Leaderboard

I'm not sure what sort of image quality you are after but as far as resolution goes, 16MB should be ample. Other characteristics - eg: shadow details, noise - will depend upon sensor technology, quality and size - both of the pixels and of the sensor itself. RAW simply gives you an opportunity to, essentially, retake the shot since it stores all of the data collected at the instant of shutter release and gives it to you to manipulate at your leisure. And no, your 15 year old software will most certainly not recognise RAW files from modern cameras. RAW files vary not only from camera maker to camera maker but between models as well which is why there are constant updates to Lightroom so it can recognise the latest RAW files from the latest model cameras. Taking pictures in RAW is just sensible. Why discard all that lovely usable data just to save space on your card? Gigabytes are cheap. Keep the data and use it if you need to 'retake' the shot to get light, shadow, white balance correct. Your Nikkor 1.4 portrait lens should do the job nicely.