Are photographers snobs?

I got to reading a post on a photography bulletin board. The person asked how to shoot black and white in the camera and what options were available. I wrote to use the custom picture styles to set the "color" to monochrome (b&w), adjust the custom settings (sharpness, contrast, filter and tone), and let the camera convert the raw format file to a jpeg black and white. And before I could respond, several people responded criticizing him for even thinking shooting jpeg and especially b&w in the camera.

It seems shooting raw format is the only way to be a "real" photographer anymore and let Photoshop do all the work, even overcoming your own stupidity in the field by either not understanding the scene to set the camera right or just setting it in program or full automatic mode, and then fix it later. So, where's the photographer's talent and ability with photography? They can be photography blind and Photoshop smart and still be called a photographer?

I'm not against shooting raw. It has powerful capabilities to produce some fantastic images in the hands of talented photographers. I'm just a little confused with all the technology photography and photographers have gained in recent years with cameras and photo editors, especially ones like Photoshop, that we've lost our history and the knowledge and talent of past photographers to produce some stunning and amazing images.

What's ironic with this mentality is that camera reviewers use jpeg to evaluate and judge cameras. Why? Because jpegs are consistent in their output format, so you can judge the brand/model in-camera raw-to-jpeg conversion images. Using raw format would introduce the differences due to the raw converter and changes made in the settings in the raw to output. Every Raw format converter uses different algorithims to produce different results, so it wouldn't be a good judge of the camera.

And in many fields of photography, such as photojournalist for newspapers and magazines, jpeg is the standard format, from the camera to the publication. It's because it's time and cost efficient and productive for both the photographer, editor and publisher. And any good photojournalist can produce publication ready jpegs. That's their talent and experience.

And even the latest generation of photo editors have overcome the quality lost in the many saves you do in the photo editors. All of them now are lossless, meaning nothing is lost anymore when saving images between adjustments. So you can make individual adjustments until you like what's there and not have to go back to the beginning if you make a mistake.

So, why all the snobbish arguments against jpegs? Maybe they should shoot film and have to know all the types of film and filters for every situation, and they face the photo editor when they screw up? Do they have the balls to go shoot film and show how good they really are as photographers?

Or maybe sit down with a National Geographic photo editor? And have them say, "So, let's see your original images. No, not the raw but the jpegs you shot so I can see how good you are in the field." Do you think they would change their mind, or walk out feeling either angry, saying "Boy, they don't get it." or humble, saying, "Boy, I need to learn photography."

Or will they go back to their thinking, which is the camera is the tool to get the image into the computer where they can do anything and everything. Shooting raw in the camera means you don't have to think beyond pointing and clicking. Set the camera to auto and fire away. The only mistakes you can make is if the raw format's dynamic range didn't have the latitude with the light and shadow in the scene. Everything else, including your own stupidity and ignorance, is fixable in Photoshop.

And yes, I shoot jpeg 90+% of the time and only shoot raw when I want to work on the image more than just capturing what I saw. I found my film experience was a good background to add a digital camera system with my equipment, I still take a digital and film body which shares the same lenses (both full-frame to minimize focal length thinking), so I can have both, the immediacy of digital images and the film.

And so, yes, I'm a curmudgeon, an old-school film-based photographer. But I wouldn't and won't change it, and I still find what I do best. I do photography to be in the field behind the camera and not one in front of the computer. I'm learning the latter, but never at the expense of the former. I will always focus on what I do holding the camera, everything else is extra.

And I will always criticize the photography snobs.