RAW

I also agree.  I would usually if just taking general pics while out and about shoot jpg, but if it's a one off shoot, and of any importance you'd probably find me shooting  RAW, or RAW+JPG.

That way if you mess up, you can recover more detail etc from the RAW file. ;)

Thank you Edward, Lurkalot and Dave. I will indeed go back and review this whole thread as I know it will give me great advice and help.

I just starting into bird photography (see my web site www.trubrit.net).

I am hoping that our local college has a class on photography that I can take in the autumn.

I will definitely go back to JPG for my trip, and just play with RAW now and again until I have a better undrestanding.

Thanks again! You guys are great! 

I am still learning to use Canon RAW, and havent really looked at DNG yet.  I guess the main advantage of DNG is that it is a more general archive format, not tied to a specific camera manufacturer's version of RAW. Archiving of data is a knotty problem, and DNG seems a good idea. Of course, there is still the question of the data storage medium itself - maybe it will be optical (physical film negatives ?  )   I have film negatives and transparencies from 45 years ago which I can scan anytime I like.