So you usually shoot in RAW? I've avoided that at events like ProgPower because to the number of photos I take and the huge amount of memory used by that format.
True, true. There's plenty of room for differences of opinion and debate here, but IMHO this is one of the defining questions for somebody wanting to get serious with music photography as a hobby: the pros are already shooting RAW and not interested in debating it; they can easily afford the supersized memory cards and are getting paid for the post-processing time.
As you point out, JPG has the overwhelming advantage of storage size (and, consequently and importantly, continuous shooting ability regardless of DSLR make and model.) At any level, including Fiddler's stratospheric level, concert shooting is like shooting sports: you don't control the lighting, the timing, the action, the surprise elements, or anything else. Why wouldn't you choose to shoot JPG that improves your odds by a factor of 2-5X on sheer volume?
One geeky reason:
JPG locks in exposure and something called "white balance" and gives you only limited latitude for tweaking either one of them after the fact. RAW, on the other hand, lets you tweak white balance without limitation and provides up to 2 f-stops of *under* exposure compensation after the fact. (Trivia: digital photography is inherently unforgiving of *over* exposure, unlike negative film but very much like slide film.) The tweakability of RAW actually goes beyond exposure and white balance, but that's another topic.
This is where concert shooters divide into two camps:
1. "I don't care about post-processing; I want to buy a pricey camera that produces killer pictures straight out of the camera with no post-processing. Tell me what camera to buy."
2. "I realize that any straight-out-of the-camera JPG image has already been heavily processed by the camera: automatic white balance, sharpening, color/luminance response curves. Those might work well for daylight and flash shots, but not so much for live concert shots. I can do better."
Yeah, my bias is showing. There are plenty of great JPG shooters out there (including yourself
To answer your question: I shoot RAW exclusively. Every image that I print or publish goes through RAW conversion and Photoshop. I carry a 8G card in each camera (good for around 500 RAW shots) and a 60GB image tank (portable hard drive with card reader) on long shoots like ProgPower.
What software do you use?
I made the switch from Windows to Mac roughly at the same time as my Nikon to Canon defection, and my digital darkroom workflow is still in shambles as a result. I'm trying to make do with Adobe Bridge CS3 (which comes "free" with Photoshop.) The RAW converter is excellent, and Photoshop itself is not too shabby
but Bridge is far from a speed daemon. I lust after either Lightroom or Aperture as the workflow hub.
