The Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS/1000D Companion

Raw Hassles (the Disadvantages)

I shoot exclusively raw on all the cameras that support raw format. But raw shooting does present some extra headaches that you won't find when shooting JPEG images. As software improves, these headaches are getting fewer and fewer, and it's easy enough to work around them. However, before you dive into the world of raw, you'll want to consider these caveats:

Raw files take up more space

Raw files are larger than JPEG files—sometimes a lot larger. JPEG compression is very effective at squeezing the size of an image. On the Rebel XS, you'll typically find that shooting in raw adds about 10 MB to the size of every image you shoot.

On the Rebel XS, you can fit about 174 JPEG files on a 1 GB card, but only about 56 raw files. (I say "about" because file size varies depending on the content of the file.) Obviously, this larger file size means you'll need more storage cards for your camera. But it also means you'll need more disk space for your postproduction work and more long-term storage for archiving—whether that's hard disks or recordable CDs and DVDs. Fortunately, storage of all kinds is cheap these days, so ramping up to a raw-worthy storage capacity is not too expensive.

Other people may not be able to read your files

There's no standard for raw format images. Every camera maker uses a different raw format, and sometimes they even change formats from camera to camera. JPEGs are a standard, so it's easy to hand other people images straight out ...