A question about NEFs

Northstander

Northstander

Messages
345
Name
Jonathan
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi,

I have a D7000, and I've always shot in 14bit RAW and JPEG (Fine), and I've always used RAW lossless format. If I was to change to RAW lossy compressed would I see much of a difference? I'm thinking of changing so I can fit a few more shots on my memory cards (I use two 8GB cards)

I'm very much a hobbyist photographer and take a few landscape photo's but I do a lot of macro shots of flowers (and bugs when I get one that stays still long enough!)

Thanks in advance.
 
If you're using RAW + Jpeg but processing the RAWs why not swap to RAW only, will save you a few MB an image.

I can't offer any help on the compression other than to try it and see for your self.
 
personally I would just grab a bigger card, they aren't too expensive :)
 
Most likely you will not see any difference unless you do a very heavy postprocessing that involves extreme highlight detail recovery. That's where the lossy compressions steals bits from (clipped highlights).

In fact the difference between 14bit vs 12bit is even less obvious. In rare occasions you might see the difference between lossless/lossy, but most likely you'll never see difference between 12bit and 14bit levels in normally exposed day pictures.

If you want to save space and still want maximum quality possible I would rather choose 12bit lossless over 14bit lossy. However, I always shoot my day pictures on 12bit/compressed unless shooting astrophotography (I use custom quite instensive postprocessing for astrophoto and I want as good input data as possible).
 
Hi, As someone else has already said why not do away with shooting jpeg as well. This will save you some space on your cards, or try larger cards there's some very good deals around at the moment 16gb for less than £10.00. It seems a shame to use a very capable camera and not get the best possible image quality from it.

Only my opinion of course for what little it's worth. Hope this helps.
 
Thanks guys,

I think I'll stick with the max settings and get a couple of 16GB cards, as some of you have said, it's a shame not to use such a capable camera to the max.

I don't process every single raw file. Just my absolute favourites from a shoot/day out, which is why I'll still need to carry on shooting jpeg as well.
 
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