A99 "hack"?: Use a DT lens for sRAW

joerawr · Jan 25, 2013

Something I liked about my old Canon 40D was the sRaw, aka small raw, setting. All the benefits of shooting raw, but in a just for the Web sized file. A great example of when this was handy was shooting the LA Auto show. I'm there just for fun, shooting 300-500 pics, destined for the web. No prints, but the mixed lighting, and the color cast from the huge projection screens can confuse AWB. So sRaw + Jpeg was the safe bet.

In the scheming of my A77 to A99 upgrade, I had this [possible] epiphany that using DT lenses essentially enables the equivalent of sRaw mode.

In my plan for the upgrading to the A99, I had my 35mm F/1.8 DT on my sell list. But all of a sudden I'm thinking this lens would be the perfect lens for something like an autoshow, enabling "sRaw". Shoot, even in jpeg only mode it makes sense for web output.

So am I getting it right? Making sense? Am I missing something? Sure it's only 10MP of the sensor, but those are FAT pixels, compared to an A77 (and WAY fatter than the S95 that I took last year to the autoshow) so the light gathering, color, depth etc, should still be pretty damn good. The disk space archival savings might even offset the sale price of the 35 DT.

I seriously think I am missing something. Am I?

remylebeau · Jan 25, 2013

joerawr said:
joerawr wrote:

Something I liked about my old Canon 40D was the sRaw, aka small raw, setting. All the benefits of shooting raw, but in a just for the Web sized file. A great example of when this was handy was shooting the LA Auto show. I'm there just for fun, shooting 300-500 pics, destined for the web. No prints, but the mixed lighting, and the color cast from the huge projection screens can confuse AWB. So sRaw + Jpeg was the safe bet.

In the scheming of my A77 to A99 upgrade, I had this [possible] epiphany that using DT lenses essentially enables the equivalent of sRaw mode.

In my plan for the upgrading to the A99, I had my 35mm F/1.8 DT on my sell list. But all of a sudden I'm thinking this lens would be the perfect lens for something like an autoshow, enabling "sRaw". Shoot, even in jpeg only mode it makes sense for web output.

So am I getting it right? Making sense? Am I missing something? Sure it's only 10MP of the sensor, but those are FAT pixels, compared to an A77 (and WAY fatter than the S95 that I took last year to the autoshow) so the light gathering, color, depth etc, should still be pretty damn good. The disk space archival savings might even offset the sale price of the 35 DT.

I seriously think I am missing something. Am I?

Yeah that's part of the reason why I decided to keep my 16-50mm despite selling my a77 and DT lenses. I wanted the smaller Raw file sizes and also the lens for video since its parfocal and silent AF motor.

I still wish it was an actual feature we can select in-menu so it works for all lenses though but for now it's a good workaround.

Michael Fritzen · Jan 25, 2013

Hi,

I'm not sure if I got it right but the A99 has an APS-C mode selectable manually via menu when you want to force the crop mode with a FF lens or you can let the A99 in the auto-crop-mode what means that any time a DT lens is mounted the camera switch to that mode - independently of the recording format (RAW or JPG). This was actually a feature of the A850/900 already but the big advantage of the EVF of the A99 (A77 too I guess) that the view through the VF changes accordingly whereas on the A850/900 one had to consider faint markings in the OVF. Hope this is what you wanted to know.

tqlla · Jan 25, 2013

joerawr said:
joerawr wrote:

Something I liked about my old Canon 40D was the sRaw, aka small raw, setting. All the benefits of shooting raw, but in a just for the Web sized file. A great example of when this was handy was shooting the LA Auto show. I'm there just for fun, shooting 300-500 pics, destined for the web. No prints, but the mixed lighting, and the color cast from the huge projection screens can confuse AWB. So sRaw + Jpeg was the safe bet.

In the scheming of my A77 to A99 upgrade, I had this [possible] epiphany that using DT lenses essentially enables the equivalent of sRaw mode.

In my plan for the upgrading to the A99, I had my 35mm F/1.8 DT on my sell list. But all of a sudden I'm thinking this lens would be the perfect lens for something like an autoshow, enabling "sRaw". Shoot, even in jpeg only mode it makes sense for web output.

So am I getting it right? Making sense? Am I missing something? Sure it's only 10MP of the sensor, but those are FAT pixels, compared to an A77 (and WAY fatter than the S95 that I took last year to the autoshow) so the light gathering, color, depth etc, should still be pretty damn good. The disk space archival savings might even offset the sale price of the 35 DT.

I seriously think I am missing something. Am I?

Yes, you are missing something. 3/5s of the frame. DT mode crops your picture, so you are only using the center of the frame. Essentially, you lose 3/5 of the picture. Is there no sRaw on the A99?

sRaw compresses the raw file, but leaves you with most of the information after decompression. Its supposedly lossless.

I would sell the 35mm, and use it for a bigger card. I took over 2000pics in raw on my Monster 64GB CF card, in my A850.

TrojMacReady · Jan 25, 2013

joerawr said:
joerawr wrote:

Something I liked about my old Canon 40D was the sRaw, aka small raw, setting. All the benefits of shooting raw, but in a just for the Web sized file. A great example of when this was handy was shooting the LA Auto show. I'm there just for fun, shooting 300-500 pics, destined for the web. No prints, but the mixed lighting, and the color cast from the huge projection screens can confuse AWB. So sRaw + Jpeg was the safe bet.

In the scheming of my A77 to A99 upgrade, I had this [possible] epiphany that using DT lenses essentially enables the equivalent of sRaw mode.

In my plan for the upgrading to the A99, I had my 35mm F/1.8 DT on my sell list. But all of a sudden I'm thinking this lens would be the perfect lens for something like an autoshow, enabling "sRaw". Shoot, even in jpeg only mode it makes sense for web output.

So am I getting it right? Making sense? Am I missing something? Sure it's only 10MP of the sensor, but those are FAT pixels, compared to an A77 (and WAY fatter than the S95 that I took last year to the autoshow) so the light gathering, color, depth etc, should still be pretty damn good. The disk space archival savings might even offset the sale price of the 35 DT.

I seriously think I am missing something. Am I?

Enable the 8FPS mode and you will have the exact same 10MP (APS-C crop) RAW files. With any lens you want.

Noise performance at an image level will be close to the A77 or A57. Bigger pixels, but less pixels, equals similar amount of photons captured.

splashy · Jan 25, 2013

On my A99 I use sometimes the Sony 18-135 and pictures turn out very nice, with the Sony 35mm 1.8 the pictures don't look good, I don't know why. It was one of my favorites on the A77.

Endos · Jan 25, 2013

As far as I know, the A99 RAW files are always compressed (cRAW). Sony has removed the option to select the uncompressed RAW format.

joerawr · Jan 25, 2013

splashy said:
splashy wrote:

... with the Sony 35mm 1.8 the pictures don't look good, I don't know why. It was one of my favorites on the A77.

Interesting. I'll have to try it and see if fall out of love with the 35mm on the A99. There'd be no point in keeping the 35 if the results aren't as equally lovely as they are on the A77.

Kirk Tuck · Jan 25, 2013

Funny that this topic came up. Yesterday I was shooting portraits destined for use on the web and for small PR photos. I wanted to shoot raw so I could do precise color corrections and tonal corrections but I didn't want the bulk and resource drag of a full 24 megapixel raw file. I used a 28-75mm lens on my a99 and set the APS crop to "on." The shows me exactly what I get and magnifies the frame so that it fills the finder properly. The files are rich and detailed.

Whoever wrote that you should just get a bigger card doesn't quite get the idea of efficiently handling system resources. Commercially, not everything WANTS to be huge. In fact, eight years ago we would have seen 10 megapixels as HUGE and PRO.

The value of this leads me to think about the discussion of video. Perhaps a99 video would look even better from files that start life as 10 meg "crops". There would be a lot less processing required for the reduction to 2K...... Something I think I'll go out and test today.

Finally, some of the APS-C lenses are too good to get rid of...

joerawr · Jan 25, 2013

TrojMacReady said:
TrojMacReady wrote:

Enable the 8FPS mode and you will have the exact same 10MP (APS-C crop) RAW files. With any lens you want.

Noise performance at an image level will be close to the A77 or A57. Bigger pixels, but less pixels, equals similar amount of photons captured.

8MP mode... good advice. Read about it, but didn't think about it like that. So I don't NEED a DT lens for the smaller file size. Cool. I'll just try out the 35 DT, and evaluate if I like the result. If not, sell it to reduce the hole in my wallet the A99 is gonna leave...

Emopunk · Jan 25, 2013

Member said:
Kirk Tuck wrote:

Funny that this topic came up. Yesterday I was shooting portraits destined for use on the web and for small PR photos. I wanted to shoot raw so I could do precise color corrections and tonal corrections but I didn't want the bulk and resource drag of a full 24 megapixel raw file. I used a 28-75mm lens on my a99 and set the APS crop to "on." The shows me exactly what I get and magnifies the frame so that it fills the finder properly. The files are rich and detailed.

Whoever wrote that you should just get a bigger card doesn't quite get the idea of efficiently handling system resources. Commercially, not everything WANTS to be huge. In fact, eight years ago we would have seen 10 megapixels as HUGE and PRO.

The value of this leads me to think about the discussion of video. Perhaps a99 video would look even better from files that start life as 10 meg "crops". There would be a lot less processing required for the reduction to 2K...... Something I think I'll go out and test today.

Finally, some of the APS-C lenses are too good to get rid of...

William Porter · Jan 25, 2013

No need to use DT lens, no need to set camera to 8FPS mode.

Go to the wrench menu, page 3, change "APS-C Size Capture" from "Auto" to "On". I just tested it with a full frame lens. One raw file is 6000x4000 and 25MB; the other raw file (same scene, 2 seconds later) is 3936x2624 and 11.4MB in size. The second photo — taken with the same lens — is basically an in-camera crop of the center of the scene. I was shooting the couch in my living room. With APS-C Size Capture to Auto, the photo shows not only the couch but the chairs on both sides of the couch; with APS-C Size Capture turned ON, the resulting file shows only the couch.

Will

[addendum: Hadn't read all the other responses before I posted this. I see Kirk Tuck alludes to the same setting.]

joerawr · Jan 25, 2013

Member said:
Kirk Tuck wrote:

.... In fact, eight years ago we would have seen 10 megapixels as HUGE and PRO.....

Yes, exactly. My nostalgia for a sRaw type file size came from a Canon 40D that topped out at 10MP full size! just a couple years ago I thought this was too big for non-archival fun shoots. My LA Autoshow pics from 5 years ago? Not important, but I can justify saving them because they aren't using a huge chunk of space.

remylebeau · Jan 27, 2013

William Porter said:
William Porter wrote:

No need to use DT lens, no need to set camera to 8FPS mode.

Go to the wrench menu, page 3, change "APS-C Size Capture" from "Auto" to "On". I just tested it with a full frame lens. One raw file is 6000x4000 and 25MB; the other raw file (same scene, 2 seconds later) is 3936x2624 and 11.4MB in size. The second photo — taken with the same lens — is basically an in-camera crop of the center of the scene. I was shooting the couch in my living room. With APS-C Size Capture to Auto, the photo shows not only the couch but the chairs on both sides of the couch; with APS-C Size Capture turned ON, the resulting file shows only the couch.

Will

[addendum: Hadn't read all the other responses before I posted this. I see Kirk Tuck alludes to the same setting.]

That's awesome, thanks for the workaround. Just curious, did you notice any processing lag at all in aps-c mode or did the images seem to be writing at about the same speed?

William Porter · Jan 27, 2013

remylebeau said:
remylebeau wrote:

That's awesome, thanks for the workaround. Just curious, did you notice any processing lag at all in aps-c mode or did the images seem to be writing at about the same speed?

No lag. If anything, shooting with APS-C Capture turned ON is a little faster, which (to me anyway) makes sense. The camera has to write considerably less data to the card.

Now keep in mind that the ONLY advantage of this is that it's making the images on the card lighter (fewer pixels) and capturing a narrower angle of view.

Me, I think I'll leave this setting permanently on AUTO. (There is no "OFF" option.) If I ever need to reduce the size of the images I think I'd prefer to change the Image Size setting or the Quality setting, rather than switching to APS-C Capture ON.

Will

Kirk Tuck · Jan 28, 2013

Good luck setting image size and quality in raw. That was the whole point of the exercise. Also, it's nice to be able to use those really good a99 pixels (bigger than the a77 pixels) with the really, really good APS-C DT glass like the 16-50mm...

lim yau tong · Jan 28, 2013

cropped size so you do not get a "fat" pixel. In fact you would get pixelation effect if you blow or crop too much.

Kirk Tuck · Feb 2, 2013

Yes. You get a much larger pixel size than you would get with an APS-C sony 16 or 24 megapixel camera. It's right there in the specs. The camera's pixels are bigger.

joerawr · Feb 2, 2013

Since posting this, I picked up an A99 and have been shooting with my DT and FF lenses. The results have been fabulous in APS-C mode on. The images are 3936 x 2624, which is huge for any kind of web work, and still gives 300 ppi for an 8x10.

And the high iso photos are FABULOUS compared to my A77. Astounding. Them pixels are FAT!

Calico Jack · Feb 3, 2013

The A850/A900 has a manual setting for APS-C @ 11MP which allows the use of DT and other APS-C lenses in addition to that, when using FF lenses, set the APS-C mode on to get an instant 1.5x magnification increase (an electronic teleconverter) again @ 11MP which means you have 2 formats in a single body and can use both lens types albeit at different file sizes but retain the various file formats.

Not having any experience with the 2 digit Alpha's, did Sony ditch the manual lens type format selection in lieu of it being automated and if so, how does compare to the A850/A900 in terms of customisation?

On a tangent, I find it very useful (and those who cannot afford expensive PP software) that my Pentax K-5 has the PEF RAW, various quality JPEG and DNG file formats). Pentax BTW have some superb menu and other features that Sony could well do with incorporating, but Pentax doesn't make a FF body. The only thing my K-5 is missing is an A-Mount as it's pretty much spot-on in all other departments. Anyone looking for a 7D kit?

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