My 2nd shooter for my weddings this year shoots with a D800. His huge RAW files are killing me. I can't even upload them in my normal way to my gallery website and it's just a pain.
If I had him shoot his RAW files at a lower resolution rate, would I be sacrificing quality? I'm curious to hear from D800 shooters about any loss of quality of shots from a lower resolution. I just don't need those 45-meg files.
have him shoot 12bit lossy compressed NEFs, that gets you down around 30mb and you'd have to REAAALLY pixel peep to see any difference vs 14bit lossless. from there, you can downsize them on your computer as DNGs or even as lossy DNGs at a reduced resolution.
as for uploading to your galleries, you're talking about finished JPGs, right? you have huge control over that, you could very easily export the JPGs at 10, 12, or 16mp and have file sizes the same as whatever else you use.
There is no small raw. He could shoot in 1.3 crop or 4x5 format that would reduce the MP. My recommendation would be to reduce the size once you have the files.
brett maxwell wrote:
have him shoot 12bit lossy compressed NEFs, that gets you down around 30mb and you'd have to REAAALLY pixel peep to see any difference vs 14bit lossless. from there, you can downsize them on your computer as DNGs or even as lossy DNGs at a reduced resolution.
as for uploading to your galleries, you're talking about finished JPGs, right? you have huge control over that, you could very easily export the JPGs at 10, 12, or 16mp and have file sizes the same as whatever else you use.
Thanks, Brett, this is what I was hoping to hear. As for uploaded, no, I create unedited galleries for my clients to see immediately after the wedding. I export 1 meg-sized JPGs to the gallery, but for some reason, the website host sees these as the 45-meg monsters they once were, so I have to use an alternative method of getting them uploaded.
friscoron wrote:
Thanks, Brett, this is what I was hoping to hear. As for uploaded, no, I create unedited galleries for my clients to see immediately after the wedding. I export 1 meg-sized JPGs to the gallery, but for some reason, the website host sees these as the 45-meg monsters they once were, so I have to use an alternative method of getting them uploaded.
Shooting with a D600/D800 there are two easy solutions ( 3 if you don't mind jpgs instead of RAW) one of which is used by shooters needing to get shots to a sports editor (for example) quickly via a mobile phone or other device via an SD card and a dongle :
a) Have him shoot in RAW and the jpg of your choice (fine, normal, basic - just play around to see what works best for the web, I suspect the Basic will serve your needs just fine if you only need 1MB) then it is easy to export only the jpgs from the first onto the 2nd card (D800 has 1xCF card and 1xSD card slots) for upload to the web. For some this is better than b) below because if you delete a shot you delete both the RAW and jpg at the same time and are not left with a jpg on the other card.
b) In the menu you can choose to have RAW in Slot 1 and JPEG in Slot 2 (again you can choose the image quality for the jpg)
c) You can reduce the quality of the jpgs (but not RAW - without shooting in x1.2 / 1.5 / 5-4 crop modes) via the Image Size menu option.
Hope this helps resolve your headache !
Kevin
EDIT ops for some reason I had D600 in my mind. Not much difference with the D800 except you get more crop options.
This is a lack of technical or software knowledge moreso than a file size issue.
Or the use of a software program that's not properly resizing the D800 raw files. What software is this?
View NX2 will do it fast and correct as it is designed for Nikon.
Let him shoot like he does, save the raw files using a USB 3.0 reader (for speed), and export jpegs (resized to your liking) immediately into a new or same directory with Nikon View NX2 after minor tweaking if needed. It ill do the entire batch fast, and properly. And will retain the in-camera settings used when the raw photo was shot.
ckcarr wrote:
This is a lack of technical or software knowledge moreso than a file size issue.
Or the use of a software program that's not properly resizing the D800 raw files. What software is this?
View NX2 will do it fast and correct as it is designed for Nikon.
Let him shoot like he does, save the raw files using a USB 3.0 reader (for speed), and export jpegs (resized to your liking) immediately into a new or same directory with Nikon View NX2 after minor tweaking if needed. It ill do the entire batch fast, and properly. And will retain the in-camera settings used when the raw photo was shot....Show more →
I use LR5. I see the file sizes, they are what I want them to be. It's an issue with my gallery host, not my program software.
As Brett said, D600 and D800 have "lossy" RAW which are similar to sRAW, but instead of being downsampled, a compression scheme similar to JPEG is employed. The files are "full" resolution but instead of being 14-bit, I believe they are non-linear 12-bit.
slrl0ver wrote:
As Brett said, D600 and D800 have "lossy" RAW which are similar to sRAW, but instead of being downsampled, a compression scheme similar to JPEG is employed. The files are "full" resolution but instead of being 14-bit, I believe they are non-linear 12-bit.
- slrl0ver
You are quite right - I had totally missed this (focusing on Image Size and Image Quality). It can be found in the same Shooting Menu with full details on P86 of the D800 Manual.
Are you processing with Photoshop ACR? Just dial in the files at the bottom of the RAW Window. Click and change MP size to what you want...files will process at lower MP rate and be more manageable. I personally have never done it but know the controls are there. Then make a batch processing script and run it. Should be easy.
Why possibly compromise RAW quality or mess with down-sampling? Just shoot NEF to the primary card, small jpg to the 2nd card. Upload 2nd card and you are done.
brett maxwell wrote:
from there, you can downsize them on your computer as DNGs or even as lossy DNGs at a reduced resolution..
I just tried this! ...low res DNG may not be supported by earlier versions of LR (4) and PS (6). Like always they want you to update your software to the latest version
ops for some reason I had D600 in my mind. Not much difference with the D800 except you get more crop options.