Should you shoot in RAW or JPEG?

There are many RAW vs JPG debates online (as a quick google search will prove!) but my advice to any wedding photographer is simple: shoot RAW.

All DSLR cameras allow photographers the option of shooting either RAW or JPG (or RAW plus JPEG). In very basic terms, a RAW file contains all the information captured by the camera’s sensor when you pressed the shutter, whereas with a JPG file the camera will automatically apply certain settings (such as white balance and saturation) and compress the file in-camera. As a result of this, a RAW file will typically be a much larger file size than a JPG file.

Every photograph you take will be recorded initially in RAW, but if you are shooting in JPG mode, the camera automatically goes a step further and, in effect, does part of the post processing for you.

So, why shoot in RAW?

The big advantage is that as a RAW file contains all the information captured by the camera, it gives the photographer much more latitude when post porocessing to change the exposure of the final image. So, put simply, if a particular shot is either under or over exposed, a RAW file will allow you the ability to rectify this (to a degree) on the computer. This cannot be done to anywhere near the same extent with an already compressed JPG file.

However – this does not mean that shooting in RAW should ever be an excuse not to get things right in camera (especially at a wedding!) but it does allow you more forgiveness should the exposure be slighty off.

Another big advantage of shooting in RAW is that you can set your white balance in post production. I tend to shoot in auto-white balance and then set the white balance in Adobe Lightroom following the wedding. For a wedding photographer, this is one less thing to worry about on the day.

Sophisticated programs such as Lightroom will also allow you to “recover” particular elements of a photograph which may have been over-exposed. For example, if you are taking a photograph of a bride in her wedding dress and, in the final image, part of the dress is over exposed and the details of the dress are blown out, then, assuming your exposure isn’t too far away you may be able to pull back the details. This is because, although you may not see it in-camera, those details will hopefully have been retained in the RAW file. This would not be possible with a JPG file.

The only real argument I can see for shooting JPG over RAW is that a JPG has a smaller file size (so you can fit more photographs on to each memory card) and can be viewed straight away on a computer rather than having to be exported from RAW to JPG in specialist RAW conversion software. However, as the cost of memory cards is now so low this isn’t really a valid argument anymore. Also, it takes very little time to export RAW files with programs such as Adobe Lightroom or Apple Aperture.

The priorty for a wedding photographer is always to provide the bride and groom with the best images possible and, in my opinion, the best way to ensure this is to shoot all your wedding photographs in RAW

Neil
www.neilredfern.com