Nikon SLR Cameras

Raw vs Jpeg, what's better?

Avozinha
Avozinha

I'm an amateur in photography and I want to know if I should shoot in raw or jpeg, and when I should use it. I'm thinking about buying a Nikon D3100.

fhotoace
fhotoace

My guess is that you have not spent any time on websites that describe the differences

* RAW is an image file that collects All the image data that is captured by the cameras sensor. After processing, they can be saved as JPEG, TIFF or DNG files.
* JPEG files are processed by the camera and if you mistakenly set the white balance to the incorrect one, you are stuck with it.

RAW image files give you the most flexibility when used. They are of course larger because they hold much more data and the more data, the better control you have over your images

Moi
Moi

I'm far from an expert but I believe that it's better to use RAW if you want to modify the picture later, also if you really want the image to have the best quality possible since RAW doesn't compress the image as with JPG.

The main problem with RAW is the file size since it's not compressed, so if you need space and don't care about the quality loss of the compression then use JPG.