Is there a reason for raw over jpeg if you have your lighting figured out?

I hired a photographer for an event, and he says he doesn't shoot raw because he has his lighting (white balance and exposure) all figured out. Are there any other reasons why a pro should shoot in raw if the lighting will be correct? I'm trying to convince myself that there may be some other reasons and then maybe I'll convince the photographer too.

Answer

I can think of a handful of possible reasons to shoot RAW:

1. The "oops" factor. If anything at all needs to be corrected -- even if you believe it's properly set up during the shoot -- RAW gives you just a bit more room to do so. In virtually all cases, you'd very much prefer to get stuff right in-camera vs. trying to fix it later, so you can think about having access to the RAW file as a sort of insurance, where you hope you don't need to use it.


2. External tools vs. in-camera processing. All of the processing your camera applies when creating JPG files can be applied in an external tool. In some cases, you might believe you can do a better job of sharpening, noise reduction, etc., using specialized tools.


3. Increased dynamic range. Your sensor records information that can be helpful in recovering details from highlight or shadow areas of a photo.

Having said that, I can't evaluate whether any of these are particularly applicable in your case. It's entirely possible that all of these are complete non-factors in your situation, and as others have pointed out, there are also good reasons not to shoot RAW, including speed of processing and storage requirements, and it sounds like your photographer may be leaning in that direction based on his understanding of the event.