RAW image size options

[BruceB609]

Who would like smaller RAW megapixel options like Canon offers?

There may be some rule that it's better to shoot too large a file size than too small but I feel such a rule is for open ended or undecided objectives only. To me, it's like driving a car with two options. The breaks are on or the accelerator is all the way down. Not a very comfortable ride! How would the trip work out if we could adjust? I recall an Atlanta exhibition by Harry Callahan, where his Rollei color print editions were 2 1/4" x 2 1/4," and they had as much impact as any larger print. How many of us have been excited over an image on the contact sheet only to find it was weaker on enlargement? How many of us have seen pure gold play back on the LCD monitor only to discover "fools" in Photoshop? I feel that there should be no standard size expectation on or way of viewing any image. Some images look best as large prints and some as small. For me, there's no large number of images that work both ways. We can always size things down from a full count RAW but I wonder what camera performances besides memory space and processing time could be enhanced. It would certainly save me a lot of time and wasted space on my backup hardware because controlling that option started much earlier in the process.

I don't know how many cameras are out now with RAW file size options but I'll use Canon 7D as an example of a nice option that I wish I had on the Olympus SLRs I use.
Canon gives you a pick of around 5, 10 or 18 RAW megapixels.

Just to calm my patience over the issue, I bought an E-1 recently to test my 5 MP query. I went out to shoot smaller images that I could take into ACR. After tweeking and resampling just for the sake of comparing with the E-3 images, I found myself that much more frustrated that I can't have this 5 MP RAW option on the newer camera. Pixel counts can vary with character of detail and the only option I have right now is for the hardest details rather than soft. I wonder what it would take for Olympus to offer the same option as Canon's.
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BruceWB

 

[The Big One]

Meh, they way I see it, memory cards are cheap. If I am going to shoot RAW, I want as much information as possible. I can choose to use it or not at a later time, depending on what I want to print.

On the flip side, if you know you only need web resolution images, just set the JPG size, and don't bother with RAW at all.

I just don't really see the point of having RAW files which do not contain all the original data from the sensor.

Cheers
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--Wyatt
http://photos.digitalcave.ca

 

[Tbolt47]

n/t

 

[BruceB609]

I'd dare say Canon had a reason beyond a taste for candy to offer the option. Again, I'm curious over performance enhancement. Also, 5 megapixels is way beyond web images and the E-1 is probably the best 5 MP camera I've ever come across. Nothing to turn the nose up at.
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BruceWB

 

[Kritta]

Surely the whole point of having a RAW image is that it is unprocessed. Making it smaller requires it to be processed, at which point it is no longer RAW.
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• Andrew

 

[BruceB609]

I'm sure the lower count is unprocessed. I suppose it's simply data that is discarded from every other or every third pixel but I don't think that's part of "processing" or compression.
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BruceWB

 

[Gregm61]

I'm sure the lower count is unprocessed. I suppose it's simply data that is discarded from every other or every third pixel but I don't think that's part of "processing" or compression.

I have not noticed if Canon offers this in models with the smaller aps-c sensor. I have seen it in the larger full-frame models. If Canon does not offer it with the smaller sensor, that could be your answer right there. If they do offer it with a camera such as the 7D, my comment is obviously wrong.

edit...I see now, I was wrong.

 

[BruceB609]

I should also mention that there is a matter of files volume, drive capacity and sorting time with the browsing software. I've been sensing, more and more, the many tens of thousands or many more on my hard drives. (Don't have time to count.) Regardless of RAW or JPEG, the image browser is straining itself though I try and limit the number of images per folder! That's today. Give it a couple of more years at this rate of storing images of massive megapixels and I see a time when it will take extraordinary processing time and human effort (and pain) to sort through and clean out the drawers. I have way too many shots that are larger than they need to be because I prefer shooting RAW for the sake of IQ and potentials with ACR. Yes, I can gang process but that's a rather precarious approach because images need to be evaluated one at a time. I would really appreciate a RAW file size option when I press the shutter release. File size differences also help me sort in Bridge.

Shooting for the largest image size for the sake of potentials is a total waste for me. I know what my objective is when I take the shot. Like the old days, I'd either take my 120 film camera or my 35mm film camera. It depended on my objectives.

Rest assured, there are plenty of 5 megapixel shots out there that leave 12, 15 or 20 megapixels in the dust when the aesthetics of the image comes first!
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BruceWB

 

[Big Ga]

I just don't really see the point of having RAW files which do not contain all the original data from the sensor.

If you don't see the point, then it probably means that you don't need this feature.

However there is a very good reason that Canon HAVE implemented that feature, and there ARE photographers out there that use it on a daily basis.

 

[mfbernstein]

Who would like smaller RAW megapixel options like Canon offers?

I would. If they could combine it with 4:1 pixel binning (take 4 pixels to generate 1 output pixel in the RAW file) we could get cleaner output too, and 3-4MP is plenty for many things.

4-5 good MP is enough for 8x10, and for event stuff that won't get printed larger, the smaller RAW files are drastically quicker to process.

--
MFBernstein

'Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.' - Ed Abbey

 

[Big Ga]

Who would like smaller RAW megapixel options like Canon offers?

Not at 10 and 12MP.

However what I WOULD like to see (and years ago I genuinely believed that the E3 would be the camera to offer it) would be a something like a 20MP+ fourthirds sensor that allowed hardware pixel binning to also give a lower noise, smaller RAW file when needed.

 

[BruceB609]

Not so relative to the RAW size issue but not to be overlooked is imaging software for pixel interpolation or image resampling, if a better term. I don't use software other than PS right now but check the development progress out once in a while and wouldn't be surprised if we could get twice the number of pixels captured on the E-3 to simulate a 20 megapixel camera image... or more. Pixel counts today may become or are less relevant with resampling software developments. It doesn't generate what's not there but it can certainly generate pixels in exhibition quality images that leave me with the same initial response I'd have looking at the same image with 100% real pixels.

I used "bicubic sharper (reduction)" after tweaking the E-1's 14MB with ACR and resampling to 28MB then compared it to the same shot taken with the E-3. Unless you're using a loupe on the output, it's a strain to see the difference. I did start with a RAW image on both cameras. Of course the E-3 image was more defined but only with certain details which goes back to my point that a 5 megapixel RAW image can be fine depending on the kind of details within, nature of or certain textures in the shot. It would be great if Olympus would provide the RAW size option.
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BruceWB

 

[John King]

Gidday Bruce

Who would like smaller RAW megapixel options like Canon offers?

A mate with a D300 accidentally switched it into lossy RAW mode when he first got it ... As he said "Never again" ...

He routinely prints A3 size, and is a bit of a stickler for the very best IQ he can get from his gear.

IMO the whole point of RAW is preserving every bit of data one can, and putting it to good use.

RAW also avoids doing any sort of data processing in-camera (data manipulation in this sense); arguably the worst place in the known Universe to perform any sort of data processing ... . I prefer to do data processing with computers that have lots of CPU grunt; RAM, fast HDDs and using complex software algorithms that are impossible to stuff into a camera.

With my cameras I shoot:

• E-30 - RAW + LF JPEG (at present)
• E-510 - RAW + HQ JPEG
• E-1 - RAW + SHQ JPEG

Just FWIW.

--
Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-- -- --

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

Gallery: http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php



Bird Control Officers on active service.

Member of UK (and abroad) Photo Safari Group

 

[BruceB609]

Gidday to you too, John, but look eeah, preserving all the data one can is very open ended and leads to this consumer stampede of roos that go jumping up and down for the wrong thing 'cause I'm not talking about JPEG or any other kind of digital shorthand. I'm talking about an option with the size of the RAW file. The critical data for image quality is there. It remains. It is not depleted in any way at all other than pixel count. The printing size of an image does not measure image quality it only governs it when there's an objective. Why do all my images have to be huge? The answer, which so many will deny, is in trends. The consumer has been corralled into this expectancy for huge image size abilities thanks to marketing. It's nothing but trend. Bigger is better and all that.

Actually, I find it rather amusing. I shoot a lot in the city and sometimes I'll be around an event or scenic location where countless people take their SLR cameras, where point and shoots would do fine. Instead, many have a camera and lens that they could virtually hide behind. They take mega megapixel shots of a duck that just refuses to pose for a moment. Do you really think these people even print most of their choice shots, let alone it be on a large format print the camera is capable of? Understandably, the camera has been developed for them as much as the photographer who the camera maker hopes will applaud for the sake of sales in the general consumer market.

Sorry but I think marketing has really taken things off onto a tangent that brushes preferences of the more orthodox artist aside. There just aren't enough artists to bring the profits camera makers need so general public idiocy gets first choice. (Art filters on an advanced level camera? Give me a break.)

There's nothing wrong with large pixel counts if you really plan to use them but of all the gazillions of these battleship like mega megapixel guns that people use for duck shoots, how many of those people have the vaguest idea of what they're doing or intention of selling or even printing and framing the image? An accurate analysis of that would be very entertaining if DPReview could figure it out.

We could have had optional size RAW files by now. It's just not in the marketing plan unless, maybe, it gets a duck to cooperate.
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BruceWB

 

[John King]

G'day again Bruce

I think I misunderstood what you were saying. I was thinking of the lossy compressed RAW options that CanNikon offer.

It seems that you are talking of reducing the image size from (say) 4000x3000 to 1200x800 using only the centre part of the image, and then storing this as a RAW file. Is this correct? An in-camera RAW crop?

My E-30 already does this (I think ... lol; I haven't had it long enough to play with everything it will do!), but only for JPEGs - I think . The camera does not crop the RAW file.

The reason behind my shooting differing size JPEGs with my three cameras is that the size and quality of the image varies in importance with the three sensors. An SHQ JPEG from my E-1 is relatively small; larger for my E-510 and considerably larger for my E-30.

Since I only ever use the JPEGs for quick and dirty upload to my web site; or email etc, I really consider them to be a form of backup while the card is in-camera. The chance of both images being corrupted by a card failure is either 100% or next to zero, with very little in between! The chances of this happening at all to any of my (very rare) images that are worth a bumper is next to infinitesimally small ...

With the price of good quality, reasonably fast cards plummeting, it is hard to see any real purpose being served by any form of file size reduction, unless one is shooting a Hassy 50 MP back ...

--
Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
-- -- --

The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...

Gallery: http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/main.php



Bird Control Officers on active service.

Member of UK (and abroad) Photo Safari Group

 

[BruceB609]

G'day again Bruce

I think I misunderstood what you were saying. I was thinking of the lossy compressed RAW options that CanNikon offer.

Yo! John, no, I wasn't suggesting any kind of processing or compression, just the number of recording pixels.

It seems that you are talking of reducing the image size from (say) 4000x3000 to 1200x800 using only the centre part of the image, and then storing this as a RAW file. Is this correct? An in-camera RAW crop?

Well, no, I'm talking about a 3000 x 4000 or 2736 x 3648 being reduced to 2560 x 1920 using the full sensor area with no crop at all. Data is retained from every other pixel instead of every pixel if going from 10 megapix to 5. In fact, I could see this lending itself to hi/lo value dual capture debate and I would far rather have quality than high pixel counts. Of course, a hi/lo puts me at using all 10 megapix again but what if the range of that data only ended up giving me a 5 megaixel image in the end. Fine with me if it made that much difference to IQ. That's my main motive to shoot RAW anyway. Sure, we can sandwich bracketed shots but I shoot fast movement and don't have that option. I need all the values and sensitivity I can get within 1/125 second or less.

My E-30 already does this (I think ... lol; I haven't had it long enough to play with everything it will do!), but only for JPEGs - I think . The camera does not crop the RAW file.

Yes, from what I've read in the E-30 specs, it offers all kinds of crops but let me be emphatic, I'm not suggesting any cropping at all.

The reason behind my shooting differing size JPEGs with my three cameras is that the size and quality of the image varies in importance with the three sensors. An SHQ JPEG from my E-1 is relatively small; larger for my E-510 and considerably larger for my E-30.

Your size call, relatively small, larger or considerably larger can mean anything between tiny to massive depending on who you're talking to or what objectives they have. For a practical purpose, I'm talking about the size of images on desktop printer stocks. 5 megapixels is quite capable of producing a beautiful print on A3 paper as long as the nature of the detail works and I wouldn't call 11 x 16 inches "small." Street vendors all over NYC seem to stock most of their photography at about that size and I'd say that's in response to what they get the most sales turnover with, not personal choice.

With the price of good quality, reasonably fast cards plummeting, it is hard to see any real purpose being served by any form of file size reduction, unless one is shooting a Hassy 50 MP back ...

I don't question capacities and prices. We'll stick a copy of mother earth on an SD card before long... maybe with every last blade of grass in the details... O.K, I'll give that a break, Australian grass :? I paid $350 for a 500mb CF (or 1gb ?) card at one time. It was hardly big enough for a grain of sand compared with what's happening now. What's being left out of the equation is man-hours. I don't want to have to do so much editing later on and RAW size should be an option upon pressing the shutter release. I don't have to play safe. I know what I need for that shot. JPEG has always had that option and Canon didn't introduce the idea of RAW sizing for anything less than intelligent thinking about how things are going or will continue to go. This is pure and wise foresight. They confronted reality before Olympus did. I'm shocked. I thought Olympus was the innovator. John, being a full time, self employed fine artist who works in photography and painting, even in this awful global recession, I need equipment that offers me choice and control. I don't need Olympus making my job any more laborious than it can already get. I have to resize the images because they can't put the option in the camera.... but Canon can! The point I'm making is that accumulative volumes that are bringing in larger and larger image files is an unnecessary waste of space and my time. I know what size file I need to shoot when I'm on location and it's not for a photo wall mural in the Modern Museum of Art!

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BruceWB