new to RAW and 6d

[mayjay]

I am new to RAW shooting and the 6D.  What settings are good for portrait shots?  I've been told straight RAW or both.  suggestions and what settings ?

[Skirball]

The only reason that I see not to shoot RAW is if you need the absolute fastest burst rate your camera is capable of (in which case you should have got a 7D 🙂   Otherwise, always shoot RAW.

So, assuming that you are going to shoot RAW, the question is, do you need RAW+jpg or not.  Well, that’s up to you.  I don’t see any benefit of it for my work, but I know plenty who do.  The only real purpose of it is to be able to share the (non-edited) images right away with a client, or social media, or whatever.  I always post process, so again, it doesn’t have a place in my workflow. 

Long story short, just make sure you’re shooting RAW.  I’d do it without jpg first.  If you find you have a need for it, add it.

[Skirball]

I’ll add that I think this utility of RAW + jpg is decreasing as technology evolves, and the WiFi addition of the 6D further decreases the possible uses.  I think.  I don’t use this function, so I can’t confirm, but I believe that if you transfer files over WiFi that the camera will convert from RAW to jpg on the transfer, even if you only shot RAW.  Can anyone confirm?

[hsbn]

Yes. I shoot RAW only. The camera make you "process" the  photo first, then save it as a jpg and then you can upload/share it online directly in the camera. You can apply various effects and settings when processing the image in camera.

[TCampbell]

If you shoot in RAW only, you might still be able to convert images from RAW to JPEG in the camera before transferring them.  It's rare, but I've used that functionality and it depends on which camera you have.  I can do this with my 5D III... I cannot do this with my 5D II.

Last weekend I was away for four days with only my iPad (no computer).  The iPad can't read RAW files (it knows they are RAW and can see the embedded preview (which is really a JPEG) but it handle the RAW image data.  SO... I shot in RAW+JPEG over the weekend.  That way I could pull the JPEG images off the camera and look at them on the iPad. 

When I finally returned home, I pulled the RAW images into my Aperture library as those are the images I really plan to use.

Most of the time I only shoot in RAW.

[hsbn]

With the 6D and the 70D, you can view photo directly on the ipad and regardless of RAW or JPG via the app. You can rate, sort and delete if you want to. Also you can save the image as JPG into the ipad. That's the upside of Wifi-ready camera.

[hsbn]

If you shot RAW, what software are you planning to process your RAW file? Third party software cannot read Canon setting on the raw file so any "processing settings" will be ignored. If you plan to use Canon DPP, then it can read all of the settings; however, with RAW you can change it all after you shoot.

My workflow, I use Faithful picture style and lower the contrast 1 level. Turn off all settings like High Tone Priority, Auto Lighting Optimizer, Noise Reduction, etc. This way, the camera will generate a preview jpg (this is what you see on the camera LCD) closer to the RAW data. This helps a lot to generate a more accurate histogram especially if you plan to use "Expose to the Right" method.

If you shoot RAW, and you increase saturation, contrast, sharpness, HTP, ALO, your preview image on the back of the LCD will look good at the time of shooting. But when you load it into the computer, you'll be disappointed because the RAW file will look dull, underexposure, etc..