anorphirith wrote:
for those of you who are still confused with the D800 and think the 75mb file size is a rumor look up page 436 of the D800 user manual
Those are for uncompressed raws. A lossless compressed 14-bit raw is 41.3MB
I believe you are still confused.
It says right there that 14 bit lossless compress is 41.3MB and you should have posted also page 86.
This for lossless compressed.
"NEF images are compressed using a nonreversible
algorithm, reducing file size by about
35–55% with almost no effect on image quality."
jayjaytuner wrote:
so with 36 megapixes, how large of a print can one pull off
Jim Brandenburg was amazed at the detail in 44" prints he made. Of course you can cover a wall with a D800 image and it will look better than a 6mp capture..
OP: 41.3MB average. Nobody shoots uncompressed... and if you do... you're silly. If you are shooting RAW, you should be shooting 14bit also.
Dave_EP wrote:
How far away do you want to stand? You could cover the moon with a print and have it look awesome
People have been printing bill-boards from 6MP images quite happily.
So, first decide how many PPI (pixels-per-inch) you need (not the same as DPI) and then calculate from there.
Oh c'mon. There are absolutes here to play with.
Straight out of camera, the files will print a 30.667" x 20.476" at 240ppi. Yes, as dave mentioned there are variables... BUT, OOC... this is the native resolution you get.
rbromfield wrote:
I believe you are still confused.
It says right there that 14 bit lossless compress is 41.3MB and you should have posted also page 86.
This for lossless compressed.
"NEF images are compressed using a nonreversible
algorithm, reducing file size by about
35–55% with almost no effect on image quality."
ill spend 3300 on a d800e shoot the $$$ lenses at their sharpest settings, in places that i will probably never do back to again in my life,
I will not compromise for "almost" no loss in image quality
crewshin wrote:
Straight out of camera, the files will print a 30.667" x 20.476" at 240ppi. Yes, as dave mentioned there are variables... BUT, OOC... this is the native resolution you get.
Err.... 240ppi is the native resolution? There's no such thing!
240ppi is merely metadata that's open to change and any user's whim and means absolutely nothing because changing 240 to 300 or 100 or 75 makes no difference to the pixels in the file
36.3 MP @ 14bit = 63.53 MB. The NEF file also contains a small (<1MP?) preview jpg and a large (36.3MP) 'basic' jpg at 4MB. So you're looking at close to 68MB for raw image data and embedded jpgs. It still seems surprising that the remaining 6.4MB is all used for metadata though.
Dave: No such thing? Is there such thing as printing? Also, your response is completely misleading. The full resolution is 7,360 x 4,912. Period. That's an absolute value and it describes exactly how many photosites are on the sensor. PPI is relevant if you scroll up a few posts and see that the context of the question was about printing. So what I gave were the native resolution values when imported into photoshop. Now, for a few variables... if you want to print bigger and don't need that much resolution, then sure, lower it to whatever you want. Hell, lower it to 1ppi and you can print a 7,360" x 4,912" (613ft x 409ft) billboard with 1 inch pixels. See my point? Why argue the variables because it's an unlimited number of possibilities.
What you are arguing is semantics
Molson: That's a horrible comparison. Lossless (depending on the algorithm used) is visually indistinguishable from raw data straight off the sensor. Jpeg's are "lossy" and show a huge difference. But feel free to shoot whatever you want... it's your harddrive space and money after all. Do yourself a favor and perform some tests of your own and see if you can see a single difference between the two. Then decide.
anorphirith wrote:
ill spend 3300 on a d800e shoot the $$$ lenses at their sharpest settings, in places that i will probably never do back to again in my life,
I will not compromise for "almost" no loss in image quality
Argh.
Why aren't photographers at least rudimantarily computer literate by now?
Lossless compression has ALL the data an uncompressed file has. That's why it's called lossless. That's also why you don't get a change in shots remaining between uncompressed and lossless compressed (the encoding is a reversible algorithm, that sometimes doesn't make a bit sequence smaller). You can reconstruct the uncompressed file with this file.
Plain "Compressed" or "lossy compressed" (Nikon's naming doesn't help here) is "visually lossless" - this compresses the file by throwing away data from the highlight region that you can't discern (you generally don't need 8096 bits for the last stop of highlights when the best display methods (10 bit) can barely use 1024), so it gets rid of some of this and then compresses it.
theoryzero wrote:
Yeah, but any rational Nikon user would not shoot uncompressed. Why would one who wants top image quality not use 14-bit lossless compression?I always thought the word 'lossless' meant that nothing is lost....
anorphirith wrote:
ill spend 3300 on a d800e shoot the $$$ lenses at their sharpest settings, in places that i will probably never do back to again in my life,
I will not compromise for "almost" no loss in image quality
Rbromfield quoted the wrong piece: "almost no effect on image quality" only applies to the Compressed option, which is lossy; the Lossless compressed option has "no effect on image quality" (hence the name lossless).
Shooting Uncompressed raw files serves no purpose unless you have a workflow that is sensitive to the minuscule time taken to decompress Lossless compressed files (highly unlikely for a personal computer, where reading the larger Uncompressed file from disk would take longer than decompressing the Lossless compressed file) or you wish to ensure no compression scheme gets in the way of any conceivable future use of the files (e.g. a library digitising public records, etc.). You should not use Uncompressed unless you can explain precisely why you're doing so.
As ausemmao said, image quality is identical between Uncompressed and Lossless compressed, both perceptually and mathematically. So, crewshin, there's no point in advising molson to do a test to see if he can see a difference: there's no possibility that he'll see a difference.
Additionally, lossy Compressed files are a very viable option for Nikon shooters who want to save more space. The compression technique is explained here, at the section called An aside on "lossy" NEF compression. Clever!
crewshin wrote:
The full resolution is 7,360 x 4,912. Period. That's an absolute value and it describes exactly how many photosites are on the sensor.
That was exactly my point. This is what the resolution is, period. No more data needed.
PPI is relevant if you scroll up a few posts and see that the context of the question was about printing. So what I gave were the native resolution values when imported into photoshop.
240ppi happens to be a photoshop default, but you can change that default to anything you want and it has no effect on the actual pixels / resolution that the camera produces and/or how large you can print. It has no meaning unless you want to print at exactly that size, which almost no one ever does, otherwise we'd have some really weird paper sizes .
The only reason I brought it up is that so many people are confused by Pixels vs PPI / DPI. I've sold shots where the resolution was XYZ but the metadata said 72dpi for what ever reason. The designer has called me up and complained that I sold them a low res image because they wanted a 600dpi image. You can talk until you are blue in the face to some people but they simply don't understand it, so I end up sending them the exact same pixels with it set to 600dpi and they are suddenly happy - yet the pixels remained the same (no re sampling).
PPI/DPI means nothing (it's just metadata) until you actually resize the image for actual printing, and then the PPI is what it is at that size, regardless of what photoshop defaults to (which in itself is meaninless - but I suppose they had to pick some number and run with it). Your print could easily be 100, 200, 233, 724 or any other random number based on the print size you choose.
Sorry if I rattled your chain the wrong way - it was not my intention at all.
anorphirith wrote:
ill spend 3300 on a d800e shoot the $$$ lenses at their sharpest settings, in places that i will probably never do back to again in my life,
I will not compromise for "almost" no loss in image quality
I applaud your concern for maximum quality. In order to get the most out of your Nikon's technology, is it now clear that "lossless compressed" gives you 100.00% of the uncompressed image quality, with exactly zero losses, and that your best choice is to shoot 14-bit lossless compressed RAW?
. 