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SHQ vs HQ on UZI

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Tommy Jonsson

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Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ? I zoomed in 500% and they were almost the same. Which one are most of you people using?
 
Tommy Jonsson said:
Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ?
I zoomed in 500% and they were almost the same. Which one are most
of you people using?
Click to expand...
HQ with my Uzi. With my E-100RS I have noticed some jpeg artifacts (banding in sky) at HQ; so with the E-100 I use SHQ.

Phil
 
I'll be honest. I use SHQ and probably won't ever use HQ for anything.

Memory is cheap and why would I want to take a chance that a pic won't be at it's best because I decided to save some space on a memory card.

Now if I pressed hard, I would probably shoot HQ to get a shot but with 5 64 meg cards, that won't happen often. I plan to get at least one 128 card as well.

There are certain times where HQ falls down hard. Certain scenes (landscape and wide angle shots), poor exposure or lighting can cause and HQ image to turn lousy. The biggest problem is compression artifacts that may not be seen until you zoom in a few hundred percent but it makes the 100 percent soft and lack detail.

Here's a side by side shot of two similar scenes with the left being SHQ and the right HQ. The shots are zoomed in about 200 percent. You should be able to see the JPG blocks in the HQ image. The original is soft and lacks detail.



--
John M
 
i'm using hq. i used to use shq, but i need the extra speed and space hq gives me. even with 320mg, it's only 270-280 shq, not always enough.

i couldn't see any real difference between them, but the difference in continues mode is very clear and important to me.

if i wasn't so lazy i would switch between them for action shots and regular shots, but i hate fiddling with the menus.
avian
John M said:
I'll be honest. I use SHQ and probably won't ever use HQ for anything.
Memory is cheap and why would I want to take a chance that a pic
won't be at it's best because I decided to save some space on a
memory card.
Now if I pressed hard, I would probably shoot HQ to get a shot but
with 5 64 meg cards, that won't happen often. I plan to get at
least one 128 card as well.

There are certain times where HQ falls down hard. Certain scenes
(landscape and wide angle shots), poor exposure or lighting can
cause and HQ image to turn lousy. The biggest problem is
compression artifacts that may not be seen until you zoom in a few
hundred percent but it makes the 100 percent soft and lack detail.

Here's a side by side shot of two similar scenes with the left
being SHQ and the right HQ. The shots are zoomed in about 200
percent. You should be able to see the JPG blocks in the HQ image.
The original is soft and lacks detail.



--
John M
Click to expand...
 
Same here, I had switched one of my cameras to SHQ and forgot about it. Later I was shooting some action shots or attempting to and it was taking way to long for the pic to write. I rarely print bigger than 5x7 and the 8x10s I have printed look fine to me at HQ.
Ron S.
avian said:
John M said:
I'll be honest. I use SHQ and probably won't ever use HQ for anything.
Memory is cheap and why would I want to take a chance that a pic
won't be at it's best because I decided to save some space on a
memory card.
Now if I pressed hard, I would probably shoot HQ to get a shot but
with 5 64 meg cards, that won't happen often. I plan to get at
least one 128 card as well.

There are certain times where HQ falls down hard. Certain scenes
(landscape and wide angle shots), poor exposure or lighting can
cause and HQ image to turn lousy. The biggest problem is
compression artifacts that may not be seen until you zoom in a few
hundred percent but it makes the 100 percent soft and lack detail.

Here's a side by side shot of two similar scenes with the left
being SHQ and the right HQ. The shots are zoomed in about 200
percent. You should be able to see the JPG blocks in the HQ image.
The original is soft and lacks detail.



--
John M
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
You may not notice it unless you zoom in to 200% but if you do any type of digital editing in photoshop or other programs the HQ quality will be come very noticable as perform color correction and adjust levels/curves, hue/saturation whatever. The artifacts and blockyness is much more pronounced when performing these operations.

Banding in the sky can be noticed easily at 100%. And its not just the sky but anything with a solid consistant flat color...like a painted wall or sold color shirt etc. you get the idea.

I'm stickin with SHQ.
Tommy Jonsson said:
Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ?
I zoomed in 500% and they were almost the same. Which one are most
of you people using?
Click to expand...
--
Oly 3030z & c-2100 UZI
 
Assuming I get better end product with SHQ, I started out using SHQ only. I have one 64Mb card so I get about 22 pictures. I have programmed HQ to my own liking (which I can't remember without camera in front of me) so that I get 50+ pictures out of it. So now, when I am taking "snapshots" I use HQ, when I am taking "real photos" I use SHQ. I switch back and forth.
Tommy Jonsson said:
Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ?
I zoomed in 500% and they were almost the same. Which one are most
of you people using?
Click to expand...
--
Bob,
never lost -- ever
Oly C2100-UZ, Oly XA-2
 
Tommy Jonsson said:
Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ?
Click to expand...
I've had very good results with HQ (3000+ in my 2100). Here is an HQ shot. Below it is a shot of a 16 X 24 print made from it that is on my wall. Sorry about the poor quality of the wall shot. The print looks much better. It was shot at ISO 200, 1/5 second, hand held.





--
****
http://www.pbase.com/dickh/
 
John, have you tried replicating this comparison? It just seems extreme - the HQ shot looks like it was taken with a webcam; I've never noticed that much difference between SHQ and HQ (and I mostly use HQ). Perhaps some settings (focus, etc.) changed between the two shots?

Misha
 
I have done at least 25 comparisons and never have I found any differences. The examples posted are not anything like the results from my tests. To me (and I like to think I am critical) there simply isn't near enough difference to warrant using SHQ. The fact that memory is cheap is just not reason enough to use SHQ .
Thats my opinion.
John M said:
I'll be honest. I use SHQ and probably won't ever use HQ for anything.
Memory is cheap and why would I want to take a chance that a pic
won't be at it's best because I decided to save some space on a
memory card.
Now if I pressed hard, I would probably shoot HQ to get a shot but
with 5 64 meg cards, that won't happen often. I plan to get at
least one 128 card as well.

There are certain times where HQ falls down hard. Certain scenes
(landscape and wide angle shots), poor exposure or lighting can
cause and HQ image to turn lousy. The biggest problem is
compression artifacts that may not be seen until you zoom in a few
hundred percent but it makes the 100 percent soft and lack detail.

Here's a side by side shot of two similar scenes with the left
being SHQ and the right HQ. The shots are zoomed in about 200
percent. You should be able to see the JPG blocks in the HQ image.
The original is soft and lacks detail.



--
John M
Click to expand...
 
At first I used the lowest quality setting since I could get more pictures on the card. Memory is so cheap now that I only shot SHQ now and appreciate the higher quality. I can always downsize in post processing but can't upsize.

SHQ it is for me.
Tommy Jonsson said:
Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ?
I zoomed in 500% and they were almost the same. Which one are most
of you people using?
Click to expand...
--

http://www.pbase.com/jrwfrog/

Okie

'Reality is frequently inaccurate.' Douglas Adams
 
The listed number of photos on a card is really just an average estimate, in real time shooting, each photo is a different file size and you will likely end up with more photos on your card. I can often get 100=images on a 128 meg card with my UZI in SHQ mode, and once had just short of 300 in HQ mode (necessary to shoot in sequence mode at a hockey game).

Robert Mossack
 
Tommy Jonsson said:
Let´s be honest, is there any visual differance between SHQ and HQ?
I zoomed in 500% and they were almost the same. Which one are most
of you people using?
Click to expand...
I did a series of tests when I originally got my first UZI and could tell no useful differences, even when zoomed at 500%, between SHQ and HQ. Here's the thread (yes, I know the sample pics are gone...I'll try to put them back up if I can find them):

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1008&message=1417264

Yes, memory is cheap, and if there was a difference that I could tell between the two formats, I'd use the lower compression one. But, my own testing yielded no meaningful differences, so I consistently use HQ (except for when I need a TIF).
  • CraigF
UZI (x2) + B-300
 
So why would you need a Tiff? Can you see a difference between Tiff and Hq?

Personally I shoot at SHQ unless I'm pressed for space. I often find that I want to print a picture that I hadn't planned to print. I'm convinced that at 8x10 and higher there are noticeable differences. But if your happy driving your Porshe at 20 miles per hour than so be it. I prefer quality to volume.

Regards
Gary
 
Perhaps a blind test would be usefull, comparing SHQ with HQ without knowing which was which? Anyhow, I can´t see the significant differance, I don´t do alot of post-processing (thus the possible advantages of SHQ in that respect can be neglected).

I DID notice a differance when I cropped a pic heavily and then upsized it in photoshop- the SHQ was better. But it is questionable whether I would notice it printed on a normal sized photo.
Since I mostly print 10*15 cm pics I will continue using HQ.

Also, as someone mentioned- HQ is considerably faster, and this is more noticeable to me than the differance in image quality. If the speed was the same, I would probably switch to SHQ just to be sure (memory is cheap, as some mentioned), but as it stands, HQ is the winner for me.

And Garry, try the blind test. If you are still convinced after that, cudos to you.
Gary said:
So why would you need a Tiff? Can you see a difference between
Tiff and Hq?

Personally I shoot at SHQ unless I'm pressed for space. I often
find that I want to print a picture that I hadn't planned to print.
I'm convinced that at 8x10 and higher there are noticeable
differences. But if your happy driving your Porshe at 20 miles per
hour than so be it. I prefer quality to volume.

Regards
Gary
Click to expand...
 
John, the originals may indeed look like that, but sorry, they are not representative. Even the SHQ shot looks very poor, and the HQ seems just different - its color is inverted, like a negative, and it's so blocky that it seems compressed to just a few kilobytes. I agree that in some instances SHQ shots may be slightly cleaner, but this pair seems more an aberration than a typical example.

--
Misha
 
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