ckiang said:
Your solution is simple. Simply shoot in JPEG. I'd dare to say that for 99% of the time, LARGE JPEG FINE is more than enough. Some pros would even shoot JPEG NORMAL. There's no need to shoot RAW just because someone else does it.
I suppose he needs to ask himself why he needs to shoot NEF. I always shoot RAW because I like the advantages I get from RAW:
1. You can correct exposure problems more easily in RAW.
2. Highlight/shadow detail is more accurately preserved so you can retrieve them if you need to.
3. You can correct white balance in RAW with no loss of quality.
4. Wider colour space.
5. Better image quality. You see the difference on any camera in DPReview - the pictures converted from RAW have better preserved detail.
6. Would I prefer a dinky little camera CPU to process my images, or my 3.5GHz watercooled desktop monster with 2GB RAM? Hmmm ...
There are downsides to shooting in NEF, and you need to make an investment. You need:
1. Lots of CF storage.
2. A fast PC with a lot of storage.
3. Invest your time in developing a digital workflow. My workflow goes something like this: transfer images to PC, then start converting images from RAW to TIFF. I do this one image at a time, adjusting white balance and exposure as necessary. If the image has too many problems (bad focus, bad composition, etc) I discard it. I put all my noisy images in a seperate folder, then batch run noise reduction software on it. While all this is happening I go make myself a coffee or check my pr0n downloads are still happening
After that I open the images in PS and make final adjustments before saving it in a "processed" folder.