I've been using my Sony A6700 for about a year now and mostly shoot in JPEG because the RAW files eat up my SD cards so fast. A friend keeps telling me I'm missing out on post-processing flexibility, but I'm wondering if it's actually worth the hassle and storage costs for casual travel photography.
Shooting RAW gives you a huge amount of extra latitude in post-processing, especially for fixing exposure and white balance - but whether it's worth it depends on what you're actually doing with your photos. If you're just shooting casually and happy with how JPEGs look straight out of the camera, RAW isn't mandatory. That said, RAW files let you recover blown highlights and lift shadows way more than JPEG allows, and you get to decide the white balance in post instead of being locked into whatever the camera decided. For travel photography specifically, this can be genuinely useful since lighting conditions change constantly.
The storage problem is real though. Your best move is probably getting a bigger SD card or two - they're cheap now - rather than avoiding RAW altogether. A 256GB card isn't much more expensive than a 128GB and solves the card-swapping hassle. You could also shoot RAW+JPEG selectively: use RAW when the lighting is tricky or you're not sure about the shot, stick with JPEG for straightforward stuff. This gives you the flexibility when you actually need it without bloating every single file.
If your JPEGs already look good to you and you're not editing heavily, there's no shame in sticking with them. But the moment you find yourself wishing you could fix the white balance on a photo or recover some detail you lost, you'll know RAW would've helped. It's less about whether it "makes a difference" and more about whether you'll ever need that difference.
For casual travel photography, JPEG is honestly fine if you're happy with your results. The real issue isn't whether RAW is "worth it" in some absolute sense - it's what you actually do with your photos afterward. If you shoot, maybe tweak brightness and saturation in your phone, and call it done, JPEG handles that perfectly. Your A6700 does excellent in-camera processing, so you're not losing quality there.
The difference shows up when things go wrong or you want creative control. I took a trip last year where I shot mostly JPEG, and I got caught in some tricky mixed lighting at golden hour. When I got home, I wished I'd shot RAW because I couldn't recover shadow detail or fix the color cast without the image falling apart. RAW gives you a genuine second chance - you can pull back blown highlights, lift shadows, and shift white balance without destroying the image. With JPEG, you're locked into what the camera decided at that moment.
Storage is the real conversation. Your A6700 shoots big files, and if you're traveling with limited cards, that's a legitimate constraint. But here's what works for most people: shoot RAW for situations where you know you'll want control - moody interiors, tricky exposures, important moments. Stick with JPEG for snapshots and obvious daylight stuff where the camera nails it anyway. You don't have to commit to one or the other. A middle ground might be keeping larger cards for trips (they're cheap now compared to what they were) and being selective about what format you use. That way you get the safety net when you need it without bloating your storage for everything.
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