Differences between S-RAW & RAW is there any?

[The Stigenator]

A while back I was at a friends wedding in Vegas. The photographer and I were talking (he uses all primes, (http://www.joeyallenphoto.com/) / (http://vegasphoto.blogspot.com/) / (http://www.vegas-photo.com/index.html) )

Anyway we were talking. I was just shooting (not a wedding photographer) as a secondary and I told him I was shooting S-RAW, and he said I should be shooting RAW.

I dont see a difference other than file size. The ability for Lightroom to mod it is the same. Unless I am mistaken.

What may be the better solution. I regularly shoot JPG+sRAW, though some people just shoot RAW (and convert to JPG).

Also I dont have Photoshop CS4, I have a old version Photoshop 7.5, it doesnt do raw. However I may have to upgrade to CS4, question is, is it worth it?

 

[angry hampster]

Why on earth would you shoot raw if you can't process it?

 

[soydios]

sRAW is small-RAW, i.e. reduced resolution

 

[BeauJangles]

A while back I was at a friends wedding in Vegas. The photographer and I were talking (he uses all primes, (http://www.joeyallenphoto.com/) / (http://vegasphoto.blogspot.com/) / (http://www.vegas-photo.com/index.html) )

Anyway we were talking. I was just shooting (not a wedding photographer) as a secondary and I told him I was shooting S-RAW, and he said I should be shooting RAW.

I dont see a difference other than file size. The ability for Lightroom to mod it is the same. Unless I am mistaken.

What may be the better solution. I regularly shoot JPG+sRAW, though some people just shoot RAW (and convert to JPG).

Also I dont have Photoshop CS4, I have a old version Photoshop 7.5, it doesnt do raw. However I may have to upgrade to CS4, question is, is it worth it?

Get something like Lightroom or Nikon's CaptureNX software to handle the raw files.

 

[OulOat]

sRAW is small-RAW, i.e. reduced resolution

Now now, the op could be talking about shooting this SRAW.

In all seriousness, unless space is a factor for you, either while shooting or during storage, you should be shooting in full RAW mode. You can always scale down nicely; unfortunately the reverse isn't true.

 

[timswim78]

I agree that you should always shoot RAW and not SRAW. If you ever want to crop a photo, you might not have enough pixels to make a decent print if you are using SRAW.

As far as processing RAW, you can avoid spending money ($699) on CS4 by purchasing Lightroom ($299) to organize and "develop" your RAW images. If something needs to be touched up in PS, then you can export it from Lightroom in a PSD format.

 

[randomlinh]

I dont see a difference other than file size. The ability for Lightroom to mod it is the same. Unless I am mistaken.

I would take this as he uses LR, no?

 

[996GT2]

Why would you EVER shoot in sRAW?

sRAW files are saved at a much reduced resolution. For example, on a Canon 40D, normal RAW files are saved at the camera's native resolution: 10 MP. sRAW is only saved at 2.5 MP. So you basically have an expensive DSLR capturing 2.5 megapixel photos...

If space is really a concern just shoot JPEG Large at the normal (not fine) compression. But I don't really see that as a valid argument. These days, you can get a name-brand 8GB compactflash card for <$20 (I Just picked up one yesterday actually). An 8 GB card will hold about 500 full-resolution RAW files or more than 2000 JPEGs, which will pretty much cover you for any event.

I can't really imagine any instances where you would want to shoot sRAW unless you were 100&#37; sure you didn't want to print much over 4x6 or crop your images.

 

[The Stigenator]

That was exactly what i was looking for.

I guess I am going to start shooting in RAW now. I didnt know that the 40D in sRAW was 2.5mp equivalent. I never knew that, in fact lightroom never shows that info.

I am going to try doing the PSD export to photoshop to see how that goes, i really dont feel like spending $$$ for photoshop, though for most parts lightroom works great. I do need photoshop for a lot of 'adjustment' of certain pictures.

thanks

 

[OulOat]

Lightroom does show it under Library Window > Metadata Panel > Dimensions.

 

[AkumaX]

Picasa reads RAW files now

 

[finbarqs]

Also, because now your sensor is shooting at a lower resolution, almost ALL lenses will be able to out-resolve the sensor, not the other way around (causing soft results)