SHOOT IN RAW!ARE YOU READY
FOR RAW FILES?
Here’s the gear you need
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ȸƏɯژɯȒȸǸˢȒɯRAW vs JPEG
It’s the hottest debate
in digital photography...
1 Raws withstand
heavy editing
Astro photographs like this will
rarely look like the finished article
straight out-of-camera: they
usually require heavy editing to
enhance the delicate details. Raws
can withstand far heavier editing
than JPEGs, which are more likely
to break up and posterise.2 Preserving
delicate colours
In basic terms, JPEGs achieve their
small file sizes by compressing
colour information. For example,
if 15 pixels each have a different tint
of a similar colour they might be
reduced to three coloured blocks
of five pixels during compression.
The extra colour information
contained in a raw file can be
crucial in astrophotography.
Your camera’s raw quality gives you
a higher quality image and a vastly
wider colour range, which gives
greater headroom for editing.The wider dynamic range of a raw
file means you can tease detail out
of shadows or highlights and rescue
under- or over-exposed photos.Both white balance and colour
space can be changed after the fact,
so you have more control over the
colours in your images, and more
leeway for correcting colour casts.An 8-bit JPEG holds 256 levels of
luminosity per colour channel. A raw
is usually 12 or 14-bit, giving either
4,096 or 16,384 levels of luminosity.
This means smoother gradations
and less chance of banding.Raws can’t be accidentally saved
over, and any edits are reversible, so
a raw file is an impregnable record
of your image as it was taken.Smaller in file size, easier to send or
store, and recognised by pretty much
every digital screen on the planet,
JPEG is the convenient choice.JPEGs are around five times smaller
than raws, so you can fit many more
on your memory card or your hard
drive. They’re quicker to transfer
and less costly to store.JPEGs are compatible with almost
every screen and device that is
capable of displaying images. By
contrast, raws can only be viewed
in dedicated software.Its smaller file size means JPEGs write
to a memory card quicker than raw,
so you can shoot continuously in your
camera’s rapid fire mode for longer
without filling up the buffer.If you’re working to a deadline, JPEGs
are available as soon as they’re taken,
ready to send to an impatient news
editor or an awaiting bride.Why shoot
ȸƏɯˡǼƺɀّ
erhaps the
biggest
reason to
make the
switch to
raw is for the wider dynamic
range – the scale of tones
in a photo, from the very
brightest point to the
darkest. In high-contrast
scenes, such as a landscape
at sunset, the difference
between these two points
can be vast. A JPEG has a
narrower dynamic range
than a raw file, andtherefore contains less
detail at the tonal extremes.
There will be times as a
photographer when you
need to access extra detail- perhaps to rescue an
exposure mistake or to
tease out detail – and this
is where JPEGs fall short.
The other big reason to
shoot raw is for the extra
colour information, which
gives you the option to
change the white balance
after shooting. This means
you don’t necessarily need
to spend time perfecting
white balance in-camera:
you’re free to set it later.
Both these factors can
come into play when you
need to get set up for a shot
quickly, as not having to
think about white balance
or a perfect exposure can
save you a few crucial
moments. The raw safety
net allows for greater
freedom when you take
the shot, and more latitude
to fix problems if your
camera settings go awry.P
44 DIGITAL CAMERA^ APRIL 2020 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
Memory cards
Larger memory cards – 32GB and
upwards – are a must for the raw shooter.
A healthy write speed of 90MB/sec
or more is helpful, too, as raws take
longer to write to the card.