A couple of weeks ago we run a poll on three very different photography Facebook groups asking them if they took photos in jpeg, raw or both jpeg and raw. The results and feedback were very interesting, and here we can analyse what photographers use.
Our poll results are taken after 3 days of the poll being up. They were placed on Great Photography Walks South Wales, Fujifilm Lovers Worldwide and Fujifilm Film Simulation Facebook groups, as well as on this website.
We had a poll reach of 15k potential participants on Facebook, with many more online, and at the time the results were taken we had 183 poll clicks. The question was simple, asking if you usually photograph in jpeg, raw or both.
Photographing in jpeg only.
Surprisingly 25% of the 183 participants (45 people) chose jpeg only. I say surprisingly, as I thought it would have been a higher number than this.
Photographing in raw only.
Photographers who shot in raw only accounted for 11% of the participants (20 people). What is surprising with this, from the comments and talking to people, it was usually the ones who haven’t done photography long who choose to do this, however, there were a couple of longer-term photographers who also do this.
Photographing in both jpeg and raw.
Not much of a surprise that the vast majority of photographers use both jpeg and raw. A huge 64%, that’s 118 people of the 183 prefer, and almost always photograph to capture their images this way.
This is far less surprising, as we know, through knowing other photographers, watching professional photographers and working alongside professional photographers that there is great benefit to ensuring you have both the jpeg and the raw file.
Looking at the comments and talking to people with regards to this, this option was the favourite of photographers of all levels, across the board, regardless of amateur or professional photographer.
Conclusion
There are very positive reasons why the majority decide to photograph in both jpeg and raw, so the results in general were not much of a surprise. A lot of those who used jpeg only were those just having fun with photography, or those who shot in various colour profiles (film simulations).
As long as you’re happy, it doesn’t really matter what you use, but I think this has been a very interesting poll result to study.
I am a semi-professional photographer who runs a weekly meeting photography group as well as numerous Facebook groups (Great Photography Walks South Wales and Fujifilm Lovers Worldwide Group). I also have a brand-new blog website dedicated to various other things which I like to call The Ramblings Of A Welshman. I hope you can join me there; you might find it interesting! You’ll find my YouTube Channel Here!
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