Shooting in raw is so ingrained in modern photography that giving it up for a month sounds almost reckless. This photographer does exactly that, and what he finds out about his own habits is more revealing than any gear review.
Coming to you from Ben Harvey Photography, this candid video follows Harvey through a month-long experiment: shoot only JPEG, no raw files, no editing, and share the results exactly as they came out of his Sony a7 III. Every image in the video is straight out of camera, which means any exposure mistakes, crooked horizons, or dust spots stay in the final shot. That level of accountability forces an honest look at what he actually gets right in the field versus what he quietly fixes later in Lightroom. He shoots two locations for the experiment: Worthing Pier at sunrise with long exposures and a polarizer plus a two-stop soft-edge grad filter, and Chanktonbury Ring, a hill walk with moody, unpredictable light.
One of the more interesting problems Harvey runs into is a dust spot on his sensor, visible in the top-right corner of an image he can't touch. He also realizes quickly that the Sony a7 III isn't known for flattering JPEG output, which shapes one of his core takeaways: if you want to shoot JPEG and skip editing entirely, you need a camera whose picture profiles you actually like straight out of the box. He uses the analogy of a restaurant meal to explain the raw versus JPEG difference: a raw file is all the ingredients; a JPEG is the plated dish that arrives at your table.
What makes this video worth watching is that Harvey doesn't just theorize. He looks back at a full month of images, makes actual notes, and gives an honest assessment of where his in-camera skills fell short. His exposure consistency was off by about 10%, his handheld horizon was worse than he thought, and he admits he had been leaning on Lightroom more than he realized. But the experiment also leads him somewhere unexpected: he picks up a Panasonic Lumix GX80, a camera he finds produces genuinely pleasing JPEGs straight out of camera, including a Leica monochrome recipe he's been using exclusively since. Since getting it, he hasn't shot a single raw file with it. That's a meaningful data point from someone who otherwise shoots raw on everything else. Check out the video above for the full rundown and final images from Harvey.
1 Comment
I enjoyed your experiment of shooting JPEG for a month. In particular because since about 6 years I shoot JPEG only. Contrary to your comment, that a JPEG photo is like a "fully prepared meal", the JPEG program I use allows me to do quite a bit of editing if needed. However what I learned from shooting JPEG only is that I take much more care to setting up the camera correctly. The software I use allows me to do quite a bit highlight and shadow recovery.