What format is right for you?

Choosing the format of your media is often an afterthought, especially as we get excited and giddy about getting to the actual shooting and “making stuff pretty” phase asap.

But especially with professional equipment (and recently with iPhone’s software update that now allows shooting directly in 10bit raw formats), if you aren’t sure what format you want before you shoot, it may be too late once you get back to the editing desk!

There are two basic factors to consider;

• Raw formats (requires post-processing and color correcting)

• Compressed formats (ready for delivery and use)

Below you can see the difference between JPEG and RAW files, after we’ve tried to recover a poorly exposed image.

Now, if you’re merely shooting for your personal social media account, regular compressed formats work fine.
99% of your viewers will not notice anything “bad” about the footage, given that you saved them in high enough quality.

However, if you’re adamant about retaining the maximum possible quality of your shots, for example for an advertising shoot or for something to be used in “larger” areas, such as printable posters or film / tv productions, you absolutely need to shoot in a Raw format.

This means you’re capturing more data with each frame, when people say “10bit” they refer to the amount of light & color information in the image, which a 10bit format has more of to retain more correct colors and a wider range of contrast (think HDR compared to SDR).

The downside is that Raw formats need to be edited in post, and color corrected.
It’s not rocket science, but it is color science, and does require some training and practice. Some professionals have spent years perfecting their own particular “flavor” of post-processing, sometimes leading to unique atmospheres in their particular work.

Naturally, you can also post-process compressed formats to increase the vibrancy and beauty of a sub-standard shot.
But this can only be taken so far, due to those formats inherently containing less data to work with before noise and artifacting creeps in.

So before you eagerly run off to a shoot, consider what format is right for that particular job.