Back in 2015, I bought a brand new camera for the upcoming trip to Finland.

The goal was to shoot aurora. At the time, Sony A7s was my go-to camera. It's known for performing well in low light. Since it's mirrorless, it's lighter than other full-frame DSLR in general.

I was ALL SET! With this killer kit and a tripod, I could definitely nail it!

I was dead wrong. Not only was the weather bad (cloudy), but I made a huge mistake in my camera setting...

I have completely forgotten to set the file format before the trip...

It's a train wreck!!! I accidentally shot JPEG not RAW.

What does it mean? The photos were uneditable! Let me explain.

*TIPS: You can click on the top right corner in the Histogram to see the highlight clipping in RED, shadow clipping in BLUE.

JPEG isn't an ideal format for editing. Because it's a highly compressed format, the file size is much smaller than RAW which means most of the details are gone, makes it impossible to adjust or balance the highlights and shadows.

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High Dynamic Range is probably the most amazing feature. It allows you to boost 5 to 10 stops without ruining the original photo. RAW file preserves all the details you need in post-processing. High dynamic range gives you magical results.

Take a look at this sunset I shot in the Grand Canyon. It's a RAW file.

If you are familiar with analog photography, this analogy is probably right for you-

JPEG is like slide. RAW is like negative.

Slide gives you saturated colors but the exposure error margin is narrow.

Negative is less saturated but you can always push or cross-process in the darkroom.

I would use JPEG for preview and quick transfer. (e.g. same day shoots for clients)

RAW takes time to edit but the result is mind-blowing.

Don't make the same mistakes I did. Always shoot RAW.

I am destined to travel to the arctic circle for at least one more time...

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