So you’ve inserted your memory card into your digital SLR and you’re ready to set yourself up for shooting. You’re going to have to choose a format for files that you want to save to the card. You have a lot of choices. Most cameras give you the option to shoot in JPEG or in raw format. Those are your first two choices to know.
Depending on how much memory you possess, i.e. two gigabyte memory card, four-gigabyte memory card and so on, both initially dictate what type of file you want to shoot. The difference between raw and JPEG is the compression in the amount of data that’s stored on the card for each individual image. Professionals tend to use raw because there is more controllability with your image.
You have a lot more data to work with but not all pros shoot in raw. There are a lot of top professionals that do shoot JPEG, but they’re nailing their exposures. If you miss an exposure by a lot, you have a lot better chance recovering it in raw format than you do in JPEG.
With that said, JPEG files are smaller and you can fit a lot more of them on a card. Just as a generalization, a four-gig card, you might fit roughly 300 raw files and maybe you’ll get 600 plus with the JPEG. So it’s substantially more images with JPEG format.
With these two formats, you’re going to choose between large-fine, large-normal, medium-fine, medium-normal, small-fine, small-normal, raw, small–raw. So don’t worry too much initially about which format. Most people start with the large-fine JPEG to start and you’re going to get a really nice image with that.