RAW vs JPG clarifications…

[Prismpic]

The DSLR I am looking to purchase saves images in Raw format (EXIF,DCF/DPOF). It apparently comes with software for my computer.

That said, does that mean if I want to pop the media card in someone else’s computer, they can’t view because they might not have the software? as opposed to if it was JPG i could easily share.

[DarkPenguin]

Yes.

But there are plenty of viewers out there.

[61Dynamic]

With raw - at the current state of software - you will have to install a viewer on whichever computer you put the images.

There are a couple exceptions though. On Windows, there is a raw file viewer utility that can be installed but it only recognizes some Canon and Nikon raw files. The Mac can natively view quite a few raw file types from pro DSLRs.