OK.....

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired of this non-stop, on-going, droning, same-old story over-and-over and over debate. And it seems the RAW shooters are the worst offenders in this, as far as fueling the flames of the "RAW is better than JPEG....here's why blablabla..." debate.

On and on and on it goes. Will it never end? My guess, it will end. In time. It's taking more time than the old debate "is digital better than film?" that we used to hear when digital first started out.

But soon enough this debate will let out it's last gasp, and forever be put to rest. But not until we're done reviving and beating it to a pulp.....onwards. Here's my take on it.

I like to consider myself as one of the first digital users in our country, likely in North America. I was in the minority, that's for sure. Back in 2001 hardly anynone used digital, at least not for weddings and portraits. I knew digital had huge promise. I was very excited, and sold my darkroom, and all my film-based stuff, including several Hasselblads and lenses, while could still get a half-decent price. Gone, for good.

I felt the biggest hope that digital offered was far beyond the fact that it would be everything the darkroom and retouching room could be, but more, much, much more. Digital is the darkroom/retouching room on steroids times 100. But we still need to keep to the fundamentals of good photography- exposure (white balance, ISO, tones, aperature, shutter speed etc etc) and composition (lighting, subject, emotion, colors, texture, lines etc etc etc..)- and all that that necessitates; start with a good image, and then you can innovate new services and products.

Digital is simply a new tool to capture light, everything else stays the same. Except it's faster, much, much faster. Polaroid backs allowed us to preview our images within minutes. This tool/process helped us make sure we were on track, therefor doing a good job, and essentially making us better photographers, as long as we used Polaroids within the the right context. Digital does this too, instantly. I see the best photographers constantly previewing every image while shooting.

That behavior (called chimping) has become a normal procedure for most of us. We've fine tuned it to a precise movement. (Watch James Hodgins while he's backing out of a churh aisle shooting a bride and groom as they almost race down the aisle........shoot/preview/ walking backwards, repeat...)

Admittedly, digital has changed the face of photography in more ways than one- forever. As a business person who relies on my ability to create images that no one else can imitate- especially the swarm of friends and relatives who all use digital cameras and have a copy of PhotoShop, therfore they are all experts now (in the eye in the consumer anyhow)- so I better make sure that I, and my work, stand way above the noise, or I risk failure in business.

And that is not a good thing

One of the biggest changes digital created was taking the mystery out of photography. It is more accessible than ever, and becoming moreso than ever. The genie is out of the bottle and can never be put back in.

What kind of a photographer are you?

What does this mean for you and I, the pros who live and breathe photography, and mostly need it to keep our business's going so we can stay afloat, and pay the bills, and bring home the bacon for our families? It means we need to be smarter, savvier and more attentive to marketing than ever.

Gone are the days of getting some equipment, basic training, a sign, space, business cards and voila! You're in business. Guys with more talent in their baby finger are struggling, many of which are there because of their own doing, for not staying with the times.

So staying on top of it all means having a great product as well. Not JUST a great product, but a good relationship with clients, great service, packages, innovation, sales process's and everything that goes into the delivery, from first contact to final sale, and hopefully repeat sales combined with referrals. It all works together.

Do you see where I'm going with this? What's any it got to do with shooting RAW? Everything. Keep reading.

The first thing I did when I got my digital camera (a canon D30, for shame!) was get a handle on storage, white balance, computers, workflow and file types etc etc. It wasn't easy, but I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I needed to reproduce all the steps I already knew and understood and apply them efficiently, meanwhile taking advantage of all the possiblities that digital offered, and of course, bottom line: the bottom line. I had to make money. Thats why I am in business (a busines I love and get so much from). To earn a profit. Let me say it bluntly: this is not a hobby.

In my first year of stuggles things moved along fairly fast. I picked it up rather quickly and worked it into our studio much quicker than I anticipated. (James was right there the whole time, sometimes a thorn, more often the genius behind the solutions-don't tell him I said that-he'll want all the credit :)) Within week actually. But none of it happened without some reliabe and solid TESTING. Never jump into anything new and untried without testing first. I even started shooting weddings (nervously of course) much, much sooner than I anticipated. But I felt ready. And the rest is history.

I did all this while in my absolute most peak time in my business. I was doing up to 700 sessions a year, or more, and many weddings. Needless to say we needed solutions, not headaches.

One of the first tests I did was JPEG vs RAW. I also tested different resolutions with different output, but that's another article at another time. When I tested the JPEG vs RAW, I could not see the difference. Maybe it was me, I thought. Maybe I am not getting this RAW thing. I did conclude the two major benefits to RAW:

MAIN BENEFIT NUMBER ONE TO SHOOTING IN RAW: You can adjust your exposure

MAIN BENEFIT NUMBER TWO TO SHOOTING IN RAW: You can adjust your white balance.

I quickly realized that these benefits would not apply to me since I had a fairly good handle on this area. I had to. Remember, I needed no headaches. 700+ sessions a year. The other few photogs who I learned from at that time (they were far and few between), who were in the game a little longer than I, and knew and experienced more than I, also agreed and came to the same conclusions. Seems the rest of the photographic world didn't, for many photographers anyhoo.

The benefits of shooting JPEG, besides producing an identical in quality product, were as follows: (I did not want to give these up. I want to hang onto these benefits far more than hanging onto the benefits of shooting RAW- which for the most part don't really qualify as benefits given the circumstances)

MAIN BENEFIT NUMBER ONE TO SHOOTING IN JPEG: Speed

MAIN BENEFIT NUMBER TWO TO SHOOTING IN JPEG: Storage (which amounts to speed)

I also concluded that all the steps required when shooting in RAW were really useless. They didn't add up to much in the long run. I needed SPEED! GIVE ME SPEED! My clients wait for their sessions within 15 minutes after it's done. I also didn't want the extra cost associated with the extra workflow and staff hours associated with RAW.

RAW does not help me when it comes to speed. In my studio, time is money. And sanity. In my studio, minutes count. They add up to hours, and add up to sales. Final. If you don't get this, your head is somewhere else.

I didn't do the workflow myself, preferring to delegate (as any studio owner should), but feel that it is essential, no, an absolute, that we as photographers understand the workflow at its deepest level, so we can oversee it effectively.

Shooting JPEG is good for the self-esteem.

You see, I want to be a business person who creates great photography. Period.

NOT, a technician struggling to create a business (technician suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure, as Michael Gerber says in The E Myth) and forever working behind a computer screen spending countless and endless hours WORKFLOWING.

There is no creativity in that. Little merit unless you eventually learn from it and move on. There are little profits.

Bottom line: Get very very good at the basics, and get very good at marketing. (This will as a by-product make you a better photographer! I promise) When you do this, you make more money, friends, associates, respect, freedom and self-esteem. You ultimately create a business that you are proud of, feel good about, feel great waking up everyday to, and that business is a reflection of who you are. It's your life. Not a toy, nor a hobby, nor a plaything, nor an ego baubble.......

If you are using RAW for the benefits I mentioned, then you really need to take a step back and start with the fundamentals. Both in business and in photography. We're in business.

I often meet people in my travels who have taken up photography in a big way. Recently, while in the Caribbean, I met a guy who I believe was well-off, likely self-employed, from Detroit. He had a Nikon D2X and a D200 and all the best lenses. He shot RAW. I didn't even go there with that discussion with him.

WHY? He lives and breathes photography from a different universe than I. It would be like talking with someone from a far distant land, with no knowledge of my language. Blank stares, eye's spinning.

I met another guy last year, while in Costa Rica, same exact story, except he was a retired school teacher, now travelling the world, living his dream, shooting RAW. Again, different universe.

These guys wouldn't be hung out to dry the way I would. I am reliant on my business. They shoot RAW for totally different reasons than I. I do it for SPEED. They do it because it makes them feel good, like a soother to a baby, or like a 140 horsepower, 4 cylinder turbo, 1200cc engine rumbling between the legs of a 48 year man.

You know. It feels manly! Or comforting. Or whatever. My point is this. The reasons don't matter, as long as they matter to you. I ride a Yamaha Vmax, with WAY more horsepower and evil than I could ever handle, but I LIKE IT. It's a game. It's an ego trip. It's FUN.

But business is serious. (ask your bank manager how serious it is) And when I show up at the bank with my deposits that I made from my portrait sales that week, the teller doesn't look at the total and ask: "Did you shoot RAW or JPEG to earn this money?". My clients don't ask either. No one CARES, only us photographers, for whatever reasons we choose.

My motorcycle is a toy. My photography isn't. (But it is fun and very gratifying.) It's my life, my livelyhood, my sense of self, why, it's everything to me. So I don't get caught up in the reasons or urges to shoot RAW. I never, ever, never, ever, never felt compelled to shoot RAW. Either I am doing something right (ask my bank manager or accountant or wife) or I am still missing the point.

So why is there so much resistance? I think it's fear-based and "look at my files" egotism.

There has to be a reason. I can guess that it has something to do with the language barrier. We live in different universes.

So ultimately it's about productivity. Not the technicality. I wish there were a visible reason for shooting raw. I am all for doing what I can to get the best images possible. I guess I will have to stick with the basics to achieve that: exposure and composition. Since anything above and beyond that really cuts into my time, with little or no return. I heard every argument, and they simply don't resonate. They don't "fit". I guess that's part of communicating with others from different universes.

Rob

P.S. Here's a comment I heard a lot in our studio that first year:

"It's not the file size that counts, but what you do with it."
James Hodgins

P.P.S. There is one direct comparison to film that I like to make that supports the idea behind using JPEG (alleged lower quality) vs RAW (alleged higher quality). If we really needed all that information that RAW offers, assuming there was a visible dif, and assuming that JPEG was indeed an tad softer or whateever (which it ain't), then why:

*did we not use the hightest format available back in the film days- say a 4"x5"or higher view camera on all shoots? (hey, higher quality) assuming we needed all ta image data
*did we not shoot everything with Kodachrome 64 or Fuji counterpart?
*did we use film stock (portraits film) that was less contrasty, more muted (ideal for portraits) and had a compromised range
* did we put softars and Harrison/Harrison soft focus filters in front of our high priced lenses, effectively deteriorating the optics
*did we mount our images on canvas, linen, or similar, effectively deterioting the image even more. And we even retouched many of our portraits
*did we not create balck and whites the way Ansel Adams did? He had the ideal system for doing so.

Why? Because we did what mattered and what worked. Always compromising to get there.