raw - Assuming no editing, what's the difference between in-camera jpegs and lightroom jpegs?

I have a Canon 6D. I usually shoot RAW + JPEG. I shoot RAW so I have the option to edit, but I don't actually edit most of my pictures.

I've noticed that if I just import into Lightroom and export JPEG's at full resolution and where quality is roughly 80, the file ends up being about the same size as the full res JPEG version from the camera.

What's the difference (other than time taken) between these two? Is there a (practical) difference?

Answer

The difference lies in the way LR renders the image. LR uses its own algorithms and profiles to interpret the raw data, and it's inevitable that there will be differences to Canons implementation (if, OTOH, you process he RAWs with DPP, you should get practically the same result as out of camera). Whether they are better or worse than Canons are up to you to decide.

Of course, you can change LRs defaults, and direct it to perform various editing steps automatically, like auto exposure and applying lens correction profiles.