so this happened last week and im still a little annoyed about it honestly. did a shoot for a small commercial contractor, they wanted aerials of a job site for their portfolio and some marketing stuff. quoted them, they agreed, i delivered edited jpegs and a short video clip, everyone seemed happy

then two days later they email asking for the raw DNG files because their designer wants to retouch them differently. no mention of this in any of the conversation before the shoot, nothing in the brief

i dont have a formal contract for smaller jobs like this, which i know i know, but i wasnt sure if i was being unreasonable holding back the raws. ended up giving them this time just to avoid the headache but now im wondering what other people do. do you charge extra for raw delivery or just make it a policy thing

get a contract, even a simple one page thing, this exact situation is why. raw files are absolutely something you can and should charge extra for, theyre not part of a standard deliverable unless agreed upfront. think of it like a photographer, you dont get the negatives included in the sitting fee

i use a pretty basic service agreement i got from a template and modified, covers deliverable format, revision limits, licensing, the works. saves so much back and forth. for raws specifically i charge an additional 40% of the shoot fee and i make it clear in my quote what format theyre getting. most clients dont actually need them once you explain your editing is solid

oh man i had almost the exact same thing happen with a wedding videography client tangentially related to drone stuff, they wanted all the raw footage after and it was like 200gb of log files they had no way of even working with lol. some clients just dont understand what they're asking for

i think charging for raws makes total sense, theres also the argument that handing over raws is handing over your unfinished work and thats kind of a professional thing too not just a money thing. but yeah short answer is yes charge for it and put it in writing next time, you werent wrong to feel weird about it