RAW

RAW recording for ultimate quality

All Sony DSLR cameras give you the choice: either record in JPEG format for speed and convenience, or record in RAW for the ultimate quality performance. Which you choose depends on your photo needs and access to computers.

Close and continue Tell us what you think We appreciate feedback on the tutorials in our Learn & Enjoy section. Would you like to take our quick survey? Yes, take me to the survey No thanks Ask me later RAW allows you to control every aspect of the final image: it’s like developing your own film, only you develop your own digital image.

Benefits of RAW

The great benefit of working with RAW format is that it gives you the great flexibility and most room for changing the image, while preserving quality. RAW format gives you

Images with the greatest dynamic range – better able to record highlights and shadows
Images whose White Balance can be readjusted at anytime
Improved sharpness control compared to other file formats
Improved flexibility in correcting exposure errors
Improved noise reduction

Note: Alternatively recording in JPEG format is faster, easier, results in smaller files and you benefit from the expertise of Sony imaging experts who have ensured the JPEG files are usable straight from the camera.

Want to try? Here´s how:

Set RAW in the Quality menu.
In some models you can set cRAW (compressed RAW): files are smaller than RAW but may take longer to process
You can also set RAW + JPEG: this saves two files – RAW and the corresponding JPEG which you can use to preview the RAW file or use immediately. This takes up more memory space.
After shooting, download the RAW files and review them in the RAW converter software: prepare to be amazed how much you can change the files without compromising image quality.
When satisfied, save the RAW file in JPEG or TIFF format.

NB:
Initially, your processed RAW files may not look as good as the camera’s JPEG because the JPEGs are the result of Sony’s expert imaging processing. If you are not confident about working with RAW, you may get better results with JPEG set to Quality > Extra Fine.

What is RAW?

Individual pixels in digital cameras record only basic colour information – either red, green, blue (or in some cameras cyan). This is the raw data that is stored in the RAW format. For the final image, computations are needed to fill in data for the other colours so each pixel has a full complement of data. This is achieved by RAW converter software supplied with Sony DSLR cameras.

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