Thread: Making the move to RAW

What do I need to know? I changed the setting on my camera but haven't shot a single photo yet. I'm scared!


ALSO...
How do I get all 4 of my kids in focus in something like this? Where do I place my focal point? Is there a better way to make this work?

Cute picture!

Believe me...once you shoot in RAW, you'll never go back! It's wonderful. If you are nervous about it, why don't you try shooting in RAW+jpeg so you have a backup just in case.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong...but as far as getting all four kids in focus, you'll want to close up your ap quite a bit..I'm not sure what your ap was set at, but based on the bokeh you got, i'm guessing yours was open. I usually have mine set at f4-f6...depending on how close I am to the subject. Place your focal point on your front middle subject and shoot away.
HTH!

Great pics! I too was afraid to shoot in RAW at first. But if you don't want to PP them, you can always just convert them they way they are. I don't think you lose anything with that, but I may be wrong so someone correct me please! I always shoot in RAW if I am going for more then just a quick snapshot and just play with the good ones and convert the rest to a smaller sized jpeg.

Like Lisa said, if you are nervous about going RAW, you can always shoot RAW+jpg. I did that for about the first month.

As for getting everyone in focus, I would keep my ap closed down to at least f/5 for a group of 4. Everyone is on a different plane, so that makes it hard to have everyone in focus. Keep them as far away as possible from the background and you can still get a really nice blur with f/4 or f/5.

Best,
GiGi

I want to try RAW too. What's the benefit to shooting in RAW vs jpeg?

I shoot only in RAW right now ... when I first made the move, I did RAW+jpg so I didn't have to PP all of the ones I wanted to keep. But now I just shoot in RAW. I like the ease of having a consistent WB across a series of photos, and the exposure compensation is huge for me. It just lets you do more edits that won't degrade the image as much. Changes to jpgs will degrade the image quality more quickly than changes to a RAW image.

And I agree with GiGi, definitely go higher than f/5 for groups.

I went from shooting RAW to JPEG now It is just for snapshots though. I figure why shoot raw for snaps. Raw files are so huge! But they are definitely nice. I should go back and shoot in Raw again. Raw+Jpeg is nice too to start with. That is what I did. Then it was just RAW and then again RAW+Jpeg and now just jpeg. I have my ups and downs. lol

Have you shot anything in RAW yet?? You won't regret it! I also started out raw & jpeg but shot only RAW now.

For group shots, close your ap down, I start at f5.6.

I have shot a bit in raw, but still can't open or edit them. M computer crashe and dumped the progam I downloaded that came with my camera, and my ancient photoshop 7.0 won't open the files that are CR2. I downloaded the ACR plug in (doesn't work) and the DNG converter (doesn't work). I think I will just do the free trial of lightroom, but wont be able to buy it when the trial runs out. Can't really afford a newer version on photoshop either