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Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

freaklikeme
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

New owner here falling more and more for the camera. I've been shooting RAW and 16-bit TIFFs and I'm not seeing a downside to using the TIFFs. I have a little more work to do fine tuning the camera's processing, but I think the TIFFs will be the right way for me, unless I'm missing some major drawback.

How about you? Which option are you using and why?

May 09, 2022 at 12:50 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Can you actually shoot tiffs in camera on that model? Well, it looks like you can but the question is why would you want to. No matter what format you specify for the camera to write to the card, they all HAVE to start with a RAW file exposure in the camera. The camera then processes that raw file into the requested format. So if you're setting the camera for a tiff file, the camera is doing the conversion from RAW to tiff for you and you have little or no control over that. Specifically, you won't have all the choices you would have when you process the RAW fie yourself in the RAW processor of your choice - White Balance, Color Temperature, Highlight and Shadow recovery, Selective Color, Sharpening, or more importantly, turning that off and even more important, the choice of using a better, more effective RAW processor that Fuji's own, and don't fall into the mistake that so many people make of assuming that the manufacturer's software is the best and only way to convert.

Shoot RAW and process them yourself to your liking, plus the RAW files are a lot smaller than the final tiff is, taking up far less memory on your cards.

May 09, 2022 at 03:59 AM

Sauseschritt
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

TIFF is a good format if you want to give your final image file to a professional printer, because its an universal format.

RAW is a good format for storing all your images before processing because it contains all the data unprocessed and highly compressed and all the settings of the shooting.

May 09, 2022 at 04:31 AM

Peter Figen
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

But tiff is not a good format to shoot in camera for the reasons I mentioned before. It's the ideal deliverable format for most applications as you say.

May 09, 2022 at 06:10 AM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Peter Figen wrote:
Can you actually shoot tiffs in camera on that model? Well, it looks like you can but the question is why would you want to. No matter what format you specify for the camera to write to the card, they all HAVE to start with a RAW file exposure in the camera. The camera then processes that raw file into the requested format. So if you're setting the camera for a tiff file, the camera is doing the conversion from RAW to tiff for you and you have little or no control over that. Specifically, you won't have all...Show more →

It's not so much shooting TIFFs as it is letting the camera process TIFFs out of the captured RAW. I like it because I really like some of the film emulations as jumping-off points for post, particularly Velvia, which reminds of shooting Ektachrome only with more latitude, the Pro Neg options, and the Monochrome option with the red, yellow, and green digital color filters. And your ability to control the final image is surprisingly robust. It's not like having PS or C1 on camera, but it's fine enough to produce a file that won't need much help in post. Even if you're shooting with non-system lenses, you can create up to six profiles for adapted lenses that includes distortion correction, vignetting correction, and color shift correction.

I think the best thing about it is, once I've got the C1-6 slots set up the way I want them, I can create a mostly print-ready file exactly as I saw it through the EVF. I'll still have the RAW if I need it, and will use RAWs for exposure bracketing and panos, but, if I like what I'm seeing in the camera, which I have for the most part, I'll process that and use the TIFF.

May 09, 2022 at 06:33 AM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Peter Figen wrote:
But tiff is not a good format to shoot in camera for the reasons I mentioned before. It's the ideal deliverable format for most applications as you say.

Check out what all you have control over. https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/gfx50s-ii/menu_shooting/image_quality_setting/

May 09, 2022 at 06:35 AM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Sauseschritt wrote:
TIFF is a good format if you want to give your final image file to a professional printer, because its an universal format.

RAW is a good format for storing all your images before processing because it contains all the data unprocessed and highly compressed and all the settings of the shooting.

The RAWs are still there, but the TIFFs have plenty of latitude for any final edits necessary.

May 09, 2022 at 06:37 AM

rdeloe
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Don't forget that if you shoot in RAW, you can always generate the TIFF later using Fuji X-RAW Studio. That way you're not locking yourself into one film simulation or set of development parameters (the ones you chose in the camera at the time you pressed the shutter).

If you're not familiar with this software, it's simply a desktop interface to what your camera can do. If you have a RAF on card in the camera, you can develop it in camera using the camera's menus. X-RAW Studio lets you do that on your desktop. It uses the camera to develop the RAF, so you're getting the Fuji treatment.

May 09, 2022 at 07:30 AM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

rdeloe wrote:
Don't forget that if you shoot in RAW, you can always generate the TIFF later using Fuji X-RAW Studio. That way you're not locking yourself into one film simulation or set of development parameters (the ones you chose in the camera at the time you pressed the shutter).

If you're not familiar with this software, it's simply a desktop interface to what your camera can do. If you have a RAF on card in the camera, you can develop it in camera using the camera's menus. X-RAW Studio lets you do that on your desktop. It uses the camera to...Show more →

Thanks, Rob. I have not yet dug into their software, but that's good to know.

May 09, 2022 at 04:09 PM

rbf_
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

I shoot raw + jpg with the raws going to slot 1 and the jpg's going to slot 2. Sometimes I will use the simulations and other controls/settings for the jpg's especially if I'm going to share them quickly via smart phone. I think this setup would save you space and probably battery since making those huge TIFF's likely chews up a lot of power. Then when you have a SOC file you really like you can always go back and generate the TIFF later(either in camera from the raw or as @rdeloe noted above). If you have the raws you can always put them in the camera and generate as many versions as you want using the in camera emulations/settings.

May 09, 2022 at 04:21 PM

BrandonSi
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

As rbf_ mentioned, raw+jpg is probably the best solution here. I totally get having a copy of the image with a film simulation applied, I love that about Fuji.. (and I do raw+jpg personally to have the .jpg serve as a 'inspiration' when editing).. but as rdeloe mentioned, X-RAW studio will give you that entire set of options in post based on the raw file as it uses the camera (you have to connect it via USB to use X-RAW studio) to do the image processing.

That being said, if you are going direct to printing and are getting exactly what you want from a SooC .tiff file, don't let anyone else tell you not to do it.

There's more flexibility in the raw approach but if you don't need it, you don't need it!

May 09, 2022 at 08:42 PM

freaklikeme
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Thanks, rbf_ and Brandon. I considered JPEG, but I don't want a JPEG of every shot. I just want in-camera TIFFs that are what I saw through the EVF of the ones I plan to print. It's not like it slows down shooting, and the TIFF is far more adaptable to big deviations from the standard profiles I'm creating, in case I miss on the exposure variables by a large margin.

May 09, 2022 at 10:14 PM

molson
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

I can't think of a single valid reason to ever save files directly to TIFF format.

May 10, 2022 at 11:58 AM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

I'd think that tiff is higher quality since it has more bits. I don't really pp heavily though and I'm not having trouble pp using raw. So I haven't used this body but I'd think tiff is larger and I'm not really interested in larger files, myself.

Raw is compressed, tiff isn't afaik. So if you're getting enough images on a card you might be better off shooting tiff.

May 10, 2022 at 04:09 PM

mjm6
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

AmbientMike wrote:
I'd think that tiff is higher quality since it has more bits.

It is not higher quality. If you are saving out as TIFF from the camera, the 14-bit data from the RAW file is "padded" to make it 16 bits. Plus, all the RAW conversion to TIFF is done (three channels per pixel), so you have much more data to store to essentially get the same information in a different format that you could get in the RAW converter when aplying profiles.

The only possible difference that might occur (and whether it produces "better" files or not would probably be debatable) is if the film profile and other adjustments (falloff and sharpening) are made in the 16-bit realm and if the adjustments also apply 16-bit levels of manipulation, then it might be very, very slightly better for avoiding banding or other artifacts when the manipulation occurs, compared to the JPG file. However, it's also possible that the adjustments for ALL non-RAW files (JPG plus TIFF) are also performed in the same bit depth before they are converted to JPG, and if this is the case, there may not really be any substantial difference.

Either way, the RAW file will not be worse than the TIFF, but it will be substantially smaller. It also won't include the baked-in film profiles...

Personally, I don't know of any use case where I would output TIFF from the camera, but I could imagine someone wanting to do that to save a step in the computer (at the expense of much larger file size) or to lock in the film profile and other settings they are shooting with. That's not how I shoot, but I see that being one motivation. I could see wedding shooters maybe wanting to take that approach to clamp down on the color and other aspects of a session to help with consistency and to reduce the amount or post processing that is needed.

I convert all my images to DNG anyway, so the TIFF approach is pointless and I prefer the smallest non-lossy compressed RAW for in-camera storage. I treat the RAW files as a negative and starting departure point rather than as a slide where I want it to come out looking a certain consistent manner in the computer.

May 10, 2022 at 05:04 PM

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

Unless I misunderstand what is going on here, the raw file is the closest thing to a digital version of the original negative or positive film image in the old days. It is (or at least used to be, this isn't so certain now) the "raw" date from the sensor photo sites.

So if the camera is producing a tiff file, it is still starting with the raw image data and converting it to tiff. There would be absolutely no image quality advantage (and we hope, no difference!) in doing this in-camera.

In trying to come up with a reason — any reason — to convert to tiff in camera, the best I can come up with is that you could open the tiff file directly without doing a raw file conversion if a conversion step is part of your workflow. (It isn't if you use Lightroom.)

Personally, I like using the conversion step in ACR to do some initial editing as I convert the raw file and transfer it to Photoshop as a smart layer.

One more thing. If you are just moving files around and not doing any processing on them, for example two send them to someone whole will just print the file as-is, there's no significant advantage to the extra bit depth of the tiff file. The advantage there comes where you post-process the file and have "smaller steps" to work with as you alter image data.

Dan

May 10, 2022 at 05:24 PM

rdeloe
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

I think the logic of this is that the OP likes the Fuji film simulations, and using X-RAW Studio allows him to apply the film simulations after the fact (try different ones, etc.)

On the merits of using TIFF, unfortunately both the GFX 50R camera (and thus X-RAW Studio) only create 8-bit TIFF (not 16 or even padded 16 from the 14 bit RAF). I did a very careful comparison of the camera-generated JPEG versus the camera-generated TIFF and I could not see any meaningful differences. So if I wanted to let the camera do the work, I'd probably use JPEG rather than TIFF.

Fuji says, for the 50S II, "In-camera RAW processing provides the option of saving 8-bit or 10-bit color depth images as 8-bit or 16-bit TIFF files." So that's a step-up from my 50R.

I have also done very careful comparisons of Lightroom's versions of Fuji's film simulations and JPEGs made with Fuji's film simulations in camera, and I couldn't see significant differences; Adobe has done a very good job of implementing the Fuji simulations.

Hence, for me, I shoot RAW. But different strokes for different folks. The OP is interested in Fuji's TIFFs and has his reasons.

May 10, 2022 at 05:50 PM

AmbientMike
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

14 bit RAW beats 12 bit RAW. Both are compressed. 16 bit tiff has more bits and is uncompressed.

The main difference on more bits is more malleable files AFAIK. You can get nice results using 8 bit jpegs (another subject) but you aren't going to be able to pp as much as a less compressed raw having more bits. Whether they've taken advantage of it fully or not, uncompressed 16 bit tiff is apparently capable of higher quality than raw, having more bits, for one thing.

If they only put 10 bits in the 16 bit tif you might not come out ahead of the raw, except raw processors can make a mess of a file, then you have to get it back. You might have to edit a film simulation you like, less.

May 10, 2022 at 08:35 PM

bobby350z
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

RAWs are lossless compressed. So no difference with compression. Extra bit are not in the original data, so doesn't matter how many bits you use. You can make them 64 bits and think you got more editing room, doesn't work that way. Simulations, I can get them in Lr and C1, no issues. You can also use the Fuji RAW editor that runs a raw file through the camera, as Rob already mentioned. Personally I have no need for TIFFs, but everyone uses these cameras differently.

May 10, 2022 at 09:33 PM

molson
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · Fuji GXF 50sII- RAW or 16-bit Tiff?

AmbientMike wrote:
14 bit RAW beats 12 bit RAW. Both are compressed. 16 bit tiff has more bits and is uncompressed.

The problem is that your 16-bit TIFF file, compressed or otherwise, is generated from the 14-bit RAW data, so there's nothing there that isn't inherent in the RAW file, except that the TIFF file takes up significantly more storage space.

Early digital cameras captured TIFF files back in the days before Photoshop and other software offered much in the way of RAW conversion; its last hurrah came about 18-20 years ago when Nikon was fighting Adobe, trying to prevent them from demosaicing NEF files and offering TIFF file recording as an alternative to Nikon users as a workaround... which as I recall was pretty much a failure (at least from a marketing standpoint).

May 11, 2022 at 11:47 AM

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