[dugarner]

Yay RAW!

I took a photo class at my local camera store last week (free for buying my camera there but now they're closing!), it was just me and a lady with an XSi (?). Fancy-pants camera. The guy teaching the class told her not to bother ever shooting in RAW because the processing is too difficult for an amateur to mess with. (??) [raised eyebrows, shuffling feet] I gently interjected that RAW is better for the amateur hobbyist simply because we don't have to worry as much about the settings in-camera. You can be "less skilled" at dialing in settings, reading light, etc. and still save some good shots. I can shoot, and know if my WB is off, or there's going to be noise from a high ISO, or there's a color cast or whatever, I can correct it later. I still strive to improve composition in-camera and avoid major PP, and I know this has been debated before, but my oh my, RAW has saved my hide with countless pictures since I bought my dSLR. I've taken 10,000 frames since January 1 and I bet 9,980 of them would have been tossed at the front end if they were JPEG SOOC. Maybe more! Of course, out of those, I've only kept 300. But still, I wouldn't have that many keep-worthy photos if I had shot in JPEG.