salvage your image in post-production. Finally, RAW files need to be demosaiced via a colour profile to display colours correctly. This means that you can obtain different colours by applying different colour profiles.
But that isn’t to say that JPGs don’t have their advantages as well. By shooting exclusively in JPG format, everything works faster, from the operation and write speed to the buffer rate. They don’t take up as much space on your memory card as RAW files do, so you can shoot more of them. And since the camera does all the processing internally, you save time by avoiding the post-processing stage on the computer.
One brand whose JPGs have attracted more praise and admiration than any other from the photography community is Fujifilm. In particular, photographers love its unique set of colour profiles (more commonly known as Film Simulation Modes).
As a result, there is now a wide spectrum of Fujifilm users: those who shoot JPG exclusively because they are satisfied with the results produced by the camera, those who forego JPGs in favour of the more flexible RAW file, and those who shoot both as a safety net.
Let’s meet a few of these photographers, and find out which side they chose and why.
Kevin Mullins
Kevin Mullins has become known not only as a steadfast JPG shooter but also an advocate for the camera’s Auto mode within the Fujifilm and wedding photography community. As he states on his blog, “he is a huge believer in the fact that a camera is a tool. If the camera can do something for me, I will allow it.”
Although he used to shoot RAW, first with his Canon and later with his first Fujifilm cameras, he soon realised that he was perfectly content with the rendering of the JPGs. And since, as a wedding and documentary photographer, he often shoots very large batches of images, he also found that shooting in JPG greatly sped up his workflow.
He freely admits that there are certain situations where only RAW files will do but this is rarely the case for his genre of work.
To read more of Kevin’s thoughts, you can visit his dedicated RAW vs. JPG post.
Ben Brooks
Ben Brooks of Brooks Review is an amateur photographer who was a strict RAW shooter before buying his Fujifilm X100T. He now only shoots JPGs and claims that it is better than RAW.
The initial reason he began shooting JPGs was to gain access to the extended ISO values but he soon found himself using them all the time. Interestingly, he states at the end of the article that were he shooting professionally, he would definitely shoot RAW as well.
You can read Ben’s full article here.
Scott Bourne
Scott Bourne, the founder of PhotoFocus, is an extremely well-known name in the photography industry. He began shooting Fujifilm a few years ago when he picked up an X100s, and later exchanged all his Canon gear for an X-T1 and X-T10.
Regarding the RAW vs. JPG debate, he is definitely in favour of the Fujifilm JPGs, shooting 95% of his images in this format, but admits that RAW files can come in handy on certain occasions.
What I found interesting about Scott’s post is that he says he wouldn’t shoot JPGs on a DSLR. His reasons are: a) the lack of an EVF because you cannot have a real-time preview of your image, b) the lack of Film Simulation Mode bracketing and c) poor in-camera JPG conversion.
You can read Scott’s full article here.
Steve Dimitriadis
Steve Dimitriadis of Zone Focus is an Australia-based photographer and an advocate for shooting both JPGs and RAW files. In his blog post dedicated to the topic, he cites four main reasons to shoot both. The most interesting point concerns the resolution of the preview on the LCD screen or EVF. If you shoot both RAW and JPG, the preview will allow you to zoom in and check focus at 100% but if you only shoot JPGs, the preview will have less resolution, making it difficult to accurately check focus.
You can read Steve’s full thoughts in his dedicated article.
Matt Hart
Perhaps the biggest advocate for RAW shooting I’ve come across in the Fujifilm community is Matt Hart, a Liverpool-based street photographer. Up until trying the new Fujifilm X-Pro2, he would only use the Fuji RAW files because he didn’t find that the black and white JPGs suited his personal style.
However, his latest blog post reveals that even he has changed his views about the JPG files because of the new flagship camera. In fact, he has plans to shoot JPGs with the camera for the next year with the XF 35mm f/2 for a street photography project he is doing with a few friends. It just goes to show that even the most staunch RAW shooter can be converted.
You can read Matt’s full article here.
If the words of these photographers have proven one thing, it is that there really is no right answer. Just as the avid JPG shooter will occasionally shoot RAW if the necessity arises, so will the RAW shooter switch to JPG if it facilitates his or her workflow.
Plus, with the capacity of memory cards and storage improving at the same rate as the cameras that fill them with images, there is nothing stopping you from shooting one or the other or both depending on the situation or your needs at the time.
If you have any questions about the shooting in RAW or JPG, feel free to drop us a line on Twitter and we’ll do our best to answer!