For further arguments for/against RAW, look here:
http://blogs.adamparkerphotography.com/blog/Make-your-pictures-happy-shoot-in-RAW/18/

I don’t know why some amateurs are so frightened of screwing up. What do you think people like Jay Maisel or Ernst Haas did when they came back with a bad shot? The slide went in the garbage. Back out there they went, to try again. Christ, I personally think all beginners should shoot jpeg just so they learn to accept full responsibility for the outcome of every shot they take. Photography requires a certain amount of thought and vision. If you can’t spend a few moments analyzing a scene and saying to yourself “Maybe a slightly warmer white balance is in order” or “Perhaps I should lose a stop on this scene in order to preserve the hightlights” then shooting RAW is not going to help you.

shooting JPEG on a DSLR is like buying a corvette and driving it as the factory set it up. shooting RAW and post-processing manually is like customising and “pimping” the corvette, to squeeze some more performance out of it.

don’t get me wrong – i think RAW can be of use, and use it myself sometimes. for example – in cases where the dynamic range of the scene extends beyond the limits of the camera’s sensor (the handling of which is a particular weakness of digital camera versus film) – if you expose for the highlights, you can pull out some shadow detail in post-processing, and “shoulder” the highlights rather than let the camera clip them. using RAW doesn’t actively improve the quality of the image, but it allows a little more lee-way in the editing process than using JPEG. but the end result is, as far as i have experienced, only marginally better than the JPEG output at best – i have not seen any examples where the output of a RAW file significantly outstrips the JPEG output.

saying that, i will still do it if the image is sufficiently important to me, and if i believe that the difference it will make is enough to make it worth the effort. this can only be a subjective decision, and can only be based on personal experience – you have to try it for yourself… if you feel your results from shooting RAW then manually post-processing are superior than the “out-of-the-camera” JPEG, i will be sincerely glad for you. this is what it is all about – freedom to do it the way you want to. if you want to spend more time tweaking the image from the RAW data, you can. if you are happy with the JPEG straight from the camera, you don’t need to shoot RAW.

if squeezing every last pixel of quality from every single image is of vital importance to you (which it may be if you intend to print the images on a large scale – say, larger than A4), i would say shoot RAW all the time. if you find more often than not that the JPEG output of your camera is satisfactory (or at least requires only minor tweaking, for which RAW would offer little significant benefit over JPEG), i would say shoot JPEG, and only use RAW+JPEG for high-contrast scenes, or those where the white balance may cause problems.

That is false and generally opposes the very reason of spending more money on a camera. The money spent on a better camera is meant to go into better quality results with *less* effort, rather than more. Who really wants to spend *more* money so that they can spend *more* time? Realistically, most people have either time or money, but rarely both.

It is fair to say that more configuration may be needed to milk the very last bit of juice out of your more expensive camera– this statement is actually true with any product. However, to say that a DSLR was “built” to be used in such a manner is absolutely false. DSLR’s are meant to (and do) get significantly better results without putting in any extra effort– this is where your money is going.

The improvement in spending extra time processing raw files on a professional DSLR should ideally be minor as compared to the vast improvement that jpeg gives over consumer level cameras. That would be the mark of a truly good camera. Otherwise, I would say that your money was not invested efficiently.

It all depends on what you intend to use the JPEG images for. When you shoot RAW+JPEG, you are capturing two images of the same shot. You have the RAW image that will provide the maximum quality image, but will require post processing on your computer before you can use it. You will also capture a JPEG image, which you can print or load to the web without any extra processing.

Since the RAW image is unaffected by any of the fine or normal settings, you are always capturing the maximum detail with RAW. So I would only shoot RAW+JPEG when I needed a a quick JPEG I could print quickly without any computer work. I would use the JPEG to make quick print or load immediately to the web. Once I have a chance to process the RAW image, I would discard the original JPEGs. If I need a JPEG image I would export a new JPEG from the processed RAW image, since generally the RAW images will provide superior results. So to my way of thinking, RAW+JPEG is useful when you need a very fast turn around, but want to retain the RAW image to create a better image when you have more time.

As for Fine, Normal or Basic, you have to determine which of these will be best for your application. The RAW image is unaffected, so you will always have a top quality basis for generating an excellent JPEG when time allows. So if a basic JPEG would be sufficient for quick turn around, I would shoot RAW+JPEG basic. If I felt I needed a larger JPEG quickly, I would shoot one of the better formats, but the better the quality of the JPEG, the more room it will take up on my memory card and the longer it will take to write to memory. Since the RAW image will always provide the best overall detail and quality and I will most likely toss the original JPEGs when I have had time to process the RAW images, I would only shoot the smallest JPEG format that would suit my immediate need. Try shooting some basic JPEGs and either print them yourself or take them to Kiosk machine for a test.

If the quality is good enough for a immediate turn around, then I would shoot RAW+JPEG Basic, since you can always generate a higher quality JPEG from the RAW image if you should need it. If you feel the basic quality just isn’t good enough, then you will need to shoot at one of the better settings.

If you don’t need to turn things around quickly, you might save time and memory card space by just shooting RAW. It will provide better quality, but it requires computer processing time to provide good results. So in my view, RAW+JPEG gives you an immediate quickie image as well as the option to generate a higher quality image when time allows.

I hope this helps. Welcome to the family! I hope you and your new dSLR achieve some great things. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to ask!

– Tiew