I was interested in it until I read (and I'm paraphrasing badly here) that it's not true RAW in that it's already demosaic'd and put back together smaller — or something like that. And it doesn't take advantage of binning. Something like that. Anyway, it's not as good or as flexible as you might like to think it is, if it were a true RAW file, only smaller.
I voted I never use it, but actually I have. I just don't use it anymore. I thought I would use it on occasion, but it hasn't turned out that way. I would rather resize in post if I don't need the detail on an image.
I experimented with it when the 5D mkII came out and did not see anything wrong for using it for just snaps and joy shooting. Could not see anything wrong with using it over jpgs and the images were good enough for that type of shooting. Saved card space and at the time that was important with just 4gb cards in my stable.
Did get a bit of criticism from fellow FM'ers when this same question came up back then and I stood up for using it, but what the heck, my pics
I like the flexibility of a large high rez file. If I get a great image I'll be printing large. I can always resize or crop smaller in PS but going bigger and recovering nonexistent pixels ain't so easy. If it was the 1990s I'd be worried about storage but today CF cards and external HD are huge and cheap so bring it. My main problem is I'm running out of room in my home and office to hang matted prints. Digital storage, no problem.
However if you never print and only do web galleries sRAW might make sense. Many of the younger shooters don't print.
AaronNegro wrote:
Just curious if someone uses SRAW and why.
Honest? I would use it if SRAW was around 14/16MP just to keep costs on the low side.
Just started experimenting with sRAW on the 5d2 recently. Honestly, do I need 21mp of everything? In fact I really should only shoot full size RAW files when I expect to do heavy cropping or when I suspect that a subject would make for a great huge print.
For example, I was shooting flowers today. I love to shoot flowers, but there are very few flower shots that I need a 21mp file. Plus my hard drive is filling up quickly.
Here's an sRAW that I took today with the 5d2 .....
Ariel Bravy wrote:
What are the drawbacks of it being debayered?
Have you noticed the big fuss about the new ACR6/LR3 noise reduction / "look"? Well, that. 90% of that is done in the debeyer stage. Everyone is now raving about "old raw files having a new lease on life", etc. If you perform the debeyer step in-camera you can't redo it later, when technology has advanced. Add to that the fact that pretty much any processing done in-camera is inferior to that done on a computer, because even though cameras have dedicated hardware for it, they need to take shortcuts to be able to do it at 8fps, while a real computer can take a few seconds, if needed.
I don't want my images to be locked in time since quite often I go back a few years and re-do images.
I use sRAW1 a lot on the 5D2, unless I really want the full 21mpx resolution, but never use it on the 1D3 though. So it depends on the size and quality of the sRAW file.
I thought I would use it on occasion, but it hasn't turned out that way. I would rather resize in post if I don't need the detail on an image. 
