14-bit vs 16-bit Raw Bit Depth

[David Redfearn]

My GFX100S II is arriving tomorrow. One question about settings: I know the RAW files are very large, and will be larger if I select RAW 16-bit depth. I assume there is a (theoretical) color rendering advantage to the16-bit mode. Do users just leave it at 16-bits or is this something selected for a specific use case with most shooting done with 14-bit?

David

 

[vlad_s]

The primary use cases one see benefits are with capturing images, maximally sensitive to the read noise, isn't it correct? Forgive my simplistic terminology, I only have rudimentary knowledge in the space.

One of the immediate examples seems to be astrophotography, where extra 2 steps of DR are helpful, even at the expense of 4x stored content size, using uncompressed recording. Photographers do seem to prefer 16 bit RAW capture, according to what I see in atro photo forums discussions, even as I don't shoot the subject.

 

[JimKasson]

The primary use cases one see benefits are with capturing images, maximally sensitive to the read noise, isn't it correct?

No.

Forgive my simplistic terminology, I only have rudimentary knowledge in the space.
One of the immediate examples seems to be astrophotography, where extra 2 steps of DR are helpful,

Two more bits don't translate to two more stops of DR. Two more bits in the GFX 100x don't translate to any significant EDR increase at all.

even at the expense of 4x stored content size, using uncompressed recording. Photographers do seem to prefer 16 bit RAW capture, according to what I see in atro photo forums discussions, even as I don't shoot the subject.

 

[vlad_s]

Point taken, I found your blog post of 2021 and few other measurements, confirming.

 

[fcracer]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

 

[JimKasson]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

It costs them nothing. The capability is built into the sensor chip. And lots of people seem to think that when precision goes to 11, that's a good thing.

 

[SrMi]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

It costs them nothing. The capability is built into the sensor chip. And lots of people seem to think that when precision goes to 11, that's a good thing.

It seems that people at Fuji and Hasselblad believe that there are advantages of shooting in 16 bits, example here:

How GFX100/GFX100S RAW Files Give Perfect Colours & Tones | FUJIFILM X Series & GFX - UK

Why you should switch 16-bit RAW mode on your FUJIFILM GFX100 or GFX100S for exceptional image quality

fujifilm-x.com

They do not provide proof, though.

 

[SeeingSomeThingsMissingMany]

Inclusion of 16bits is for bragging rights also to say hey we aren't any less than previous 16bit MF. If they didn't include 16bit you can bet untold people would say it's subpar as it only does 14bit and that they aren't going to pay for a 14bit MF.

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.

 

[Greg7579]

I understand why you might want to shoot 16-bit - in the hopes that future raw decoders will improve and pull more out of these images. But why Uncompressed when lossless compressed raw is available (and returns the original image perfectly, bit-for-bit).

There was a long controversy about Sony's "lossy" compressed raw (all that was available for many years). You could definitely see a difference, but only in specific situations and it was very hard to see. Now Sony has lossless compressed raw (which is what I use for my A7RV) so that issue is gone now.

Saving space with these huge raw files is a plus - saves me some money as I deal with data volumes by buying more SSD drives. I wonder how fast I will amass a huge volume of the raw MF files?

David

You know how much I shoot. I have been shooting raw for 13 years and my total raw file data size is about 5.5 TB. It is all on a PCIe 4 M.2 8TB SSD on my Motherboard on the PC, backed up to cheaper SATA 8 TB SSDs. I don't have spinners anymore.

8TB SSDs are expensive, but I am certain within two years we are going to have cheaper and much larger capacity SSDs. I think 20 TB SSDs will be available at uber 900 dollars, and when that happens, storage space won't matter for any of us, and arrays will be dead for the consumer.

My point is that you are not going to be worried about storahe space.

Even still, I shoot 14 bit, compressed lossless RAF files at 100 MB vs 200 MB.

 

[fcracer]

I’m surprised you only have 5.5TB. I’m ruthless in culling and I’m at >8TB.

 

[JimKasson]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

It costs them nothing. The capability is built into the sensor chip. And lots of people seem to think that when precision goes to 11, that's a good thing.

It seems that people at Fuji and Hasselblad believe that there are advantages of shooting in 16 bits, example here:

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-gb/learning-centre/how-gfx100-camera-gives-you-perfect-colours-and-tones/

They do not provide proof, though.

This is a marketing document, and is full of half truths.

 

[Rodenmg]

Inclusion of 16bits is for bragging rights also to say hey we aren't any less than previous 16bit MF. If they didn't include 16bit you can bet untold people would say it's subpar as it only does 14bit and that they aren't going to pay for a 14bit MF.

 

[SeeingSomeThingsMissingMany]

Inclusion of 16bits is for bragging rights also to say hey we aren't any less than previous 16bit MF. If they didn't include 16bit you can bet untold people would say it's subpar as it only does 14bit and that they aren't going to pay for a 14bit MF.

To me that sounds more like a FF forum mentality. I think the majority of experienced medium format forum members are smarter than that.

Would you write this on dpreview FF Nikon Canon forums that you think majority of experienced MF forum members are smarter than them.

--
Photography after all is interplay of light alongside perspective.

 

[SrMi]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

It costs them nothing. The capability is built into the sensor chip. And lots of people seem to think that when precision goes to 11, that's a good thing.

It seems that people at Fuji and Hasselblad believe that there are advantages of shooting in 16 bits, example here:

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-gb/learning-centre/how-gfx100-camera-gives-you-perfect-colours-and-tones/

They do not provide proof, though.

This is a marketing document, and is full of half truths.

Since the document is part of the Learning Center, I would not call it a marketing document unless every document with lies and half-truths is automatically called a marketing document .

They even have an article titled "The Advantages of Auto ISO," in case you are interested ... just kidding .

 

[Rodenmg]

Inclusion of 16bits is for bragging rights also to say hey we aren't any less than previous 16bit MF. If they didn't include 16bit you can bet untold people would say it's subpar as it only does 14bit and that they aren't going to pay for a 14bit MF.

To me that sounds more like a FF forum mentality. I think the majority of experienced medium format forum members are smarter than that.

Would you write this on dpreview FF Nikon Canon FF forums that majority of experienced MF forum members are smarter than them.

 

[JimKasson]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

It costs them nothing. The capability is built into the sensor chip. And lots of people seem to think that when precision goes to 11, that's a good thing.

It seems that people at Fuji and Hasselblad believe that there are advantages of shooting in 16 bits, example here:

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-gb/learning-centre/how-gfx100-camera-gives-you-perfect-colours-and-tones/

They do not provide proof, though.

This is a marketing document, and is full of half truths.

Since the document is part of the Learning Center, I would not call it a marketing document

In every company I've ever worked for, these kinds of customer-facing documents are the responsibility of marketing. The writer may approach engineering for facts that bolster the points marketing wants to make, but the writer is not obliged to use inconvenient facts or avoid spin. If the writer goes too far, engineering can object, but I've lost more of those battles than I've won.

unless every document with lies and half-truths is automatically called a marketing document .

They even have an article titled "The Advantages of Auto ISO," in case you are interested ... just kidding .

--
https://blog.kasson.com

 

[JimKasson]

Why does Fujifilm bother with 16-bit if there’s now EDR advantage? Is it purely for marketing purposes?

It costs them nothing. The capability is built into the sensor chip. And lots of people seem to think that when precision goes to 11, that's a good thing.

It seems that people at Fuji and Hasselblad believe that there are advantages of shooting in 16 bits, example here:

https://fujifilm-x.com/en-gb/learning-centre/how-gfx100-camera-gives-you-perfect-colours-and-tones/

They do not provide proof, though.

Here is an example of one of the bogus things in the article:

So, we know RAWs are great for editing, but how come 16-bit RAWs are better than others? Well, just as there are different levels of JPEG quality, RAWs come with different levels of quality, too. Some cameras can only provide 10-bit RAWs, but these still contain more information than JPEGs, which are 8-bit in terms of colour depth. Then there are 12- and 14-bit RAWs, which contain even more data.

Basically, that increased amount of data means more control and less chance of degrading image quality as you edit a picture.

This is all down to the levels of colour that a 16-bit file can contain. An 8-bit file has 256 shades of red, green, and blue, combining to make over 16 million colours. A 12-bit RAW file can contain 4096 shades of red, green, and blue, contributing to a potential 68 billion colours. Raise the bar to 16-bit, and you’re looking at 65,536 shades of red, green, and blue, and a potential 281 trillion colours.

Forget the fact that raw triplets don't correspond uniquely to colors. There is a salient fact omitted here: humans can distinguish only about 10 million colors.

 

[vlad_s]

Jim, thank you for detailed walk throughs in numerous blog posts on your blog on the subject, both for the original GFX and Mark 2.

Still have a question: you seem to ran your capture series always in ambient temperature setting close to the room temperature. I am shooting more than half of the time in much colder conditions, frequently sub freezing. How much impact the lower ambient temperature would have, in your opinion?

I will head to the mountains next week and attempt to run similar tests.

 

[JimKasson]

Jim, thank you for detailed walk throughs in numerous blog posts on your blog on the subject, both for the original GFX and Mark 2.

Still have a question: you seem to ran your capture series always in ambient temperature setting close to the room temperature. I am shooting more than half of the time in much colder conditions, frequently sub freezing. How much impact the lower ambient temperature would have, in your opinion?

It will reduce read noise. Probably not a significant effect, unless you're doing astrophotography.

I will head to the mountains next week and attempt to run similar tests.

 

[vlad_s]

Thanks, I thought so.

I am not doing astrophoto, but I am shooting mostly dark scenes with very deep shadows, before the sunrise or after the sunset. Read noise is not really as much problem as it was with Canon 5D Mark IV, but if I could improve the captured data I would.

Content size is not an issue for me, either during capture or during processing/archiving.

thank you

 

[JimKasson]

I understand why you might want to shoot 16-bit - in the hopes that future raw decoders will improve and pull more out of these images. But why Uncompressed when lossless compressed raw is available (and returns the original image perfectly, bit-for-bit).

There was a long controversy about Sony's "lossy" compressed raw (all that was available for many years). You could definitely see a difference, but only in specific situations and it was very hard to see. Now Sony has lossless compressed raw (which is what I use for my A7RV) so that issue is gone now.

Saving space with these huge raw files is a plus - saves me some money as I deal with data volumes by buying more SSD drives. I wonder how fast I will amass a huge volume of the raw MF files?

David

You know how much I shoot. I have been shooting raw for 13 years and my total raw file data size is about 5.5 TB. It is all on a PCIe 4 M.2 8TB SSD on my Motherboard on the PC, backed up to cheaper SATA 8 TB SSDs. I don't have spinners anymore.

8TB SSDs are expensive, but I am certain within two years we are going to have cheaper and much larger capacity SSDs. I think 20 TB SSDs will be available at uber 900 dollars, and when that happens, storage space won't matter for any of us, and arrays will be dead for the consumer.

12 4TB SanDisk SSDs in a RAID 50 array:





48 TB raw, 40 TB after the RAID 50 formatting, and 8 TB for leveling, etc. Net 32 TB.

Interface is 25 GbE, which I'm just beginning to learn the ins and outs of.

My point is that you are not going to be worried about storahe space.

Even still, I shoot 14 bit, compressed lossless RAF files at 100 MB vs 200 MB.

--

the last word the last word - Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

blog.kasson.com