How important is it to be able to shoot in RAW ?

[Judy Cooper]

I had given up on Canon bringing out the new super zoom, and decided to buy the Fuji HS 10, when what happens... the Canon SX30 is is announced. I am an amateur who wants to shoot birds and wildlife mainly, and have been given Adobe Photoshop Elements which I have yet to play with. One main feature is that one shoots in RAW and one not.. how important it that?? Judy

[Mark1616]

It depends, with my dSLRs for portraits, weddings etc I shoot raw, for landscape, sports, wildlife I shoot jpg. I have a Canon SX1 which doesn't shoot RAW, but I've not had a concern about that.

RAW is great if you have some of the settings not right or if you need to be highly critical (such as paying customers). You can still colour correct with jpg and do other adjustments, just not as easily.

I would personally wait to see how the SX30 performs before I got worried about RAW or not. If they are similar then go with the HS10 if RAW is a consideration, if the Canon is better I would go with that.

[Judy Cooper]

Thank you for the feedback. I can't see me doing too much portrait photography, but hey you just never know when you get new equipment how things will develop. I will be waiting eagerly for the evaluations of the gurus.
Thanks for your time
Cheers Judy

[pcake]

i always shoot raw - it allows you to fix things easily in a number of programs almost exactly the same as if you had adjusted the settings that way in the camera before you shot the pic. the other day, to catch an outdoor pic fast, i shot it in the settings the camera was already in, and white balance was set to tungsten. it took about a second to change that to daylight because i shot it raw.

[Mark1616]

Originally Posted by pcake

i always shoot raw - it allows you to fix things easily in a number of programs almost exactly the same as if you had adjusted the settings that way in the camera before you shot the pic. the other day, to catch an outdoor pic fast, i shot it in the settings the camera was already in, and white balance was set to tungsten. it took about a second to change that to daylight because i shot it raw.

That's true, but it also means for all the other shooting you have to process everything and also you are taking up a lot more memory so less shots per card and more hard disk consumed. For a lot of people this extra time and not being able to share photos, show people straight away is a pain.

[Mark1616]

Originally Posted by Judy Cooper

Thank you for the feedback. I can't see me doing too much portrait photography, but hey you just never know when you get new equipment how things will develop. I will be waiting eagerly for the evaluations of the gurus.
Thanks for your time
Cheers Judy

Don't get me wrong, you can do portraits in jpg, I used to shoot jpg all the time and all my first weddings were shot in jpg as I felt I could hit the exposure correctly enough of the time etc, however as I've moved on I find that when creating an album I get much better colour consistency by the adjustments I can make in RAW. Not something that is so essential for a casual shoot/family photos/holidays etc.