D8X0 & memory and PC Requirements?

[BobWorrell]

I process my images in PS6 and I start with JPG first, which 95% of the time is fine. Only in difficult situation that I would go to my Raw file.

I had just converted from D3 to a D800. With both cameras, I shot RAW + JPG. In D3, I left the JPG at max. resolution because it was only 12+ mpx. But in the D800, I shoot Raw + JPG in Medium file size (20 mpx instead of 36 mpx). The reason being, 20 mpx is good enough for 99% of my work even when I want to print 16x20 enlargement. And if I crop a bit more or want a 20x30 enlargement, I'd always have the 36 mpx raw file to fall back into.

With that set up, I use a 32 gb SD card as primary for RAW storage, and a 16 gb CF for JPG. I like the sturdy feel of the CF and since I would use the JPG a lot more than I use the Raw, I chose the CF to save my JPG files. I have my setting to shoot 14-bite raw, loseless compression. When I format my cards, the camera said I have 399 frames to go. But that's based on totally uncompressed raw. The general consensus from other D8x0 users is it can hold around 700+ pictures.

I alternate the use of two laptops to process my images. A i7 with 12 gb ram, and a Pentium dual-core with 4 gb ram. I can tell you that the larger file is noticeably slower than the 12 mpx files from D3. On the slower machine, I constantly see the progress bar popping up when I change any adjustment or cropping. That never happened with the 12 mpx files. The i7 is much better, but still it is noticeable.

Needless to say, with the size much bigger as the mpx grows, you'd need more storage. But hard drive is cheap enough today, that should not be a problem, providing you have a good management scheme.

Hope this helps.

Thanks DMKAlex,

I see that I can shoot 36mpx raw and 20mpx jpeg which makes some sense. And I agree that an external HD should not be much cost. So it is if I will need to upgrade my PC, some are saying I probably should have to, certainly at least loads more RAM.

Interesting that you save the jpeg to a CF card and the raws to an SD. I wonder which of them is the slowest write time because that may limit your burst depth no?

Mark_A

The SD is a little slower.

 

[BobWorrell]

I am considering a used D800, I like most things about the idea but am concerned about file sizes and storage / processing requirements. I hope some existing users can help me on this.

1) How big are Raw+ a Jpeg files in mb at max resolution?

2) How big a card will I need for a few hundred images (Raw+Jpeg) per card?

3) Processing Raw images in Lightroom, I have a Pentium Dual-Core E6700 @ 3.2GHz, with 3Gb Ram, will that be enough for reasonable speed image processing?

Memory and processing wise this would be a big change for me as I am used to working with 2.5mb fine jpeg images.

I am sure other questions will present themselves.

Hope you can advise.

Mark_A

I process my images in PS6 and I start with JPG first, which 95% of the time is fine. Only in difficult situation that I would go to my Raw file.

I had just converted from D3 to a D800. With both cameras, I shot RAW + JPG. In D3, I left the JPG at max. resolution because it was only 12+ mpx. But in the D800, I shoot Raw + JPG in Medium file size (20 mpx instead of 36 mpx). The reason being, 20 mpx is good enough for 99% of my work even when I want to print 16x20 enlargement. And if I crop a bit more or want a 20x30 enlargement, I'd always have the 36 mpx raw file to fall back into.

What settings are you using for your Raw files?

if you shoot uncompressed 14 bit .NEF they should be around 71 megabytes.

With that set up, I use a 32 gb SD card as primary for RAW storage, and a 16 gb CF for JPG. I like the sturdy feel of the CF and since I would use the JPG a lot more than I use the Raw, I chose the CF to save my JPG files. I have my setting to shoot 14-bite raw, loseless compression. When I format my cards, the camera said I have 399 frames to go. But that's based on totally uncompressed raw. The general consensus from other D8x0 users is it can hold around 700+ pictures.

I alternate the use of two laptops to process my images. A i7 with 12 gb ram, and a Pentium dual-core with 4 gb ram. I can tell you that the larger file is noticeably slower than the 12 mpx files from D3. On the slower machine, I constantly see the progress bar popping up when I change any adjustment or cropping. That never happened with the 12 mpx files. The i7 is much better, but still it is noticeable.

Needless to say, with the size much bigger as the mpx grows, you'd need more storage. But hard drive is cheap enough today, that should not be a problem, providing you have a good management scheme.

Hope this helps.

 

[DMKAlex]

The SD is a little slower.

My SD is 90mb/s and the CF is only 45mb/s. The CF is an older card I carry over from my D3 days.

I don't really think that matters because there is enough buffer to save around 8 pictures. I seldom shoot 8 pictures continuously. And I don't shoot video. At least not yet.

If and when I upgrade to a much faster and higher capacity CF, I will swap the primary and secondary slot and save the raw to which ever is the faster and bigger card.

 

[DMKAlex]

BobWorrell wrote:What settings are you using for your Raw files?

if you shoot uncompressed 14 bit .NEF they should be around 71 megabytes.

14 bite, lostless compression.

There was a thread that discuss the merit of lostless compression, vs uncompressed somewhere in the forum. The consensus seems to think there is absolutely no degradation with lostless compressed images.

 

[Jones0610]

I don't use Lightroom at the moment, presently I use Elements, but with the next camera I am figuring on taking Adobe's monthy deal for Lightroom and Photoshop.

You CAN buy LR 6 on a DVD. Look at B&H; they sell it cheaper than Adobe does. Plus, Adobe hides the link where you can buy the DVD because they want you to rent software from them.

+1

For me, the perpetual license, standalone LR is the best value by far. It comes to about $5/month if you buy each major upgrade that comes along.

3 Gb RAM is DEFINITELY not enough for a win10 machine. Each time I buy a new camera there are a whole lot of other things that need to be upgraded as well. Lightroom, my PC, blah, blah, blah. That's just the way the technology is. If you only shoot jeg your costs are minimal. But so too is your ability to pp your photos and even the experts rarely get perfect photos in camera. Well.... the better you are at photography, the more you notice little things that can easily be corrected in PS/LR. I long ago became dissatisfied with the limitations of shooting jpeg. YMMV

 

[BobWorrell]

The SD is a little slower.

My SD is 90mb/s and the CF is only 45mb/s. The CF is an older card I carry over from my D3 days.

I don't really think that matters because there is enough buffer to save around 8 pictures. I seldom shoot 8 pictures continuously. And I don't shoot video. At least not yet.

If and when I upgrade to a much faster and higher capacity CF, I will swap the primary and secondary slot and save the raw to which ever is the faster and bigger card.

I understand if the card its an old slower CF card it will be slower than the SD.

My statement was based on newer equivalent SD and CF cards, The CF will be a little faster than the SD.

 

[BobWorrell]

BobWorrell wrote:What settings are you using for your Raw files?

if you shoot uncompressed 14 bit .NEF they should be around 71 megabytes.

14 bite, lostless compression.

There was a thread that discuss the merit of lostless compression, vs uncompressed somewhere in the forum. The consensus seems to think there is absolutely no degradation with lostless compressed images.

Thanks,Yes i've seen that post, but my cards are big enough, and my computer is fast enough, so I just leave it uncompressed.

 

[chuxter]

BobWorrell wrote:What settings are you using for your Raw files?

if you shoot uncompressed 14 bit .NEF they should be around 71 megabytes.

14 bite, lostless compression.

There was a thread that discuss the merit of lostless compression, vs uncompressed somewhere in the forum. The consensus seems to think there is absolutely no degradation with lostless compressed images.

The "consensus" is worthless. The name should give everyone a clue; "Lossless Compressed". We don't have to vote on it! It's silly to use anything else, IMO.

 

[DMKAlex]

The SD is a little slower.

My SD is 90mb/s and the CF is only 45mb/s. The CF is an older card I carry over from my D3 days.

I don't really think that matters because there is enough buffer to save around 8 pictures. I seldom shoot 8 pictures continuously. And I don't shoot video. At least not yet.

If and when I upgrade to a much faster and higher capacity CF, I will swap the primary and secondary slot and save the raw to which ever is the faster and bigger card.

I understand if the card its an old slower CF card it will be slower than the SD.

My statement was based on newer equivalent SD and CF cards, The CF will be a little faster than the SD.

I started with something really slow 8 years ago when I bought the D3. It never bothered me regarding writing time.

Again, there is buffer. And I don't shoot video.

I doubt that I will get a newer/faster/bigger CF soon. My current set up allows me 700+ shots RAW + JPG. And in my camera bag, there are 2 more 16 GB CF (same 45 mb/s) and one more 32 GB SD as spare.

Did you ever get hang up while the cards were being written?

 

[calson]

When I got the D800e the only adjustment I made was larger capacity CF cards and adding USB 3 card readers. My computer with its i7 3.4GHz processor is plenty fast enough and it already had 24GB of RAM. I use a 1GB Ethernet connection between the workstation and the QNAP RAID NAS for speed as well.

I was surprised the first time I opened a RAW file in Photoshop and saved it as a TIFF format file to see that it was now 80MB in size. This was before adding any adjustment layers. Batch processing takes a great deal longer with the bottleneck being the I/O or input and output of the data. I gained some increases in performance by having my data input on one drive and the output going to two RAID1 drives that are all inside the PC and so using eSATA connections.

A SSD might help for the operating system and Photoshop but I have not come across any real world test results to confirm this one way or the other. I would never use a SSD for data storage as I put reliability and durability over performance. It would be safe for holding data temporarily to be processed in batch mode as long as the data was backed up somewhere else as on RAID NAS box.

I bought CF cards but if I had it to do over I would buy only higher capacity SDXC cards and forget about the Dxx cameras' CF card slot as my other cameras use SDXC cards and they work with the internal card reader in my laptops. The SDXC cards are also about half the cost per GB for the high performance memory cards.

 

[Truman Prevatt]

If you use lossless compression on a 32 gig SD card you will get at least 390 14 bit images. 32 gig cards are inexpensive. Since lossless compressed files are compressed they will all be slightly different sizes and you get more then the min reported to the camera when you insert an empty card. In general I find a full card will hold up to 450 raw images. The size of each raw file ranges from 40 to 50 MB.

As far as RAM - at least 8 GB 16 would be better. A Windows box will probably require a little more than a Linux box or a Mac.

In the D800 you can direct Raw to one card and Jpeg to the other if you want.

 

[scokill]

Romfordbluenose is right.........you'll need a new PC.

I have an ASUS laptop with a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and an I-7xxxx (can't remember) and a 1GB (or is it 2GB?) NVDIA graphics accelerator card (GPU). The CPU is a turbo boost 2.9GHz boosted as necessary to 3.6GHz. But the point I'm making follows:

My sad experience with LR v5x was that my D810 14 bit files (about 45MB each) exhibited posterization. I found out that LR5 did NOT use the NVIDIA GPU. Upon learning that LR6 was coming out and advertised as using the GPU, I paid the $75 upgrade fee and thought my problems would be over.

Wrong: LR v6 uses the GPU only in the Develop Module. And that's true........my pics look great only in the Develop Module. When viewing images in the Library module, they have that same old posterization issue. Unacceptable.

My fix was to purchase DxO Optics Pro 10. It uses the NVIDIA GPU in all modules and my issue is now solved. LR is now relegated to be used as a database only.

Hi Lucky Sky,

At the moment I have a Pentium Dual Core CPU E6700 @ 3.2GHz with 3GB RAM the OS is win 10 64bit - I don't know where in Win 10 to find out what my graphics card is.

Mark_A

Your motherboard will not likely support the amount of RAM folks are recommending. There is a lot of variance in LGA775 boards. Before you spend any money on RAM, understand what type, speed, and max amount your motherboard supports. I would agree that if the RAM is holding performance back it's a great investment...however, with your system I think you would be throwing good money after bad with the E6700 processor and graphics given your processor is likely substandard. You will likely see modest gains in performance with more RAM primarily within a multitasking environment.

 

[Mark_A]

Romfordbluenose is right.........you'll need a new PC.

I have an ASUS laptop with a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and an I-7xxxx (can't remember) and a 1GB (or is it 2GB?) NVDIA graphics accelerator card (GPU). The CPU is a turbo boost 2.9GHz boosted as necessary to 3.6GHz. But the point I'm making follows:

My sad experience with LR v5x was that my D810 14 bit files (about 45MB each) exhibited posterization. I found out that LR5 did NOT use the NVIDIA GPU. Upon learning that LR6 was coming out and advertised as using the GPU, I paid the $75 upgrade fee and thought my problems would be over.

Wrong: LR v6 uses the GPU only in the Develop Module. And that's true........my pics look great only in the Develop Module. When viewing images in the Library module, they have that same old posterization issue. Unacceptable.

My fix was to purchase DxO Optics Pro 10. It uses the NVIDIA GPU in all modules and my issue is now solved. LR is now relegated to be used as a database only.

Hi Lucky Sky,

At the moment I have a Pentium Dual Core CPU E6700 @ 3.2GHz with 3GB RAM the OS is win 10 64bit - I don't know where in Win 10 to find out what my graphics card is.

Mark_A

Your motherboard will not likely support the amount of RAM folks are recommending. There is a lot of variance in LGA775 boards. Before you spend any money on RAM, understand what type, speed, and max amount your motherboard supports. I would agree that if the RAM is holding performance back it's a great investment...however, with your system I think you would be throwing good money after bad with the E6700 processor and graphics given your processor is likely substandard. You will likely see modest gains in performance with more RAM primarily within a multitasking environment.

You could be right, I have to know more RAM will be compatible. The thread is useful because it is making me think of the other things I will need to cope with the file sizes and that was my intention. I am in no hurry to make a purchase, just wanting to know the full implications.

Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

Mark_A

 

[BobWorrell]

The SD is a little slower.

My SD is 90mb/s and the CF is only 45mb/s. The CF is an older card I carry over from my D3 days.

I don't really think that matters because there is enough buffer to save around 8 pictures. I seldom shoot 8 pictures continuously. And I don't shoot video. At least not yet.

If and when I upgrade to a much faster and higher capacity CF, I will swap the primary and secondary slot and save the raw to which ever is the faster and bigger card.

I understand if the card its an old slower CF card it will be slower than the SD.

My statement was based on newer equivalent SD and CF cards, The CF will be a little faster than the SD.

I started with something really slow 8 years ago when I bought the D3. It never bothered me regarding writing time.

Again, there is buffer. And I don't shoot video.

I doubt that I will get a newer/faster/bigger CF soon. My current set up allows me 700+ shots RAW + JPG. And in my camera bag, there are 2 more 16 GB CF (same 45 mb/s) and one more 32 GB SD as spare.

Did you ever get hang up while the cards were being written?

Yes, I used to run out of buffer on my D800 with my old CF and SD cards with a long sports burst, with My D810 and and 32GB lexar 1000x UDMA 7 CF I dont have that problem very often.

 

[nkistrup]

I am considering a used D800, I like most things about the idea but am concerned about file sizes and storage / processing requirements. I hope some existing users can help me on this.

1) How big are Raw+ a Jpeg files in mb at max resolution?

2) How big a card will I need for a few hundred images (Raw+Jpeg) per card?

3) Processing Raw images in Lightroom, I have a Pentium Dual-Core E6700 @ 3.2GHz, with 3Gb Ram, will that be enough for reasonable speed image processing?

Memory and processing wise this would be a big change for me as I am used to working with 2.5mb fine jpeg images.

I am sure other questions will present themselves.

Hope you can advise.

Mark_A

Romfordbluenose is right.........you'll need a new PC.

I have an ASUS laptop with a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and an I-7xxxx (can't remember) and a 1GB (or is it 2GB?) NVDIA graphics accelerator card (GPU). The CPU is a turbo boost 2.9GHz boosted as necessary to 3.6GHz. But the point I'm making follows:

My sad experience with LR v5x was that my D810 14 bit files (about 45MB each) exhibited posterization. I found out that LR5 did NOT use the NVIDIA GPU. Upon learning that LR6 was coming out and advertised as using the GPU, I paid the $75 upgrade fee and thought my problems would be over.

Wrong: LR v6 uses the GPU only in the Develop Module. And that's true........my pics look great only in the Develop Module. When viewing images in the Library module, they have that same old posterization issue. Unacceptable.

My fix was to purchase DxO Optics Pro 10. It uses the NVIDIA GPU in all modules and my issue is now solved. LR is now relegated to be used as a database only.

 

[Lucky Sky]

Romfordbluenose is right.........you'll need a new PC.

I have an ASUS laptop with a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and an I-7xxxx (can't remember) and a 1GB (or is it 2GB?) NVDIA graphics accelerator card (GPU). The CPU is a turbo boost 2.9GHz boosted as necessary to 3.6GHz. But the point I'm making follows:

My sad experience with LR v5x was that my D810 14 bit files (about 45MB each) exhibited posterization. I found out that LR5 did NOT use the NVIDIA GPU. Upon learning that LR6 was coming out and advertised as using the GPU, I paid the $75 upgrade fee and thought my problems would be over.

Wrong: LR v6 uses the GPU only in the Develop Module. And that's true........my pics look great only in the Develop Module. When viewing images in the Library module, they have that same old posterization issue. Unacceptable.

My fix was to purchase DxO Optics Pro 10. It uses the NVIDIA GPU in all modules and my issue is now solved. LR is now relegated to be used as a database only.

Hi Lucky Sky,

At the moment I have a Pentium Dual Core CPU E6700 @ 3.2GHz with 3GB RAM the OS is win 10 64bit - I don't know where in Win 10 to find out what my graphics card is.

Mark_A

I hate to go old school, but I found the graphics card info via a label on the keyboard of the laptop: NVIDIA Geoforce 635M 2GB.

 

[Kitacanon]

Romfordbluenose is right.........you'll need a new PC.

I have an ASUS laptop with a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and an I-7xxxx (can't remember) and a 1GB (or is it 2GB?) NVDIA graphics accelerator card (GPU). The CPU is a turbo boost 2.9GHz boosted as necessary to 3.6GHz. But the point I'm making follows:

My sad experience with LR v5x was that my D810 14 bit files (about 45MB each) exhibited posterization. I found out that LR5 did NOT use the NVIDIA GPU. Upon learning that LR6 was coming out and advertised as using the GPU, I paid the $75 upgrade fee and thought my problems would be over.

Wrong: LR v6 uses the GPU only in the Develop Module. And that's true........my pics look great only in the Develop Module. When viewing images in the Library module, they have that same old posterization issue. Unacceptable.

My fix was to purchase DxO Optics Pro 10. It uses the NVIDIA GPU in all modules and my issue is now solved. LR is now relegated to be used as a database only.

Hi Lucky Sky,

At the moment I have a Pentium Dual Core CPU E6700 @ 3.2GHz with 3GB RAM the OS is win 10 64bit - I don't know where in Win 10 to find out what my graphics card is.

Mark_A

Your motherboard will not likely support the amount of RAM folks are recommending. There is a lot of variance in LGA775 boards. Before you spend any money on RAM, understand what type, speed, and max amount your motherboard supports. I would agree that if the RAM is holding performance back it's a great investment...however, with your system I think you would be throwing good money after bad with the E6700 processor and graphics given your processor is likely substandard. You will likely see modest gains in performance with more RAM primarily within a multitasking environment.

You could be right, I have to know more RAM will be compatible. The thread is useful because it is making me think of the other things I will need to cope with the file sizes and that was my intention. I am in no hurry to make a purchase, just wanting to know the full implications.

Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

Mark_A

Go to Crucial.com to run their test on memory capacity limits/compatibility...simple....

 

[Mark_A]

Romfordbluenose is right.........you'll need a new PC.

I have an ASUS laptop with a 1TB SSD, 16GB RAM and an I-7xxxx (can't remember) and a 1GB (or is it 2GB?) NVDIA graphics accelerator card (GPU). The CPU is a turbo boost 2.9GHz boosted as necessary to 3.6GHz. But the point I'm making follows:

My sad experience with LR v5x was that my D810 14 bit files (about 45MB each) exhibited posterization. I found out that LR5 did NOT use the NVIDIA GPU. Upon learning that LR6 was coming out and advertised as using the GPU, I paid the $75 upgrade fee and thought my problems would be over.

Wrong: LR v6 uses the GPU only in the Develop Module. And that's true........my pics look great only in the Develop Module. When viewing images in the Library module, they have that same old posterization issue. Unacceptable.

My fix was to purchase DxO Optics Pro 10. It uses the NVIDIA GPU in all modules and my issue is now solved. LR is now relegated to be used as a database only.

Hi Lucky Sky,

At the moment I have a Pentium Dual Core CPU E6700 @ 3.2GHz with 3GB RAM the OS is win 10 64bit - I don't know where in Win 10 to find out what my graphics card is.

Mark_A

I hate to go old school, but I found the graphics card info via a label on the keyboard of the laptop: NVIDIA Geoforce 635M 2GB.

I have a Intel(R) G41 Express Chipset (Microsoft Corporation - WDDM 1.1), AKA "GMA X4500"

Don't ask me what that means

Mark_A

 

[Mark_A]

You could be right, I have to know more RAM will be compatible. The thread is useful because it is making me think of the other things I will need to cope with the file sizes and that was my intention. I am in no hurry to make a purchase, just wanting to know the full implications.

Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

Mark_A

Go to Crucial.com to run their test on memory capacity limits/compatibility...simple....

Hi Kitacanon, thanks for that, I will have a play. Mark_A

 

[Josh152]

If you use lossless compression on a 32 gig SD card you will get at least 390 14 bit images. 32 gig cards are inexpensive. Since lossless compressed files are compressed they will all be slightly different sizes and you get more then the min reported to the camera when you insert an empty card. In general I find a full card will hold up to 450 raw images. The size of each raw file ranges from 40 to 50 MB.

As far as RAM - at least 8 GB 16 would be better. A Windows box will probably require a little more than a Linux box or a Mac.

In the D800 you can direct Raw to one card and Jpeg to the other if you want.