The biggest issue with the A7r4 that can be fixed very easily...

I saw this, still no info if it uses a proprietary format, which I suspect it does, hence it is useless at least for me. But may be I am wrong, and it converts raws into to a standard DNG format.

Additionally, the compression ratio mentioned there is 196/291 = 67%, far from the ADobe DNG Converter with 50%.

The ideal solution would be to have the Adobe level of compression done by Sony cameras. Adobe DNG is a good workaround, likely to be better than the PAckRAW with it's proprietary format.
Again, you can't revert back to the original RAW file once you convert it to DNG.

PackRAW is a "proprietary" compressor optimised for RAW files, so you'll always have a copy of the original RAW archived.

It has a great balance of speed and compression ratio, I've been using it since 2016 without any issues.

If it's no use to you, fine, but others reading this thread might find it very useful.

Den
 
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I saw this, still no info if it uses a proprietary format, which I suspect it does, hence it is useless at least for me. But may be I am wrong, and it converts raws into to a standard DNG format.

Additionally, the compression ratio mentioned there is 196/291 = 67%, far from the ADobe DNG Converter with 50%.

The ideal solution would be to have the Adobe level of compression done by Sony cameras. Adobe DNG is a good workaround, likely to be better than the PAckRAW with it's proprietary format.
Again, you can't revert back to the original RAW file once you convert it to DNG.

PackRAW is a "proprietary" compressor optimised for RAW files, so you'll always have a copy of the original RAW archived.

It has a great balance of speed and compression ratio, I've been using it since 2016 without any issues.

If it's no use to you, fine, but others reading this thread might find it very useful.

Den
Speed? You spend extra time on manually compressing and uncompresssing raw files, fidgeting with scripts.

It might be a good option for a backup though.

--
Cheers,
Alex
 
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Uncompressed RAW is fine, hard drive and SD card prices are inexpensive in comparison to 10 years ago, and capacities have increased, so storage costs are lower. Processing Uncompressed RAW's is not noticeably slower than lossless compressed RAW's because they don't need to be decompressed on the fly.

So I don't understand why others think this is an issue.

Den
I have about 16 TB of images currently, mostly raws. Uncompressed raw makes that worse. The costs of storage go up when you have 2 local and two remote backups, as is the best practice. Online storage charges can add up. Converting to DNG is a solution, but is an extra step in the workflow, and a mild hassle.

Jim
Then why don't you use compression on your storage system?
Adverse effects on portability for disaster recovery.
Near all advanced storage systems allow you to use compression. Both NAS storage with ZFS or BTRFS can use compression as well as windows itself on NTFS volumes
 
I am a happy owner of an A7r3 and I loved the specs of the A7r4, but, I will not get it. Why? Because of the uncompressed RAW files SIZE...

Seriously, I have no idea why Sony cannot add a single LZW compression on their firmware. I am not talking about fancy proprietary compression, I am talking about open-source industry standard ones.
It's because the raw compression implementation lives within their image processing ASIC (Bionz), and since they continue to use the same core design of that chip on the A7rIV you wont see a different compression algorithm offered until they spin out a new design. Their general purpose CPU is not nearly fast enough to handle the compression of raw data.
So Nikon's and Canon's CPU's are? That doesn't sound right. If no one offered it then it may be right but the others can.
Nikon and Canon implement compression on their ASIC as well, just like Sony does. But they implemented both lossless and lossy compression on theirs.
 
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I agree with you, but to me fair, I think users are to blame too, few years ago, there was no uncompressed option, so the raws were all compressed, and a huge number of users started to complain and asked Sony to add UNCOMPRESSED raws, and Sony listened and gave us exactly that feature. People should have asked not for uncompressed but for lossless compressed. Now, it's a bit too late as most people are now satisfied with the options, so there isn't much pressure on Sony to add this feature.
 
I agree with you, but to me fair, I think users are to blame too, few years ago, there was no uncompressed option, so the raws were all compressed, and a huge number of users started to complain and asked Sony to add UNCOMPRESSED raws, and Sony listened and gave us exactly that feature. People should have asked not for uncompressed but for lossless compressed.
Some of us were asking for lossless compression. In fact, as I remember it, most of us were.
Now, it's a bit too late as most people are now satisfied with the options, so there isn't much pressure on Sony to add this feature.
I said loud and strong in this very forum before they added uncompressed raw that, should they do so, it would be malicious obeisance. That is still my opinion.

Jim
 
I agree with you, but to me fair, I think users are to blame too, few years ago, there was no uncompressed option, so the raws were all compressed, and a huge number of users started to complain and asked Sony to add UNCOMPRESSED raws, and Sony listened and gave us exactly that feature. People should have asked not for uncompressed but for lossless compressed.
Some of us were asking for lossless compression. In fact, as I remember it, most of us were.
When you say "us", do you mean dpreview forums? Because that's not where most people voiced their opinion, and certainly not in the threads that you created or participated in.

It's now difficult to find comments from the past on internet so I cannot prove it, but I remember being face palm most of the time because I saw so many people asking for uncompressed or lossless raws instead of asking for "lossless compressed".
Now, it's a bit too late as most people are now satisfied with the options, so there isn't much pressure on Sony to add this feature.
I said loud and strong in this very forum before they added uncompressed raw that, should they do so, it would be malicious obeisance. That is still my opinion.

Jim
I'm sure you did, and I agree it's still terrible they haven't added it yet, and I know that technologically, there is nothing stopping them from adding this (in the worst case scenario, it will just slow down the buffer clearing speed as the compression would take some of the CPU time, but if this feature is an option with a warning, then it's fine), the only explanation is that this feature is not on the top of their TODO list.
 
I'm sure you did, and I agree it's still terrible they haven't added it yet, and I know that technologically, there is nothing stopping them from adding this (in the worst case scenario, it will just slow down the buffer clearing speed as the compression would take some of the CPU time,
The only camera that I've used that got slower writes with lossless compression on was the D100, and you know how long ago that was.
but if this feature is an option with a warning, then it's fine), the only explanation is that this feature is not on the top of their TODO list.
 
I saw this, still no info if it uses a proprietary format, which I suspect it does, hence it is useless at least for me. But may be I am wrong, and it converts raws into to a standard DNG format.

Additionally, the compression ratio mentioned there is 196/291 = 67%, far from the ADobe DNG Converter with 50%.

The ideal solution would be to have the Adobe level of compression done by Sony cameras. Adobe DNG is a good workaround, likely to be better than the PAckRAW with it's proprietary format.
Again, you can't revert back to the original RAW file once you convert it to DNG.

PackRAW is a "proprietary" compressor optimised for RAW files, so you'll always have a copy of the original RAW archived.

It has a great balance of speed and compression ratio, I've been using it since 2016 without any issues.

If it's no use to you, fine, but others reading this thread might find it very useful.

Den
Speed? You spend extra time on manually compressing and uncompresssing raw files, fidgeting with scripts.

It might be a good option for a backup though.
Nonsense,

The time taken to compress RAW files using PackRAW is no more inconvenient than the time taken to convert RAW files to DNG.

The time to decompress RAW files using PackRAW is no more inconvenient than copying RAW or DNG files from one directory to another.

I use one batch file to compress all RAW files in a directory to half the size of the original uncompressed RAW, and another batch file to decompress all RAW files in a directory.

Here's all anyone needs to do:

1. Copy PackRAW.exe to the directory where the RAW (ARW) files are.

2. Copy and paste this line to notepad then save as Compress.bat to the same directory.

for %%a in ("*.arw") do (packraw.exe p "%%a")

3. Copy and paste this line to notepad then save as Uncompress.bat to the same directory.

for %%a in ("*.prw") do (packraw.exe u "%%a")

All it takes is a doubleclick of my mouse button, hardly what you claim "fidgeting with scripts".

NOTE: If anyone trying the above batch commands wants to delete the original after each file is converted, just add the following to the end of the command:

& DEL "%%a"

Examples below of the added delete command:

for %%a in ("*.arw") do (packraw.exe p "%%a" & DEL "%%a")

for %%a in ("*.prw") do (packraw.exe u "%%a" & DEL "%%a")

Den
 
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I agree with you, but to me fair, I think users are to blame too, few years ago, there was no uncompressed option, so the raws were all compressed, and a huge number of users started to complain and asked Sony to add UNCOMPRESSED raws, and Sony listened and gave us exactly that feature. People should have asked not for uncompressed but for lossless compressed.
Some of us were asking for lossless compression. In fact, as I remember it, most of us were.
When you say "us", do you mean dpreview forums? Because that's not where most people voiced their opinion, and certainly not in the threads that you created or participated in.
Many cameras offer:

a) lossy compressed RAW

b) lossless compressed RAW

c) (lossless) uncompressed RAW

If all three are offered, I estimate that 99% use b) option. It would be really strange if users asked for c) to complement a). I can only imagine that the users were so desperate to have any kind of lossless RAW.
 
I agree with you, but to me fair, I think users are to blame too, few years ago, there was no uncompressed option, so the raws were all compressed, and a huge number of users started to complain and asked Sony to add UNCOMPRESSED raws, and Sony listened and gave us exactly that feature. People should have asked not for uncompressed but for lossless compressed.
Some of us were asking for lossless compression. In fact, as I remember it, most of us were.
When you say "us", do you mean dpreview forums? Because that's not where most people voiced their opinion, and certainly not in the threads that you created or participated in.
Many cameras offer:

a) lossy compressed RAW

b) lossless compressed RAW

c) (lossless) uncompressed RAW

If all three are offered, I estimate that 99% use b) option. It would be really strange if users asked for c) to complement a). I can only imagine that the users were so desperate to have any kind of lossless RAW.
If B is well implemented then it should be the default option even.

Well yes, some users were desperate to have any kind of lossless raw, and that's why Sony's update was "good enough" for those people, but it's certainly not an ideal solution.

Anyway, this was the past, so it won't really help to make things change, what we need is Sony to understand this is an important feature, along with lower raw resolutions (just like Nikon does), so for example if every review could mention those 2 things, it would certainly put some pressure on them to add those features.

Dpreview does mention some things, but not always very clear, for example in their A7riii review: "No in-camera Raw conversion" -> do they mean "no small or medium raw"? and in their A7riv review: "Clumsy raw compression" haha, why not writing "no lossless raw compression" instead?
 
I agree with you, but to me fair, I think users are to blame too, few years ago, there was no uncompressed option, so the raws were all compressed, and a huge number of users started to complain and asked Sony to add UNCOMPRESSED raws, and Sony listened and gave us exactly that feature. People should have asked not for uncompressed but for lossless compressed.
Some of us were asking for lossless compression. In fact, as I remember it, most of us were.
When you say "us", do you mean dpreview forums? Because that's not where most people voiced their opinion, and certainly not in the threads that you created or participated in.
Many cameras offer:

a) lossy compressed RAW

b) lossless compressed RAW

c) (lossless) uncompressed RAW

If all three are offered, I estimate that 99% use b) option. It would be really strange if users asked for c) to complement a). I can only imagine that the users were so desperate to have any kind of lossless RAW.
If B is well implemented then it should be the default option even.
It is, on Nikons.
Well yes, some users were desperate to have any kind of lossless raw, and that's why Sony's update was "good enough" for those people, but it's certainly not an ideal solution.

Anyway, this was the past, so it won't really help to make things change, what we need is Sony to understand this is an important feature, along with lower raw resolutions (just like Nikon does), so for example if every review could mention those 2 things, it would certainly put some pressure on them to add those features.

Dpreview does mention some things, but not always very clear, for example in their A7riii review: "No in-camera Raw conversion" -> do they mean "no small or medium raw"? and in their A7riv review: "Clumsy raw compression" haha, why not writing "no lossless raw compression" instead?
 
I shoot 90% of my photos with compressed RAW files that effectively cut file size in half. Only 10% of photos with uncompressed RAW under tripod mode. I really cannot see difference in those 90% of photos usually taken in daylight time or at 10fps burst mode in respective applications between compressed and uncompressed RAW files.

I have taken close to 10K A7r IV photos so far, compressed or uncompressed, not much issue. In addition hard drive is cheap these days.
If we had lossless compressed RAW everybody would be shooting in that mode. With Sony's lossy compressed RAW I keep switching, depending on the situation. This complicates the workflow unnecessarily.
Sure. But really no visible IQ difference with compressed RAW in most scenarios. Therefore even Canon offers similar lossy compressed RAW CR3 format. Lossless compressed RAW file size will be between compressed and uncompressed. You can achieve indirectly if you convert uncompressed RAW to Adobe DNG format judged by file size.
 
I saw this, still no info if it uses a proprietary format, which I suspect it does, hence it is useless at least for me. But may be I am wrong, and it converts raws into to a standard DNG format.

Additionally, the compression ratio mentioned there is 196/291 = 67%, far from the ADobe DNG Converter with 50%.

The ideal solution would be to have the Adobe level of compression done by Sony cameras. Adobe DNG is a good workaround, likely to be better than the PAckRAW with it's proprietary format.
Again, you can't revert back to the original RAW file once you convert it to DNG.

PackRAW is a "proprietary" compressor optimised for RAW files, so you'll always have a copy of the original RAW archived.

It has a great balance of speed and compression ratio, I've been using it since 2016 without any issues.

If it's no use to you, fine, but others reading this thread might find it very useful.

Den
Speed? You spend extra time on manually compressing and uncompresssing raw files, fidgeting with scripts.

It might be a good option for a backup though.
Nonsense,

The time taken to compress RAW files using PackRAW is no more inconvenient than the time taken to convert RAW files to DNG.

The time to decompress RAW files using PackRAW is no more inconvenient than copying RAW or DNG files from one directory to another.

I use one batch file to compress all RAW files in a directory to half the size of the original uncompressed RAW, and another batch file to decompress all RAW files in a directory.

Here's all anyone needs to do:

1. Copy PackRAW.exe to the directory where the RAW (ARW) files are.

2. Copy and paste this line to notepad then save as Compress.bat to the same directory.

for %%a in ("*.arw") do (packraw.exe p "%%a")

3. Copy and paste this line to notepad then save as Uncompress.bat to the same directory.

for %%a in ("*.prw") do (packraw.exe u "%%a")

All it takes is a doubleclick of my mouse button, hardly what you claim "fidgeting with scripts".

NOTE: If anyone trying the above batch commands wants to delete the original after each file is converted, just add the following to the end of the command:

& DEL "%%a"

Examples below of the added delete command:

for %%a in ("*.arw") do (packraw.exe p "%%a" & DEL "%%a")

for %%a in ("*.prw") do (packraw.exe u "%%a" & DEL "%%a")

Den
you can add packraw.exe into a system variable and never have to have that file around ever again, one less step permanently.
 
I shoot 90% of my photos with compressed RAW files that effectively cut file size in half. Only 10% of photos with uncompressed RAW under tripod mode. I really cannot see difference in those 90% of photos usually taken in daylight time or at 10fps burst mode in respective applications between compressed and uncompressed RAW files.

I have taken close to 10K A7r IV photos so far, compressed or uncompressed, not much issue. In addition hard drive is cheap these days.
If we had lossless compressed RAW everybody would be shooting in that mode. With Sony's lossy compressed RAW I keep switching, depending on the situation. This complicates the workflow unnecessarily.
Sure. But really no visible IQ difference with compressed RAW in most scenarios. Therefore even Canon offers similar lossy compressed RAW CR3 format. Lossless compressed RAW file size will be between compressed and uncompressed. You can achieve indirectly if you convert uncompressed RAW to Adobe DNG format judged by file size.
Nikon offers lossy and lossless compressed RAW. I do not understand why they even offer lossy compressed RAW as nobody uses it, AFAIK.
 
I shoot 90% of my photos with compressed RAW files that effectively cut file size in half. Only 10% of photos with uncompressed RAW under tripod mode. I really cannot see difference in those 90% of photos usually taken in daylight time or at 10fps burst mode in respective applications between compressed and uncompressed RAW files.

I have taken close to 10K A7r IV photos so far, compressed or uncompressed, not much issue. In addition hard drive is cheap these days.
If we had lossless compressed RAW everybody would be shooting in that mode. With Sony's lossy compressed RAW I keep switching, depending on the situation. This complicates the workflow unnecessarily.
Sure. But really no visible IQ difference with compressed RAW in most scenarios. Therefore even Canon offers similar lossy compressed RAW CR3 format. Lossless compressed RAW file size will be between compressed and uncompressed. You can achieve indirectly if you convert uncompressed RAW to Adobe DNG format judged by file size.
Nikon offers lossy and lossless compressed RAW. I do not understand why they even offer lossy compressed RAW as nobody uses it, AFAIK.
nobody except for most folks: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4314552#forum-post-61576785

only benefit is if you're shooting base ISO, and pull hard...... like landscape shooters, and even then, it's negligible at best. You need to pull 3 stops before you can start telling a difference, and then you'd have to be 1:1 to see the most subtle difference........
 
I shoot 90% of my photos with compressed RAW files that effectively cut file size in half. Only 10% of photos with uncompressed RAW under tripod mode. I really cannot see difference in those 90% of photos usually taken in daylight time or at 10fps burst mode in respective applications between compressed and uncompressed RAW files.

I have taken close to 10K A7r IV photos so far, compressed or uncompressed, not much issue. In addition hard drive is cheap these days.
If we had lossless compressed RAW everybody would be shooting in that mode. With Sony's lossy compressed RAW I keep switching, depending on the situation. This complicates the workflow unnecessarily.
Sure. But really no visible IQ difference with compressed RAW in most scenarios. Therefore even Canon offers similar lossy compressed RAW CR3 format. Lossless compressed RAW file size will be between compressed and uncompressed. You can achieve indirectly if you convert uncompressed RAW to Adobe DNG format judged by file size.
Nikon offers lossy and lossless compressed RAW. I do not understand why they even offer lossy compressed RAW as nobody uses it, AFAIK.
nobody except for most folks: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4314552#forum-post-61576785

only benefit is if you're shooting base ISO, and pull hard...... like landscape shooters, and even then, it's negligible at best. You need to pull 3 stops before you can start telling a difference, and then you'd have to be 1:1 to see the most subtle difference........
I think that’s an overstatement. you can see the difference on a C-size print, at base ISO with a push — not pull, BTW.
 
I saw this, still no info if it uses a proprietary format, which I suspect it does, hence it is useless at least for me. But may be I am wrong, and it converts raws into to a standard DNG format.

Additionally, the compression ratio mentioned there is 196/291 = 67%, far from the ADobe DNG Converter with 50%.

The ideal solution would be to have the Adobe level of compression done by Sony cameras. Adobe DNG is a good workaround, likely to be better than the PAckRAW with it's proprietary format.
Again, you can't revert back to the original RAW file once you convert it to DNG.

PackRAW is a "proprietary" compressor optimised for RAW files, so you'll always have a copy of the original RAW archived.

It has a great balance of speed and compression ratio, I've been using it since 2016 without any issues.

If it's no use to you, fine, but others reading this thread might find it very useful.

Den
Speed? You spend extra time on manually compressing and uncompresssing raw files, fidgeting with scripts.

It might be a good option for a backup though.
Nonsense,

The time taken to compress RAW files using PackRAW is no more inconvenient than the time taken to convert RAW files to DNG.

The time to decompress RAW files using PackRAW is no more inconvenient than copying RAW or DNG files from one directory to another.

I use one batch file to compress all RAW files in a directory to half the size of the original uncompressed RAW, and another batch file to decompress all RAW files in a directory.

Here's all anyone needs to do:

1. Copy PackRAW.exe to the directory where the RAW (ARW) files are.

2. Copy and paste this line to notepad then save as Compress.bat to the same directory.

for %%a in ("*.arw") do (packraw.exe p "%%a")

3. Copy and paste this line to notepad then save as Uncompress.bat to the same directory.

for %%a in ("*.prw") do (packraw.exe u "%%a")

All it takes is a doubleclick of my mouse button, hardly what you claim "fidgeting with scripts".

NOTE: If anyone trying the above batch commands wants to delete the original after each file is converted, just add the following to the end of the command:

& DEL "%%a"

Examples below of the added delete command:

for %%a in ("*.arw") do (packraw.exe p "%%a" & DEL "%%a")

for %%a in ("*.prw") do (packraw.exe u "%%a" & DEL "%%a")

Den
you can add packraw.exe into a system variable and never have to have that file around ever again, one less step permanently.
Example?

Den
 
I shoot 90% of my photos with compressed RAW files that effectively cut file size in half. Only 10% of photos with uncompressed RAW under tripod mode. I really cannot see difference in those 90% of photos usually taken in daylight time or at 10fps burst mode in respective applications between compressed and uncompressed RAW files.

I have taken close to 10K A7r IV photos so far, compressed or uncompressed, not much issue. In addition hard drive is cheap these days.
If we had lossless compressed RAW everybody would be shooting in that mode. With Sony's lossy compressed RAW I keep switching, depending on the situation. This complicates the workflow unnecessarily.
Sure. But really no visible IQ difference with compressed RAW in most scenarios. Therefore even Canon offers similar lossy compressed RAW CR3 format. Lossless compressed RAW file size will be between compressed and uncompressed. You can achieve indirectly if you convert uncompressed RAW to Adobe DNG format judged by file size.
Nikon offers lossy and lossless compressed RAW. I do not understand why they even offer lossy compressed RAW as nobody uses it, AFAIK.
nobody except for most folks: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4314552#forum-post-61576785

only benefit is if you're shooting base ISO, and pull hard...... like landscape shooters, and even then, it's negligible at best. You need to pull 3 stops before you can start telling a difference, and then you'd have to be 1:1 to see the most subtle difference........
You misread my sentence or my sentence was lossy compressed :-).

I was talking about the Nikon users who have the option of lossy vs lossless compression. AFAIK, no Nikon user uses lossy compression even though they have that option.

You link to a discussion of the unfortunate Sony situation. If the only compression offered is lossy, then sometimes you have to take what you got, especially since in many cases you will not notice any image degradation.
 
I shoot 90% of my photos with compressed RAW files that effectively cut file size in half. Only 10% of photos with uncompressed RAW under tripod mode. I really cannot see difference in those 90% of photos usually taken in daylight time or at 10fps burst mode in respective applications between compressed and uncompressed RAW files.

I have taken close to 10K A7r IV photos so far, compressed or uncompressed, not much issue. In addition hard drive is cheap these days.
If we had lossless compressed RAW everybody would be shooting in that mode. With Sony's lossy compressed RAW I keep switching, depending on the situation. This complicates the workflow unnecessarily.
Sure. But really no visible IQ difference with compressed RAW in most scenarios. Therefore even Canon offers similar lossy compressed RAW CR3 format. Lossless compressed RAW file size will be between compressed and uncompressed. You can achieve indirectly if you convert uncompressed RAW to Adobe DNG format judged by file size.
Nikon offers lossy and lossless compressed RAW. I do not understand why they even offer lossy compressed RAW as nobody uses it, AFAIK.
nobody except for most folks: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4314552#forum-post-61576785

only benefit is if you're shooting base ISO, and pull hard...... like landscape shooters, and even then, it's negligible at best. You need to pull 3 stops before you can start telling a difference, and then you'd have to be 1:1 to see the most subtle difference........
I think that’s an overstatement. you can see the difference on a C-size print, at base ISO with a push — not pull, BTW.
Honestly I have not seen noticeable difference in daylight hand-held photos. I have tons of photos (about 90% of my total photos) taken in compressed mode including from A7r IV. However most of them are not under highly contrasty scenes in daylight so I only pushed moderately, guess 2-stops. But as I said I do shoot uncompressed mode under tripod mode in mostly evening scenes or whatever when I shoot on tripod where usually with highly contrasty light condition from pitching dark sky or unlit areas to illuminated buildings etc, where I pushed shadow and recover highlight aggressively, where compressed RAW likely will have artifacts after aggressive push that is well documented.

Here is a sample in full size that is my typical daylight photo, even with e-shutter if you can point out artifacts?

View attachment ae47ce2625ac4f08a58f487b44f89038.jpg
full size, hand-held, compressed mode under very windy condition

--
https://www.flickr.com/photos/55485085@N04/albums
 
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