RAW

Okay, so here I am knowing a little about a lot, going backwards to learn disect and learn a lot about a little. One peice at a time.

I have been incredibly frustrated with the resizing of my images. In several formats, but for now I'll just focus on what happens when I go in to crop.

I have fiddled with my camera (once again, its a Sony DSC-F828 8.0 mega pixels) for the last few years looking for the best place to set it, size wise. Ive landed at 5 (pixels). But still, I cant crop much w/o paying for it in processing with compression, pixelation etc..

It does have both a RAW and a TIFF setting, and I'd love to use them. BUT! On both settings, it will take the camera a good 20 seconds, if not more "capturing" the image, and then another near minute "storing" it.
This just isnt practical.
Am I doing something wrong?  Whats the point of having those settings if theyre impossible to use for anything but still life??
Holy frustration.
Any alternatives....besides of course a different camera. -Which is on my horizon, but since I've still such little clue about photography on the whole, Im thinking, learn first, get a clue and then buy the right camera. I could be wrong.
Thanks for listening.

Corey

My advice is not to get a new camera if you don't know how to use the one you have.  Save your money 

I also suggest you set your megapixels higher.  Why buy a camera with 8 megapixels if you are going to shoot with 5?

I shoot in jpg, but there are those that will argue for raw.  I personally don't have the time to process them that way.

I am sorry, I thought I understood that your camera was an SLR.  In that case I would suggest picking up a dSLR.  I wasn't trying to limit you.  I thought you were just saying you couldn't understand the functions and so a new camera would make that easier.  It won't.

The type of memory card you use may factor in how long it takes the camera to write info on it, meaning with a different camera you may be able to shoot Tiff or Raw faster. 

Thanks Ryan.
A little light bulb went off in my head in all of that.
Perhaps if Im going to use RAW or TIff, I need to use a CF Card???
I have been just using a memory stick.
Would that make any sense at all?

Corey

The difference between you and the "mom" comment is you know your skill level and first you're not trying to sell youself as more than you are and second you're trying to learn instead of letting the camera do all the work and selling adiquate photos as pro.

FAST CARD I have a 2gig $20 CF card that takes 20-30 seconds to write a short burst of RAW captures, where the Transend 120x card I bought for around $50 can write the first couple of images before the display finishes showing them.

Your resize tools are to blame if you're getting bad photos after you reduce them.

Some of us are more geek (me, mike, ryan, marian) than we're willing to admit, proof is we edit almost every photo some way or another. Shoot-decide-print is just not the way we work. In our case its faster to process raw because the balance tools are geared toward fixing a group of shots at a time. I'm not saying we don't all strive to get it right in the camera, just that some of us are just tweak freaks...

Oh and be sure to turn off all the "settings" in your camera. Even if you shoot RAW it still applies the settings to the reference jpg.

Raw vs. jpg, PC vs. Mac and Nikon vs. Canon are all personal decisions.  I shoot the way I do because through experience I am coming up with the best possible way for me to do my job.  For some reason we are all defensive about how and why we do things and so we try and project fault into how others do it if it's not the same. 

Corey, through trial and error you will find the best way for you to make the best images you can.  Take all of our advice, try it and then unapologetically make up your own mind about how to do it.

The mom comment is good to hear, think about it.  I am a mom (granted I am far from a stay-at-home one) and because of that I have a certain image I want to stay away from.  I work hard to let my clients know I am serious about photography and the science and art behind it.  We are practicing photography in an amazing time.  Great female photographers are nothing new (Imogen Cunningham and others), but more and more women are entering the field and doing stellar work.  I am not trying to sound like a feminist, because I am far from it, but I am trying to say that there are stigmas and they do need to be thought about while we do our marketing and practice our business.  Be a professional, that's what it boils down to. 

P.S. I must be in a philosophical type mood You get a star if you read the whole thing. 

The difference between the past women masters and todays women masters vs so called Mommy photographers who think they are pros after a year of shooting their children, is education and experience in the field.

I have my favorites which I won't share, these women sure know their stuff and it's great to read up on them and see how they got there.

What I'm disgusted about is the amateurs who do awful work and for some darn reason are making money at it.

Sorry Susie, it's no comment against you or what you think in opinions, it's just I'm sick of it. Hey, you guys do great work, I enjoy viewing your work, keep it up.

It's just a frustrated photographer venting, like I said, nothing against anyone here. O.K.?

When working with RAW files, it's not as hard as one seems to think it is.

You open one image, say from a wedding, the basic color correction is done and the image is woken up, sort to speak.
Well, you have 50 more of those images in the same lighting condition. All you have to do from the bridge is select those images with the one that is complete, CTRL/Command R they open up in raw. Select the one that is corrected and then select all and wham bam, done, hmm that was about a min.
O, and you have "LOTS of INFO" in comparison to a jpeg, plus, the image is still original, no damage.
Your workflow in the long run, is much faster.

BTW, I'm no rookie, I'm in college full time, we are "Learning" ways to improve our workflow, and the learning process is with "Weddings" as our example.

I need blow my horn loudly sometimes as some may take me as a hobby shooter. Far from it.

So, to keep it short, YES, your are greatly missing out if you don't try and give RAW a chance. Rome was not built in three days.

As far as comparing this and that, it's all in fun, BUT, RAW!!!!!!! is the WAY to GO, don't be ignorant to it y'all, you're missing out.

File size is a worry for some, however, as a professional which most profess, no EXCUSE, you're making money and External hard drives are priced nicely.
And as such, it is to your utmost to give QUALITY. Your camera has RAW, use it. I'm not sorry to anyone on this statement.

Now, I'm serious.