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

[Tristimulus]

Exactly. I honestly think that Sony can do it at anytime, and with a 61mp camera (120mb files) it is almost like a requirement... It should come with the camera and it could (honestly should) go down for the "older" (but still active) models (A7iii, A7r3 and A9).

Hell I'd be satisfied with a pc/mac software program to compress after the fact (like the DNG converter).

The Sony compression sheme is actually very clever (despite some minor issues that you have to dig deep to uncover). The main reason for this format seems to be fast data handling (processing diwn the pipeline).

Fully agree that uncompressed RAW is a fine alternative for those seeeing absolute perfection, for most ordinary users (yes, pros as well) the compressed RAW format seems like an elegant solution.

High resolution cameras like the A7RIV are not for everyone. Large files was one of my reasons to stay with 24MP files, new was another (skipped the want part :-D)...

 

[Paul12]

why is it an issue? external ssd drives are not expensive and a macbook pro or desktop has no trouble with these files

 

[daqk]

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.

Just do a simple test: get ANY RAW file from a Sony camera and run on a ZIP software in your computer. Completely lossless and makes the file actually smaller then the "lossy" compressed RAW that Sony offers.

I just don't get it. A7r3 RAW files are already a nightmare for my backup drive. I just cannot handle 61mp of that ...

If Sony just comes out tomorrow with a firmware across the board (A7iii, A7r3, A9 and A7r4) offering lossless compressed RAW (like everyone else, and like their customers are asking for ages), then I will be tempted to get the A7r4. Until then, I am not planning to spend the cameras worse in more external drives, thank you

I used to play around with LZW many years ago, I have to agree that Sony should have used it. But I am not too sure if it has any legal issue left over, either way, they should have tried similar method to slim the files ... which even with previous gen A7Rx, the RAW is BIG.

 

[lattesweden]

I used to play around with LZW many years ago, I have to agree that Sony should have used it. But I am not too sure if it has any legal issue left over, either way, they should have tried similar method to slim the files ... which even with previous gen A7Rx, the RAW is BIG.

Sony ARW (I tested the ones from A7RII) does ZIP rather fine as well. And Windows regular folder compression gained some as well, though not as good as ZIP.

My biggest concern is not really file size on the camera card when out shooting, neither file size when I edit the project. But I would like a solution to lessen the file size on archive storage after I am done with my project.

Once I archive, I would prefer to trade longer loading times with CPU usage to unpack if I need to open a file again vs the gain of the smaller size.

So for me, the compression could happen on the PC as well and just help with reducing storage on archived ARW files.

 

[Unum sed Leonem]

You lectured Me on what "lossless" means. Now, lecture Me on we far "compression" stands for.

"Compressed" is, obviously, not the same as "Uncompressed". Lossless or lossy.

 

[terryreid]

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.

Just do a simple test: get ANY RAW file from a Sony camera and run on a ZIP software in your computer. Completely lossless and makes the file actually smaller then the "lossy" compressed RAW that Sony offers.

I just don't get it. A7r3 RAW files are already a nightmare for my backup drive. I just cannot handle 61mp of that ...

If Sony just comes out tomorrow with a firmware across the board (A7iii, A7r3, A9 and A7r4) offering lossless compressed RAW (like everyone else, and like their customers are asking for ages), then I will be tempted to get the A7r4. Until then, I am not planning to spend the cameras worse in more external drives, thank you

It has not been an issue with me plus it encorages me to do a more thorough job of culling.

Even though I have sufficence space with all my 10T SSD's I try to do a better job of paring my folders down to the keepers than I used to.

 

[PWPhotography]

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.

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

 

[il_alexk]

I don't see a problem.

Yet all other vendors support raws with loseless compression. There is a good reason for that even though a few users don't see it as a problem.

It's a must these days.

Use the compressed Raw files for almost everything and uncompressed for supercritical stuff.

Other cameras give you lossless compressed raws. No need to think if you are shooting superficial stuff or everyday. It just works and there is no need to ovecomplicate the camera design/usage with two extra options.

We shoot Sony for a very long time now and have 300k images a year easily, mostly weddings. For the huge majority of cases you will be hard pressed to see a difference in compressed vs. uncompressed raws. Sony's algorithm isn't that bad.

We all know that. Yet the industry standard practice is different and Sony decision not to support it is weird.

--
Cheers,
Alex

 

[SrMi]

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.

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

The problem is if you ever want to re-process raw files in camera, then you have to decompress the whole huge file first. And viewing your raw files in camera would be super low. Don't know if that is even supported. An uncompressed raw file you can read and scale down faster.

So usability might decrease with in camera compression.

I think you misunderstand. A lot of modern compression algorithms are quite quick to decompress, despite taking more effort to compress.

Nikon bodies have offered both lossless compressed and uncompressed RAW files for a while now - have you seen any reports that the lossless compressed RAW files are slower to view?

Moreover, I think you'll find that we don't view RAW files in camera. We view an embedded JPEG, instead. We don't see the real RAW files until we take them into the computer.

Canon has one as well. So Sony is for some odd reason behind the times here as both the main players have had compressed lossless RAWs for ages.

There are no issues with it.

Greg.

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

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.

Just do a simple test: get ANY RAW file from a Sony camera and run on a ZIP software in your computer. Completely lossless and makes the file actually smaller then the "lossy" compressed RAW that Sony offers.

I just don't get it. A7r3 RAW files are already a nightmare for my backup drive. I just cannot handle 61mp of that ...

If Sony just comes out tomorrow with a firmware across the board (A7iii, A7r3, A9 and A7r4) offering lossless compressed RAW (like everyone else, and like their customers are asking for ages), then I will be tempted to get the A7r4. Until then, I am not planning to spend the cameras worse in more external drives, thank you

One solution is to convert raw files to DNGs at import. The converted DNGs are compressed.

I do not like to convert my raw files to DNGs. Therefore I am also bothered by the lack of lossless compressed option.

I know that, but then the workflow becomes even more cumbersome because I need to "batch convert" all photos... Also, I hate converting the original file. I like my RAWs to be in their original state...

I think that should be stated as "original state" as Sony RAWs are not RAW at all.

I hope this lack of lossless compressed RAW is not due to the star eater algorithim.

Probably not.

Greg.

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

I have done lots of shootings and I only use compressed mode. Yes it is not lossless but whatever it looses is negligible in my shooting style. Maybe it is ok for you too?

There are losses in compressed. Its slightly flawed. Backlit scenes, star trails they can get artefacts along edges from the compression.

Greg.

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

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.

Just do a simple test: get ANY RAW file from a Sony camera and run on a ZIP software in your computer. Completely lossless and makes the file actually smaller then the "lossy" compressed RAW that Sony offers.

I just don't get it. A7r3 RAW files are already a nightmare for my backup drive. I just cannot handle 61mp of that ...

If Sony just comes out tomorrow with a firmware across the board (A7iii, A7r3, A9 and A7r4) offering lossless compressed RAW (like everyone else, and like their customers are asking for ages), then I will be tempted to get the A7r4. Until then, I am not planning to spend the cameras worse in more external drives, thank you

RAW compression is a processor-intensive task and although it frees up buffer space it adds computational activity. I'm guessing this is a tradeoff for Sony

You can, of course, convert on your computer....to DNG, for example

By the way...I just bought an 8TB external drive for $129....that can hold your life's collection of video and stills and your DVD collection and your neighbors.

You may be right but I wouldn't make excuses for Sony. They often come across as super good at high tech hardware but rather backward when it comes to software, menus etc. This seems to be another example of that. Just like the star eater issue which was never directly addressed despite complaints for years.

Greg.

 

[Astrophotographer 10]

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.

Fuji said categorically that IBIS was not possible with their XT cameras.

Guess what the XT4 has? IBIS.

Greg.

 

[Mr Owl]

Definitely, Sony should offer lossless compressed raw in a firmware update to every camera that can accept it across the board. Especially to reduce the giant file size of the A7R4. Even at 61MB compressed they are big. I can't believe Sony hasn't done this already. It can't be that difficult in comparison to most other features they offer.

I'm going away soon hopping around Scandinavia, Iceland & Russia for 6 weeks & won't have opportunities to wander around camera stores so I have to make sure I can deal with these file sizes while outdoors most of the time right from the start. It's meant a lot of research to make my needs fit a limited budget.

Apart from having to buy two Sony M 256GB memory cards, the other essential components are: a good external battery with a lot of charge, a hub to transfer files from the cards to an external SSD disk & of course the external SSD disk. Also an extra Sony battery for the camera & a couple of appropriate cables.

Ravpower make a great file hub & large capacity batteries & Samsung have small fast xxTB SSD's. I have a 2TB one. You can also get USB-C wall chargers to quickly charge the main battery. There is a battery charger from Nitecore that charges 2 Sony camera batteries at once. This too can be charged from the wall or from the battery. I had to buy all of these & so far they work flawlessly.

A 256GB memory card takes up to 3982 compressed raw images. With 2 cards in the camera on 'switch over' this totals 7964 images. Not too shabby. I think it's a one-off investment that works out well.

These are not luxuries but essentials when out on the field for long periods without access to power. Yes it's a bit of an outlay (cheapest so far on Amazon) but it's nowhere near the outlay of another camera yet brings much needed peace of mind.

I would steer clear of WD equipment. I've had personal experience of their 1x Elements drives & 4x Passport HD's (the square-shaped one). And ALL of them failed. Have no experience of their SSD passport version though.

--
Mr Owl

 

[panther fan]

For data storage, there is no need for individually compressed files. Both Windows and NAS systems based on BTRFS or ZFS allow you to compress entire folders or drives automatically in the background. So why force the camera to do the heavy lifting when the much more powerful CPUs in our system can do that seamlessly for us?

What we really need is a proper "tiny RAW", reduced resolution ~24MP ~loossy nonlinear compression and all the other tricks you can throw at it. This would not only significantly reduce file size, but also allow crippled software like lightroom to run a lot faster in post-processing. This would be the true workflow improvement for the times you don't need all the resolution.

PS: The reason Sony doesn't do this is that the pipeline is too weak. Already compressed RAW or JPEG significantly reduces the pipeline speed. Both together already hurt the buffer clearing time a lot. Asking for even higher compression will not come with current-gen cameras, they need a faster processor for that

 

[abe4652]

Definitely, Sony should offer lossless compressed raw in a firmware update to every camera that can accept it across the board. Especially to reduce the giant file size of the A7R4. Even at 61MB compressed they are big. I can't believe Sony hasn't done this already. It can't be that difficult in comparison to most other features they offer.

I'm going away soon hopping around Scandinavia, Iceland & Russia for 6 weeks & won't have opportunities to wander around camera stores so I have to make sure I can deal with these file sizes while outdoors most of the time right from the start. It's meant a lot of research to make my needs fit a limited budget.

Apart from having to buy two Sony M 256GB memory cards, the other essential components are: a good external battery with a lot of charge, a hub to transfer files from the cards to an external SSD disk & of course the external SSD disk. Also an extra Sony battery for the camera & a couple of appropriate cables.

Ravpower make a great file hub & large capacity batteries & Samsung have small fast xxTB SSD's. I have a 2TB one. You can also get USB-C wall chargers to quickly charge the main battery. There is a battery charger from Nitecore that charges 2 Sony camera batteries at once. This too can be charged from the wall or from the battery. I had to buy all of these & so far they work flawlessly.

A 256GB memory card takes up to 3982 compressed raw images. With 2 cards in the camera on 'switch over' this totals 7964 images. Not too shabby. I think it's a one-off investment that works out well.

These are not luxuries but essentials when out on the field for long periods without access to power. Yes it's a bit of an outlay (cheapest so far on Amazon) but it's nowhere near the outlay of another camera yet brings much needed peace of mind.

I would steer clear of WD equipment. I've had personal experience of their 1x Elements drives & 4x Passport HD's (the square-shaped one). And ALL of them failed. Have no experience of their SSD passport version though.

I don't know about square WD drives, but I have never had a problem with an external passport drive, going from the 100MB days to 4TB.

 

[abe4652]

For data storage, there is no need for individually compressed files. Both Windows and NAS systems based on BTRFS or ZFS allow you to compress entire folders or drives automatically in the background. So why force the camera to do the heavy lifting when the much more powerful CPUs in our system can do that seamlessly for us?

What we really need is a proper "tiny RAW", reduced resolution ~24MP ~loossy nonlinear compression and all the other tricks you can throw at it. This would not only significantly reduce file size, but also allow crippled software like lightroom to run a lot faster in post-processing. This would be the true workflow improvement for the times you don't need all the resolution.

PS: The reason Sony doesn't do this is that the pipeline is too weak. Already compressed RAW or JPEG significantly reduces the pipeline speed. Both together already hurt the buffer clearing time a lot. Asking for even higher compression will not come with current-gen cameras, they need a faster processor for that

I don't think that other manufacturers have a problem with a reduction of transfer rate when creating compressed files. Less data to transfer I think more than makes up for CPU power needed to compress.

I'll reiterate what others have said here before much better than I have.

Not having full compressed lossless RAW is weird.

 

[SrMi]

For data storage, there is no need for individually compressed files. Both Windows and NAS systems based on BTRFS or ZFS allow you to compress entire folders or drives automatically in the background. So why force the camera to do the heavy lifting when the much more powerful CPUs in our system can do that seamlessly for us?

What we really need is a proper "tiny RAW", reduced resolution ~24MP ~loossy nonlinear compression and all the other tricks you can throw at it. This would not only significantly reduce file size, but also allow crippled software like lightroom to run a lot faster in post-processing. This would be the true workflow improvement for the times you don't need all the resolution.

PS: The reason Sony doesn't do this is that the pipeline is too weak. Already compressed RAW or JPEG significantly reduces the pipeline speed. Both together already hurt the buffer clearing time a lot. Asking for even higher compression will not come with current-gen cameras, they need a faster processor for that

Originally, Sony had only lossless compressed RAW. Only after a lot of complaining did they add uncompressed RAW.

 

[JimKasson]

Originally, Sony had only lossless compressed RAW. Only after a lot of complaining did they add uncompressed RAW.

Malicious obedience.

--
https://blog.kasson.com