Regardless of what you do with the image afterwards, you want to CAPTURE in TIFF mode because you will keep the most, and most accurate, data. All other file types involve compression, and JPEG in particular is "lossy" -- it throws away data. You can never get that data back. You can always throw it away later when you edit the image, and can control the compression and assess the effect of various compresstion levels.
Why let the camera throw away data before you get a chance to see it, especially with your ability to record large amounts of data? My camera came with an 8mb card -- it would hold exactly ONE TIFF image (I got bigger cards), so I do usually shoot in JPEG myself, but I AM sacrificing quality in favor of space.
Once you edit, use the "native" file format for your editing program. For printing, you'll have to create a final, hi-res JPEG for printing at DPC; some places will print from TIFFS. |
