# What's wrong with shooting at Small Raw size? (Output if for the web)



## omar (May 27, 2013)

I'm taking photos of jewellery

My end output is for the web
+ Some printing - but this is only off an inkjet

Is there anything wrong with shooting in small raw size??

EDIT: For some shots, I do need to be further away and then crop around the main object
Does that change anything?

Thanks


Omar


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## rs (May 27, 2013)

Unless you're really space limited, why shoot at less than full resolution? If you're painstakingly going to all the hassle of setting everything up as well as you can for the shoot, why capture it in the lowest resolution you can?

Even if its initially planned to be just used for small web based images, what happens if later on you need it for magnified views online, or for printing in a brochure/poster? Surely its easier to just capture and store it now in high res just in case, rather than later on attempt to recreate the shot?


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## Sporgon (May 27, 2013)

M and s RAW are really useful features for photographers who may shoot over 1000 frames from an event, any one of which may require post processing. When shooting very high numbers of frames file size ( and time ) become an issue. 

However if you're not shooting hundreds of frames then unless your processing computer is really weak there's not much point. 

You'll get lots of people on here saying you should only ever use your cameras full res, but they won't be shooting hundred upon hundred frames at one session, which by the sound of it, you're not either.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 27, 2013)

1. You cannot post Raw to the web, no matter what size you shoot, it must be converted to a Web format like jpeg, Gif, etc. During the save for web process in photoshop, you set the final size.

2. The main reason I would use SRAW would be if I had a underpowered computer, or was running out of storage space. 

3. Nothing wrong with using it though, a P&S would do as well, if you just want to shoot for web.


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## omar (May 28, 2013)

thanks for the replies guys

>> 2. The main reason I would use SRAW would be if I had a underpowered 
>> computer, or was running out of storage space. 
this sums it up essentially
i have a core 7 macbook... so not so much underpowered - more so that it will take half the time to copy a file to my machine + if its just for the web (or even print) why do i want to to use the max space consuming spec?

lets say ur camera currently does 18mb and u are perfectly happy and it does everything u need
u then upgrade to the next version camera which has 24mb...
unless there's a compelling reason... why would u go for the largest format available???


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## Mt Spokane Photography (May 28, 2013)

I bought a Nikon D800. The large files were as much as 51 mb, and in uncompressed tif form 211 mb. The biggest issue was applying NR, it took forever on my 1st generation core i7 pc. Now I have upgraded to a 3rd generation and those photos load much faster.

I wanted a mraw or sraw because I had to process several hundred images and there wasn't enough time. So, I sold it and went back to a 5D MK III.


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## christopher.nahler (May 28, 2013)

the only reason to use smaller raw for me was to shoot single pics for panorama stitch and have the completed panorama file inmanageable size.


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## Botts (May 29, 2013)

omar said:


> EDIT: For some shots, I do need to be further away and then crop around the main object
> Does that change anything?



You're going to lose resolution, so your cropped images will have far fewer pixels.

Also, keep in mind that Aperture and some other software will not process SRAW. 

Your best bet since you will crop some shots is to shoot in full-RAW. Once you process then convert it to an 80% or so JPEG and delete the RAW if the photos are for one time use.

I may even shoot JPEG+RAW in your circumstance for a while, and see how often you even need the RAW if you are short on HD space.


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## sanj (May 29, 2013)

Botts said:


> omar said:
> 
> 
> > EDIT: For some shots, I do need to be further away and then crop around the main object
> ...



+1


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## Zv (May 30, 2013)

HD space shouldn't even be an issue these days. You can get 2 or 3 Tbyte HDD nowadays for next to nothing (compared to what to paid for you DSLR!) so just dump all RAW files there and keep the jpegs on your laptop. Heck even flickr is offering one terabyte free.


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## RGF (May 30, 2013)

omar said:


> I'm taking photos of jewellery
> 
> My end output is for the web
> + Some printing - but this is only off an inkjet
> ...



You can always down size, but up sizing is much more difficult. Why limit yourself? Unless space is truly limited (in which case I wonder about your commitment to your photography), shoot RAW, not sRAW


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