RAW Vs JPEG, my choice.

 This is a subject that has been around from the dawn of digital and you will get all the so called experts who will tell you that their way is the best way. What a load of FERTILISER.

You the photographer/artist /shutter presser needs to make that decision for yourself. It really pees me off, when I hear the so called experienced photographer telling new photographers, You have to shoot JPEG. You do not and before you decide, get all the information.

So in the last two posts I talked about Histograms, it is a good thing to understand these, as they help in the production of a well captured image with lots of data to use in post processing. Now we need to address the next issue, FORMAT.  Lets look at the science of the facts, not me making up stuff.

JPEG records 256 levels of brightness, and RAW records between 4,096 to 16,384 levels!
For me it is a no contest, I have more information/data to use to play with my files. That is my choice however I will fully support someone who decides to shoot JPEG, that is your choice.  It might take a few minutes more to process a RAW image compared to a JPEG image, they will take up more room on the computer, external hard drives are more affordable these days.
I am a control freak and if I shoot JPEG the camera makes a whole bunch of adjustments to my image that I have no control over and cannot change, so does the camera know more than me, more than likely. Why would I want it to make the artistic decisions that will affect my image, no thank you, my choice.
On my workshops I often get students who shoot JPEG they very quickly see what the RAW shooters are able to do with there images and most change, change slowly most cameras will give you a JPEG/RAW option, use it.
Make the choices to suit you, not someone else.