D2X questions

[david_debalko1]

I currently shoot raw with a D2H, 512mb size flash cards work fine for a lot of what I

shoot. With the D2X how big are the raw files? Do you find yourself shooting jpegs to save

space? How big is a fine large jpeg on the D2X? I have heard that the Jpegs out of the D2X

are great. I am on the waiting list for the D2X and I am just trying to prepare myself.

thanks,

Dave

[ShunCheung]

Uncompressed RAW files from the D2X is about 20M each. Your 512M cards can hold about 25 RAW files from the D2X.

 

Memory cards are not that expensive any more. When you get the D2X, get some 2G cards as well.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

I'm shooting RAW compressed and get about 80 shots on a 1GB card. I think the pictures are outstanding. Nikon claims this is virtually lossless compression. Certainly it's great for what I do. Also, now I have to copy to DVD's instead of CD's. Fortunately the price of those has come down.

[john_rust1]

new D2x owner here: I shoot raw uncompressed as well as a large jpg of every shot.... I

get 36 shots per 1 gig card.

[roto]

Same as above: uncompressed RAW + JPEG large fine. 1 roll per GB. :-)

 

Incidentally, do you know that RAW compression is (albeit slightly) lossy?

[ilkka_nissila]

Robert, can you show us some examples where the lost data is actually visible in the photographs? Just curious. I suspect that it will be difficult to demonstrate. Human vision is lossy, too.

[tony_cabrera]

I've been shooting compressed Raw only because I haven't upgraded my PC. I'd eventually would want to shoot uncompressed RAW+Jpg Fine. I get about 170 compressed Raw per 2gb card.

 

I haven't experimented with compressed vs uncompressed. But for my purposes, the prints are outstanding. I've printed 20x16 untouched Jpgs with stunning quality.

 

But for me, it wasn't a card issue, but more of a PC processing issue.

[ilkka_nissila]

Is the conversion time from NEF to TIFF shorter with uncompressed NEF and by what percentage? Thanks.

[mab]

I've been doing some experiements with the raw compression, and while it's indeed as far as I can tell imperceptable with uncorrected images, it does appear to reduce what can be recovered from very badly overexposed images (and blown out highlight areas).

 

The D2x NEF compression saves roughly a factor of two in file size. Given the base price of the camera, doubling the cost of storage by not using NEF compression doesn't really add *that* much to its total cost of ownership (and allows recovery of everything the sensor captures).

[ky2]

Ilkka, here's a nice exercise for NEF compression: Shoot Compressed vs. Uncompressed, and push process your exposure 3 or 4 stops. Compare.

[roto]

Ilkka, I think your answer has already been answered. As far as I know, to compress the NEF files, the data quantization is made non-linear and the number of bit/pixel reduced. The loss is more evident in the underexposed areas of the picture.

 

By the way, my name is Roberto. The final 'O' is not optional. ;-)

[ShunCheung]

Roberto, perhaps thanks to the internet, you non-English-speaking European's English is getting a lot better. You and Ilkka use a lot of English/American slang nowadays and it is getting hard to tell that you guys are non-native English speakers. (Neither am I, but I have been living in the US since I was a teenager.) So we think of you as the English Robert rather than Italian Roberto, at least in Cyberspace. :-)

 

Back to the original question. I think RAW compression compresses the areas with a little details, such as the blue sky area or a white wall areas inside a frame. Therefore, the loss of details can really be minimal.

[ellis_vener_photography]

As Shun stated, the D2X NEFs are on average, about 20mb files. "on average" because it

depends a little bit on how much detail in a particular image.

 

The Large/fine JPEGS out of the D2X are terrific but the real reason to shoot any "raw'

format' is to retain control over the image in processing. Using the JPEG and TIFF formats

encodes the in camera settings for sharpening, contrast rendition, bit depth (JPEGs are 8

bit only per color channel, NEFs are 12 bits per channel, 8 bits per channel mean only 256

"steps" per R,G, and B channel while 12 bit per channel means the same amount of color

information is recorded in 8196 "steps": These smaller steps means a smoother gradation

of color this becomes very important when you have a lot of smoothly shading tones in an

image), color space and other image parameters into the file. This doesn't happen with a

"raw" image format like NEF.

[roto]

I found an explanation of how the D70 (and thus, I assume, the D2x) compresses NEF files. I posted it in <a href=http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BytH>this thread</a> because I thought it might be of wider interest. It seems that I remembered almost, but not quite, correctly. According to the author detail is lost in the highlights, not in the underexposed area. Which is, actually, the right way to do it: you don't want to reduce the signal/noise ratio in the dark areas where it is already at it's lowest.

 

<p>And, thanks a lot Shun. At least I seem to learn something by participating in this forum. My photos are as bad as ever. Happy to hear my English is getting better! ;-)

 

<p>I also hope it was clear I was joking above, about the way Ilkka spelled my name: I've worked for many years in an international environment, currently for a large American company, and I'm used to hear and read my first name (and, even worse, my family name) pronounced or spelled in the most unusual ways. Robert is so damn close to the original that I can't complain...

[paul tanswell]

I've just tried to shoot some soccer photos with my D2x and am extremely impressed with the results from the jpegs shot in Adobe RGB mode II then slightly tweaked in NC 4.2 before converting to sRGB for the web. I decided against shooting RAW because of space issues for the 300 photos that I intended to shoot, only having a 4GB card.

<br/><br/>

I have tried processing some RAW NEFs (sorry for mixing my acronyms!) for my own amusement but it is just such a slow process (I am using NC 4.2 on a 2Gig PC with 1Gb RAM) I think fine art prints are the main use for RAW files, not high volume sports/wedding photography.

<br/><br/>

If you are interested you can see my lastest soccer shots on my site <a href="http://www.photopiaimages.com">www.photopiaimages.com</a> I have only had the camera a few weeks so don't pretend to be an expert for a second, just my 2c.

<br/><br/>

Paul

[david_debalko1]

Thanks Paul, I got the D2X, have not done a whole lot yet.

I like your website.

Dave

[patrick_wu1]

From what I understand, the D1H's raw is lossless. The 2000x1312 resolution results in a file about 2 MB. The D2X is 4,288 x 2,848 which is 4.65 times as big as the 2000x1312. Therefore, I expect the D2X raw to be around the size of 9.3 MB, not 20 MB. Who's using the other 11 MB?

[jliechty]

I thought the difference in size could be due to differing bit depth, but Thom Hogan's site says that the D1h and D2x both store 12 bits per pixel in RAW format.

[ilkka_nissila]

Roberto, my apologies for mis-spelling your name. My only excuse is that my own name is mis-spelled as Ilka or Illka almost as often as it is written correctly (on photo.net). :-)

[ilkka_nissila]

I can't think of a good reason to "push" my images 3-4 stops ... I am quite content in shooting between iso 100 and 400, film or digital. Yes, I know that one can be in a situation which requires higher speeds but since the results are crappy any way you do it, I avoid it. Your mileage may vary.

 

It seems I have to pay attention to my English. :-) Maybe I should add some Finnish word order to what I write. But to my credit I often use too long sentences and end up with incorrect grammar somewhere in there ... you should definitely notice that I'm Finnish. :-)

[thakurdalipsingh]

I have Nikon D2X.Has any body experience/tested practically NEF Raw Compression w. D2X? How much quality difference is there :Nikon says almost no loss . Advantages are : Smaller files, Almost doubles no. on card (but does not show in counter), Faster writing to card (almost half of the time) compared to non compressed which is big advantage when shooting in burst (but number of picture in single burst does not increase which theoretically should), more storage on hard disc in less space, files open faster. Disadvantage: what ?

Uncompressed file is 20MB compressed is 9MB,Where 11 MB data goes ? Is 11MB a small loss per file? Pl help, if you have any experience.

Has Canon or other brands also something similar compression? What is there result with compression and quality loss?