Hard to dislike the 32mm f/1.4 lens (PICS)...

iPhone6S: One of the joys of using the wrong Lens Hood on the EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens is that it fits perfectly in the cup holder of my car.
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It's hard to dislike this lens...
I spent a week in the City and took the M6 and EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens with me as a 'general purpose' lens.  I'm still editing pictures taken during the week ...so these are just the ones I thought might be worth sharing.  I think a few other members have adopted this lens as their every-day lens as well.  Seems to handle most things with flair.  The results are always consistent. Color translation is nice.  I still haven't taken any RAW shots with it yet so these are simply JPEGs.
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I literally have to swap lenses tomorrow to use the 28mm Macro for something important ... and I just don't want to do it.   However, I need actual macro.
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How are your own 32mm lenses holding up? Anyone tempted to sell theirs after buying one or has it become a member of the family?  I'm guessing it's popular because nobody here has it in stock these days.
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32mm - Koi in the pond at the "Chinese Garden of Friendship"

32mm - Quorra... still alive after losing 30cm of intestines. Mauii is fine, BTW.

32mm - I have no words to describe this.

32mm - this is where Rock Candy with words & symbols in it comes from.

32mm - Just missed a spectacular sunset by 30 seconds

32mm - I keep bumping into these lizards. Even in the middle of the city.

32mm - the consequence of 'International Free Comic Book Day'.

32mm - Rena bought some handmade Tea Cups from Japan.

32mm - Zima - this tiny monster has become my enforcer against my other cats

32mm -

32mm - a Bavarian Platter. I was hungry but not that hungry.

32mm - perfect strangers I came across. Nice enough to let me take a pic.

32mm - Kate avoiding the lens

32mm - a little bushfire smoke in the city

32mm - Re-hydration

32mm - A bunch of wild bananas growing on the side of the road.

32mm - Quite Sharp at f/4

32mm - Lone metaldetectorist on the beach in lousy weather (3x shot pano)

32mm - Not my beer

32mm - clearly running out of things to photograph.

32mm - Pacific Pearls in a store window display

32mm - Mauii - now diabetic & getting insulin shots twice daily... but looking better now that his sugar levels are under control. His eyes look milky here but it's just the reflection of my pants.
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Regards,
Marco Nero.

EF-M 32mm voted "Best Cat Lens" 2019!

Marco - you're really messing with my lens budget with the images you're posting ... but please don't stop uploading your wonderful photos.  They truly are incredible - thank you.

HELLO

I like your pics very much. Maybe you saw my thread and I was hesitating between the Sony a 6400 and the much cheaper M 50.

Some reviews state the raw is difficult to alter.  Now most pics of the two cameras I saw, made me thing the Canon was a bit on the soft side.  not on YOUR pics.

So can you tell us more about eventual PP? What you used what you altered?

With my Canon 550 D, I always need to push the contrast to +30, and sharpen a bit more.

I'm a huge, huge fan of this lens. But I already own the 22mm, which I like for its compactness and I bought a Sigma 35mm Art, so I can't justify it. But every time I see pictures from it, everything looks amazing. It's like L glass for EF-m. I'm surprised they didn't give it some kind of special designation and jacked up the price for it.

Indieke1 wrote:

HELLO

I like your pics very much. Maybe you saw my thread and I was hesitating between the Sony a 6400 and the much cheaper M 50.

Some reviews state the raw is difficult to alter. Now most pics of the two cameras I saw, made me thing the Canon was a bit on the soft side. not on YOUR pics.

So can you tell us more about eventual PP? What you used what you altered?

With my Canon 550 D, I always need to push the contrast to +30, and sharpen a bit more.

Hey there Indieke1.
I tend not to apply any sharpening to my photographs when editing them. It's exceptionally rare for me to need to do so. I feel that the camera has already done a fairly good job of sharpening them to begin with and I prefer not to have the images look too over-sharpened.  Some people will apply more sharpening later but that's not how I work (unless it really needs just a little touch of sharpening).  I just take a picture and download it.  If I want to tweak it further I can and do. There's an exposure dial on my M6 and there's a similar setting on the M50 for deciding how over or under exposed you wish to make your images.  That's about it.
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I think that some lenses have smaller apertures (eg f/4) even when open wide and this results in higher contrast images with bolder blacks and shadows.  Shots with those lenses tend to be High Contrast and those tend to be harder to alter when you might wish to lift the shadows to reveal details.  Low contrast lenses tend to be faster lenses (ef f/2 and f/1.4 etc) and they often offer a bit more leeway during editing.  Especially when lifting details from shadows.  So the lens used may play a part in what you can do.
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EOS M Default JPEGS
When the EOS M cameras arrive in the box, they have a default JPEG setting applied which is surprisingly soft and not particularly contrasted.  Personally, I was a little disappointed when I spent my first day shooting with the EOS M6 - until I realized that the camera was not doing very much to process my images like the original EOS M (Mk1) used to.
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I'll go into detail below but in a nutshell, my process is quite quick for each and any image I tweak....
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(1) Set the camera to internally process the images via User Defined settings.
(2) Download images to computer.
(3) Edit in Lightroom lightly.
(4) Tweak and save final image in Photoshop.
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USER DEFINED settings as found in the EOS M6 Manual.

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Setting up the camera:
For shooting with any of the newer EOS M cameras, you need to select a User Defined PICTURE STYLE setting as a template and then adjust it to your own preference.  I selected FINE DETAIL and this applies a respectable amount of color saturation, sharpening and contrast to the images.  I then altered the setting slightly by moving the Color Tone slider one click to the right.  This applies a little more warmth to the otherwise cool (cyan) looking images.  Note that Sharpness Strength is normally 4 by default (I think) so I've only pushed it one notch to get to 4.  Even 0 has some degree of contrast automatically applied.
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User Defined Template (Picture Style) = FINE DETAIL.
Sharpness Strength = 4
Sharpness Fineness = 1
Sharpness Threshold = 1
Contrast = 0
Saturation = 1
Color Tone = 1
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Post Processing:
I use Lightroom4 and then resize or retouch in Photoshop. Any similar program will do.  I prefer to alter the images slightly from what the camera gives me since the internal processor isn't cranked all the way up with the settings I've used above.
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In Lightroom I use the same method each time: 
* If needed I will lift the shadows lightly.
* I will enhance color vibrancy slightly.
* If any bright areas are too bold I MAY drop the intensity slightly.
* Noise and Color Noise is reduced if needed (but only slightly).
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In Photoshop I will clean up any blemishes on people's skin with the healing or clone tools.... and if I feel that the ISO was quite high (producing strong noise in a picture) I will apply more aggressive noise reduction from a Filter (plugin program) called Topaz Denoise.
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These are the sliders I tend to use in Lightroom
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Saving Images:
Then I save my image as a JPEG (level 9 quality).  If I suspect that I might need to revisit an image for either further tweaks or because I had to work hard to edit an image (eg weddings, paid projects etc) I will save as either a TIFF or a PSD file.  There's no degradation of image data with either of those two files.  Raw and Tiff are very similar in this respect... only Raw is not an image file until you extract the data.  One thing about saving as a high quality JPEG is that there's room for an emergency edit without risking too much image destruction.  Flat or toned skies are the only thing that might suffer.  But any resaving of a JPEG file always results in a small amount of image degradation each time you do it unless this file is straight from the camera.  JPEGS from the camera ought to be particularly clean with no banding in the skies and no dithering.  The algorithm used by the camera's image processor.  You can (and will) see small amounts of antialiasing from highly contrasted areas in a picture from the camera but that is usually subtle.  I've only on rare occasions needed to touch this up.
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This is the quality level I tend to save my files in after editing with Photoshop
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My method won't be the same as the techniques used by other members here and some of them will prefer to shoot RAW.  Others will question why I'd bother shooting with JPEG if I intend to edit the images later.  But each image from my camera is generally quite acceptable in JPEG form and the editing I might apply will vary in intensity from one image to another.  Some need no tweaking at all.  Others will benefit from adjusting shadows and any overly bright highlights.  
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Why do I shoot JPEG?
RAW can preserve some highlights if the images are close to being correctly exposed. That's why RAW is useful for Wedding photographers... as it allows more room to edit an image.  Of course, those images have to be reduced to TIFFS and JPEGS eventually.  The tonal values are reduced when you save as a JPEG and when you shoot with RAW, much of that data is disposed of and not all the RAW data relates to useful image data. Hence I tend to shoot with JPEG these days.  Years ago I think RAW was better for professional editing.  But cameras now do such a great job with processing the images into JPEGS these days that many pro DSLR users are now simply shooting JPEGS.  It's a personal preference but the pressure to shoot RAW is now gone and most journalists are no longer permitted to shoot RAW any more.  Most importantly, the DiGiC! Processor inside any Canon camera is now far more efficient at processing the RAW data into quality JPEGS that the average person simply isn't capable of the same level of skillful image processing themselves.
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The human eye can only perceive 10 million colors and most computer monitors can display more colors than the human eye can see.  Furthermore, a 14-bit image from a camera contains far more information and color than even the best monitors are capable of displaying.  You can see why there's a bit of a problem when most of the red and cyan shades can't even be displayed in a way that a human eye can read them.  If you want to shoot RAW, most cameras now offer this option.  The images will be bland to look at when first converted for viewing but you can then tweak them for your own preferences.   When the Canon processors convert a RAW file they tend to make use of all the most important visual data so that it ends up looking quite smart.
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EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm - Taken 2 nights ago - I have my exposure dial set to -1 which sometimes results in a slightly darker image from the camera.  Here's the Before and After example.  The image on the left is a JPEG from my camera.  The one on the right is with the shadows lifted slightly.  A full edit was applied to the one on the right with my preferred Lightroom and Photoshop settings (as per above).  Note the the colors are generally quite accurate.

EOS M6 + EF 100-400mmL II lens - The image on the right has been edited in both Lightroom and Photoshop.  But you wouldn't notice this unless I pointed it out.  The image on the left is straight out of the camera with no image processing at all.

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If you look at the two last images directly above, you'll see that I really needed to lift the shadows in the shot with the Calamari because the dimly lit restaurant combined with my camera settings resulted in a decent image that simply needed the shadows lifted slightly.  The shot with the lizard below was almost perfect straight out of the camera.  But for the lizard you'll see slightly more vivid colors in the background and slightly less noise.  That's generally all I have to do.  I'd rather under-expose than over-expose.
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But it's nice to get pleasant images straight out of the camera.  I imagine that if you didn't want to edit your images afterwards you could increase saturation and exposure using your camera's User Defined settings.  Either way, there's room to accommodate everyone's preferences.
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I hope this helps!
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Regards,
Marco Nero.

rmexpress22 wrote:

I'm a huge, huge fan of this lens. But I already own the 22mm, which I like for its compactness and I bought a Sigma 35mm Art, so I can't justify it. But every time I see pictures from it, everything looks amazing. It's like L glass for EF-m. I'm surprised they didn't give it some kind of special designation and jacked up the price for it.

I think in your instance the 35mm Art will produce very similar results (that's the f/1.4 lens, right?).  And if you own the 22mm lens, you really won't need the 32mm lens since the Art is a fine substiutute in lower light or for wide aperture shallow DOF shots.  And the 22mm f/2 is quite a superb lens to begin with with both lowlight and image quality.  Either way, those two lenses cover all your bases. I'm feeling guilty now because my EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens doesn't really seem to get much use at all these days.  It's not that it's made redundant by the 32mm lens, it's that I just enjoy the 32mm lens so darned much that I tend not to use my other lenses nearly as much as I did.  I think a few other members here have said their own 32mm lenses just stay locked on their cameras now.
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EOS M6 + EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM lens (plus Adapter)

EOS M6 + EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens (no adapter needed).
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I own the EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM lens which I have used for many years on the EOS M cameras before the EF-M 22mm f/2 STM lens became available and I feel that the results from that lens are very, very close to what I get from the EF-M 32mm f/1.4 STM lens.  The difference for me is the size and weight.  It's such a massive difference.  Since I enjoy shallow DOF photography, I'm likely to use the 32mm lens a lot more and my own shooting style is "lowlight handheld" so this too lends me to want to use this lens.
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I think Canon could have put a Red Ring on this 32mm lens and nobody would have objected if they ran the price up higher as a result.  Canon once labelled a fixed lens (PowerShot Pro1) on a compact camera with an L-series designation.  So we know they can do it if they want to.
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The L-Series 28-200mm lens on the Canon PowerShot Pro1 compact camera.

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I think I'd have liked the 32mm to have been closer to 24mm though.  It's just a little too long in some respects... which makes it a little tricky to capture wider shots for portraits or food without backing up just a little.  But those are First World problems, right?
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Thank you for that very useful information. I am not  great in PP.  I use lightroom to give a bit more snap to the pictures, highlight shadows mostly.

I never used Photoshop I would not know where to start.....

Indieke1 wrote:

Thank you for that very useful information. I am not great in PP. I use lightroom to give a bit more snap to the pictures, highlight shadows mostly.

I never used Photoshop I would not know where to start.....

Many people don't edit their images at all - and for this reason they may wish to use stronger settings than I do.  With more contrast and lighter exposures than I do.
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I generally use Photoshop to add a final tweak (touchups on faces etc) or to resize an image before saving it.  Both of these things can be done in Lightroom or even other programs.  Many people don't care to retouch their images at all.  Just as it was before cameras went digital!
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There's quite a few useful and impact settings in Lightroom that will certainly give your images more 'snap'.  If you are even simply using basic tweaks now and then you should be able to get some excellent results.  Here's a shot of one of my cats that I edited the other night.  I used my built-in flash on my M6 and tilted it up towards the ceiling with my finger.  I don't often use a flash but my room was dark.  What I did to edit the picture was to clone out stray hairs and dust that were stuck to her fur.  I added no sharpening.  The image looks acceptable to me although others might be tempted to enhance the image further.  The best thing about the EOS M cameras is that you can see instantly on the LCD whether or not the images are keepers.
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My cat Quorra - sinking into her beanbag.

Marco Nero wrote:

Indieke1 wrote:

Thank you for that very useful information. I am not great in PP. I use lightroom to give a bit more snap to the pictures, highlight shadows mostly.

I never used Photoshop I would not know where to start.....

Many people don't edit their images at all - and for this reason they may wish to use stronger settings than I do. With more contrast and lighter exposures than I do.
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I generally use Photoshop to add a final tweak (touchups on faces etc) or to resize an image before saving it. Both of these things can be done in Lightroom or even other programs. Many people don't care to retouch their images at all. Just as it was before cameras went digital!
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There's quite a few useful and impact settings in Lightroom that will certainly give your images more 'snap'. If you are even simply using basic tweaks now and then you should be able to get some excellent results. Here's a shot of one of my cats that I edited the other night. I used my built-in flash on my M6 and tilted it up towards the ceiling with my finger. I don't often use a flash but my room was dark. What I did to edit the picture was to clone out stray hairs and dust that were stuck to her fur. I added no sharpening. The image looks acceptable to me although others might be tempted to enhance the image further. The best thing about the EOS M cameras is that you can see instantly on the LCD whether or not the images are keepers.
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My cat Quorra - sinking into her beanbag.

Very nice......

The problem I am having switching to  a M 50, is also this. A Digital mirrorless camera would make sense for me, because I cannot see well close. So I get in the viewfinder what I get and not have to look at the screen all teh time. Now this camera, is focused a lot on screen settings and touchscreen. So I need my glasses again.....

Sure except maybe setting an AF point, I could handle it from the viewfinder. Also  the M 50 is always described as a beginners or blogger camera. I am not that deep into photo as you are, but the description, not really fits me. I am a holiday pictures taker, that wants to go a bit beyond. I love my Sony RX 100 m 3, the pictures that comes out of it, the colors, the contrast, the right exposure, if I am lazy, or have to go fast.  But portraits background blur, I am missing that aspect too much. Although sometimes I can manage....

Sony RX 100 M 3

whakapu wrote:

That's convenient that the cupholder holds your lens hood.

It sits firmly in place with that lens hood. There's not rattle or movement and it's easy to reach from any position in the car. Here's another pic of it without my hand in the way.
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Here it is parked.

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That might come in handy in the next Sydney heatwave. You could catch fountain water in the lens hood and drink from it.

I might be going into the Desert with it later in the year. Catching water would be more effective with the designated lens hood. That original lens hood is so huge you could use it on Free Slurpee® Day at the local 7-Eleven store.

Also, seems plenty of sharpness there for the upcoming 32.5MP sensor.

I don't know that Canon would want to use a 32MP sensor on the EOS M cameras - and the only rumor of one is from CR who not only rated the Rumor as 'CR1', but they underscored the reveal with the words "I cannot confirm this information, so please take it with a grain of salt. It is rated [CR1]." . The system will suffer if they do. Larger sensor wells are the way to go if they want more Dynamic Range coupled with better lowlight performance. The Megapixel Wars ended in the mid 2000s when the public gradually caught on that More megapixels is actually not beneficial.
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I wouldn't mind seeing Canon produce an APS-D (Advanced Photo System type-D) sensor with a slightly larger surface area and larger light-wells.  But cramming 32+PM into an APS-C sensor certainly isn't the answer... and it would also out of step with Canon's past behavior.  But the future of Canon's sensors will be in the form of a curved sensor and a complete lens redesign with yet another mount design.  It won't likely be launched in the immediate future.

whakapu wrote:

You're probably right about the direction Canon should go with sensors but that doesn't mean Canon will be right about it too. I find the rumour plausible for a couple of reasons. I suspect it's 32.5 total and 30 effective, giving about the same pixel pitch as the 20MP M4/3 sensors. Those perform competitively at a pixel level with Canon's current sensor. If Canon can match or even slightly better that pixel level performance then image level performance would be significantly better. They would of course need some diffraction reduction processing.

Canon already have a DPAF Mk II sensor in the works which has some ASTOUNDING abilities. It can eliminate Rolling Shutter Distortion and Flashband Effect, It can increase DR whilst reducing noise by splicing multiple exposures in a fraction of a second (called Multiple-Accumulation Shutter Technique).  It has far, far less power consumption and yet a yields a higher Frame Rate.  The patent number is US 9,565,381 B2 and it was lodged Feb 7, 2017.

The high-res EOS-R is expected to be about 75MP, which is also about the same pixel pitch. It would make some sense for them to design one wafer and cut it into those different slices.

The first R is a fairly solid camera but it's an incomplete one.  The High Res model probably doesn't need to be 75MP but there will be a higher res model with 8K video since Canon have alluded to one in the works.

A third reason they might do it is to compete with the D500 as a sports/wildlife camera. They already have a reach advantage from crop factor. If they couple that with a 50% resolution advantage they can blow the D500 away for pixels on subject at distance. If they build a sensor for that purpose they're unlikely to build another one for the rest of the APS-C range, with shrinking sales.

We shall soon see.

We shall indeed.  But it's baby-steps as usual.  Don't expect to see too much too soon.  I anticipate at least a couple of years before the EOS R reaches maturity.  I also expect some of the design aspects to trickle down to the EOS M.  There's two or possibly even 3 new M models on schedule for release later this year - if Nokishita (who have a 100% accuracy rating for leaks) is to be believed.  Fortunately, my M6 is something of a fully featured APS-C model camera.  The only reason to "upgrade" is if a newer model comes along that genuinely offers much, much more ability than current models.

SusanMcLaury wrote:

Newbie here - I was just about to purchase a Canon EOS M5 from B&H when I decided to come here first and check out the conversations. I have an ancient Canon 30D with some EF and EF-S lenses circa 2006, so I figured that the M5 would be perfect for this Grandma who has not done any photography for over 10 years.

But now I see you talking about a some new M cameras and lenses from Canon later this year. So my guess is that I should hold off on buying the M5 and wait to see what the new versions offer..... And... surely the price on the current M5 will drop....

Yes... I've answered my own question. Thoughts?

I hear you.  I not know your grandmother's skills and expectations.  Myself I decided to wait.  And I think for price, there are some great offerings on the M 50 now.

There are rumors, but there is no really definite answer to canon's position to the M series.  I almost bought the M 50, as the price is low with standard lens, and I can use my old 50 mm on it.  I was more going for the Sony Alpha 6400, or other. But they are very overpriced. I a m sure that if you can handle the M series well, they are not much behind the Sony.

But  take  a lot of things in consideration. How old is your grandmother, what are her skills? if she want easy things not too complicated. The reason I not go yet for a M 50 is the very low finishing in plastic and not weather proof.  The M 5 could be better in this way.  Are yous ure she not is better off in a camera without  interchangeable lens? I found the bridges of Panasonic in their time, easy to use, and very light. And with good results.  Also consider, I am 59. I would like to take something lighter then now the combination of the Sony RX and my Canon 550 D. So I think Digital viewfinder, have the advantage to not have to use your screen and glasses.

As only talking for me, IF a M 5 Mark 2 comes out, it can improve some things that is needed for some. No cropping for 4 K, better weather sealed, better engine, and by the time it would be there, an nice, faster zoom.

I do not believe in giving up on the M series. The M 50 is a hit. The R is too big for many.  I think the market is there for the M series, but not know about your grandmother.

see my pictures at
 https://www.flickr.com/photos/125991523@N03/albums

Obviously your technique works very well - your images speak for themselves. The image quality is consistently impressive and appealing - thanks as always.

OTOH....  It is hard (especially for control nuts - looking at me) to knowingly give up any image quality at all. So with every JPEG shutter click there is that  “Oh dear, maybe I could have squeezed out two percent more...” moment.

One of the great values of the images you post is to demonstrate that in the real world, clinging to this concern at a time when DIGIC is so mature and capable is pointless for the great majority of us. The fact is, DIGIC can typically do it at least as well as we can, as you show. Since you also leave room for tweaking at a subtle level that JPEG’s can handle without falling apart, you have the best of both worlds.

Combine that with the very large number of images one can now generate in a short time, and having the camera do as much as possible becomes even more attractive. I would rather leave editing large piles of RAW’s to the pros; I don’t have the time or patience. A wedding photographer needs every last bit of maneuverability - I don’t. The challenge is remembering this instead of flicking over to the RAW setting!

You argued well for this point years ago, but with current DIGIC it becomes an even more forceful argument.

In my case, there is another side to it too. I won’t subscribe, and LR6 is inevitably aging and beginning to fail; catalogs get messed up very easily. It is scary. I am amazed you can still work with version 4. So I am going to switch to ACDSee which now combines a DAM and most LR and Photoshop features in a single app. But since I have no experience yet with the results of its RAW processing, especially regarding color, letting Canon do it as a JPEG in DIGIC makes lots of sense.

I don’t think that a JPEG necessarily locks one into a particular “look”. That comes more from composing and exposing the image... Save RAW for special and unusual conditions... But this digresses back to a very old discussion....

John TF wrote:

Obviously your technique works very well - your images speak for themselves. The image quality is consistently impressive and appealing - thanks as always.

OTOH.... It is hard (especially for control nuts - looking at me) to knowingly give up any image quality at all. So with every JPEG shutter click there is that “Oh dear, maybe I could have squeezed out two percent more...” moment.

Hi John!
I think that dealing with soft transitions with skies is the only reason I'm ever tempted to shoot Raw.  Even then, I often don't bother.  But I've seen some results from another member here over a decade ago that caught my eye. He only shot RAW.  The results were beautiful.

One of the great values of the images you post is to demonstrate that in the real world, clinging to this concern at a time when DIGIC is so mature and capable is pointless for the great majority of us. The fact is, DIGIC can typically do it at least as well as we can, as you show. Since you also leave room for tweaking at a subtle level that JPEG’s can handle without falling apart, you have the best of both worlds.

So many DLSR photographers who use their cameras professionally are now shooting JPEG because they find the image quality beyong their ability to edit their RAW images to the same level... and they acknowledge that downloading a JPEG from the camera still allows plenty of editing room without any noticable loss of image quality when saving their edited JPEG images.  The shots that come out of the cameras these days are almost like TIFFs so you can keep the original as a template and then edit copied with no noticeable loss of image quality.  Only capturing in RAW to begin with will allow you a little more space to work.  I think Wedding Photographers (who are often faced with the challenge of photographing white fabrics and reflected surfaces in bright sunlight) have the best excuse to continue to shoot RAW.  And the brides themselves are keeping up with them by demanding copies of the unedited RAW images for their friends to edit for them ...and to get someone to remove blemishes etc that they don't want to employ the photographer to do. 
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This is what I'm doing for my own archives...
For my own method, I devised a similar "pipeline" for the film industry and it works very well for me today.  I download the photographs from the memory card to my computer and store them in a Master folder using a date system (see below) that can be reverse searched on any computer.  Each Master folder is in consecutive order by date and then a title (to help identify the contents) is added.  Scrolling down my PICTURE folder (where pictures are stored on my computer) I can look for specific events or subjects at a glance.
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MASTER FOLDER (date and name of event) - eg "2019.05.14 _CATS+lunch+Car"
------- EOS M6 FOLDER - (original JPEGS from camera for archiving)
------- TIFF/PSD FOLDER (large lossless files for editing and/or archiving)
------- FINALS FOLDER (these are the edited + reduced image files from the TIFFs.)
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Inside each of these Master folders contains three or more sub-folders.  One is for original JPEG images (eg EOS M6) and then there's one for edited images from Lightroom (TIFF/SPD).  When editing images the TIFFs and PSDs with layers are retained as a master copy in their parent folder.  Finally, when my images are ready to be saved for the Web or to post or email them, I'll save them off as JPEGs in the folder titled "FINALS".  You'll notice I've added the letter "L" to my edited JPEG images.  This enables me to tell at a glance if I'm looking at an edited copy or an original.  You'll see one image below has an LP on it.  That stands for "Large Panorama".  Otherwise, the "L" tells me I saved the image at either 2000 or 2500 pixels wide ("L" stands for "Large copy").  I used the save my images at about 1400 pixels wide and those were denoted with an "S" for small. 
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This is just my method of processing and saving images.  If the edit I did was complicated or I wish to save a large image as a TIFF or PSD with layers, I'll usually label the image as IMG_1111XL.psd (for example).  This warns me that the image is Extra Large (full sized). 
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Most people won't be this organized but it's easy for me to search back and find important images now that I'm taking more pictures and sometimes need to dig through hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of images running back ten to twenty years.  I try to back up all my shots on two mirrored hard drives every few months (which is risky enough with that length of delay).  I had a hard drive fail once and manged to resurrect it like a zombie ...and pulled all my image files off it successfully.  I pray it never happens again.

Combine that with the very large number of images one can now generate in a short time, and having the camera do as much as possible becomes even more attractive. I would rather leave editing large piles of RAW’s to the pros; I don’t have the time or patience. A wedding photographer needs every last bit of maneuverability - I don’t. The challenge is remembering this instead of flicking over to the RAW setting!

You argued well for this point years ago, but with current DIGIC it becomes an even more forceful argument.

I think that images from Canon's DiGiC! processors reached maturity around 2004.  This was when Canon released the PowerShot Pro1 with it's fixed L-series lens and a boasted ability to produce print-ready images straight out of the camera.  But we're seeing such excellence in JPEG image quality today that I'm still impressed by what these cameras can spit out.  The sort-of-recent Canon G1X was a successor to the Pro1 and the image quality was excellent.  This was the first PowerShot that allowed me to lift shadow detail effectively and without noticeable lost of image quality.  I have recently realized that I have set my own camera up to avoid overexposing images but everyone's method will probably work for them.  I'm wary of pushing my own setting to others in case it is in competition with their own preferences and shooting styles.

In my case, there is another side to it too. I won’t subscribe, and LR6 is inevitably aging and beginning to fail; catalogs get messed up very easily. It is scary. I am amazed you can still work with version 4. So I am going to switch to ACDSee which now combines a DAM and most LR and Photoshop features in a single app. But since I have no experience yet with the results of its RAW processing, especially regarding color, letting Canon do it as a JPEG in DIGIC makes lots of sense.

My version 4 of LR is actually kind of buggy.  If I'm trying to import a number of images at once it often drops some of them and only imports a single image.  There's also one feature that doesn't seem to work in relation to CA correction.  But it's useful for basic NR and color tweaks.

I don’t think that a JPEG necessarily locks one into a particular “look”. That comes more from composing and exposing the image... Save RAW for special and unusual conditions... But this digresses back to a very old discussion....

You're right.  And the secret to nice looking photographs usually comes down to composition and especially the light in the scene.  Beautiful lighting often brings pictures to life.  Bad lighting kills any shot.  I'm still open minded to using RAW.  I'll tell you what... I'll try to shoot a few this weekend at a birthday party.  No idea what I'll get but I'll try to shoot alongside JPEG (just in case).

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I'm concerned with what Adobe is doing with restrictions and discontinuations etc.  It's for this reason I'm forced to run an older version on my computer. But most of my motivation for doing this is that upgrading to the latest OS on my computer cancels out my Photoshop version as well as Lightroom and any Pluggins I paid for.  To make matters even worse, the upgrade to a newer OS results in my computer speakers shutting down or crackling... as well as file types not opening with shortcuts.  I'm sorry but Apple has failed me one time too many.  I'm looking at alternatives with both my computer and my editing software.   Canon's native software for RAW conversion has a few cool uses but I'm thinking of upgrading my entire computer in the near future.  The one I'm using now is getting past its life expectancy.  Not sure what the solution will be for me because Photoshop is almost like an old friend to me.  Guess I'll just have to adapt..