Fuji's HUGE RAW File Size

Batdude wrote:

I just learned something completely new, and shocking.

Folks, I sincerely apologize if I'm really late to this party, but I just discovered how MASSIVE Fuji RAW file sizes actually are. Why are Fuji's RAW file size so big? Any particular reason?

Any RAW file of today camera (no matter what brand it came from) will have it's size (in bytes) equal to the product of pixel number by 2 plus some few Mbytes extra.

One pixel (or rather photosite) of the sensor usually needs 16 bits (thus 2 bytes) to store the digitized value of analog signal read from it. The extra part is for JPG preview stored inside the RAW file and metadata/EXIF.

So 24 Mpx sensor will produce uncompressed RAW file of 49-50 Mbytes in size, no matter be it Fuji or any other brand.

Cameras with 100+ Mpx sensors will produce 200+ Mbytes uncompressed RAW each time you press the shutter. But this is expected and intended.

I just found out that a X-T3 26MP uncompressed RAW file size is a whooping 62.5 MB??

Hmm but what did you expect and what it has to do with Fuji per se?

The compressed RAW file size is 35.7 MB. Holy moly spicy guacamole batman!!

Yes, Fuji has its lossless RAW compression implemented for years already.

AND, I just learned that the Canon R5 full RAW file size is 46.5 MB

At R5's 45 Mpx count it should be around 92-95 Mbytes uncompressed. How does R5 get it roughly 1/2 of the expected size... definitely they apply some lossless compression to it in-camera, and I bet they use some proprietary extra-efficient compression algorithm optimized for the camera RAW sensor data exclusively.

You can use lossless compression on any sufficiently recent Fuji camera body, too. But myself, I don't use it due to reasons too complicated to list right here.

and it's CRAW (Compact RAW) size is only a bloody 22.3 MB.

C-RAW format (files with .CR3 extension) stands for "Compressed RAW" and uses a lossy-compression algorithm so it is not RAW in plain technical sense anymore. Think of it as of some exotic sort of JPEG at 50% quality.

Are you kidding me? Am I missing something here?

I have one dumb question. What are you expecting the new X-H2 40MP sensor to be?

82-84 Mbytes uncompressed, no big deal.

All this time I've been peeing in my pants thinking why on earth would I want to shoot with a Canon R5 when it's file size is actually smaller than my Fuji X-T1. This night has opened my eyes and I will never sleep again.