Raw? JPEG?

[Epoc]

I shoot RAW and jpg. Mainly as I like to preview my shots on my iPad before doing the PP thing on my computer. iPads are great for in the field previews. You cannot import RAWs on an iPad.

[jupiter618]

I just don't understand why you'd choose to throw out image data, unless it was to conserve memory. Jpeg contains less information than a raw file, therefor it's poorer quality. That's the end of the discussion, right?

[arthurking83]

..... Jpeg contains less information than a raw file, therefor it's poorer quality. That's the end of the discussion, right?

Not exactly!
So to answer the question, .. "end of discussion, right?" .. the answer is definitely: no!

There are uses for shooting jpg(see above) and another situation that immediately springs to mind, is say one of the 'photojournalist', which encompasses many offshoot genres.

The photo journalist that immediately comes to mind, is say a sports shooter who covers news items in sport.
They need to meet deadlines, and those deadlines can be as short as a few minutes ago!!!

Shoot jpg, transfer files directly from camera to a device with the ability to upload to the news desk, and the moment the image is shot, the news editorial staff have the images they need to get the paper to press a few minutes or seconds after the right shot is uploaded.

Doing this in the raw format is creating another step in the process, that requires some time to process. If the deadline was yesterday, doing it all in raw can be the difference between meeting a deadline or not.

For the majority of folks RAW is best, but again, even if you print, a jpg file will give you the same quality print in 99% of print instances.

Only if the print needs to be of an exceptionally high standard in terms of image quality(as opposed to artistic quality!!) is where you will find a difference between having shot raw or jpg.

So even a slightly badly captured jpg image can still be printed to a standard that 99% of the population is happy with.
if this was not the case, then 99.999% of camera sales would never have happened, and will not ever happen .. and everyone would be using high end DSLRs with higher end lenses.

If you need to push the processing of the image to any major extent or want to print extremely large print sizes, may there be differences between having shot raw of jpg.
Reason is the tiff format, not really the raw file itself.
You can't actually print raw files directly (that I know of) even if your software has you believe that you can.
I use Nikon's CaptureNX2, and even tho I can print the raw file I'm currently working on, there is still an intermediary stage where CNX2 creates a temporary tiff file to send to the printer to have printed.

So it's the tiff file that will contain this extra data that jpg files end up losing.

Similar situation exist for just pure processing ability too tho.
push processing a raw file will always give you a higher quality final file, than you will achieve using the same push processing on a jpg file.

I see raw as 'an insurance policy' and that's about it!
it allows me to extract higher quality from the file if I ever need it, and possibly achieve a higher quality printable file, if the request to do so ever reaches me.

Otherwise, my use of the raw file format is basically wasted(in that in close to 200K images, I've only ever printed one large image).

Also, that I'm aware of, I thought the iPad has a few apps that allow for viewing raw files.
I'm sure I've found a few to do this on Android now.