Jump to content

Who uses sRAW?


dcheung

Recommended Posts

I don't see a point in it from personal perspective. I mean, sure it take up

less space and still carries all the post process capabilities of full sized

RAW's, but I just don't see where I can put it to good use. I can't think of

one circumstance where I would switch from either RAW to sRAW or fine L JPEG to

sRAW....but then again, I never shoot anything other than full resolution.

 

Can anyone give examples where they've actually put sRAW to good use in their

real shooting circumstances?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only thing I can think is for newspapers, where ultra-high resolution isn't required, but the layout folks need to be able to tweak the photo more than jpeg might allow, and the reporter wants to not max out the camera's buffer. Of course, the only paper I've ever worked at was a small-town weekly (and I wasn't even a reporter) so I could be completely wrong about the needs of a big daily.

 

Maybe it's part of Digic 3, intended for digicams with raw capability and small buffers. The problem with this theory that I've just pulled out of my posterior is that as far as I know, the G9 is the only raw-capable digicam with Digic 3, and I can't find any info that says the G9 even supports sraw.

 

Aside from that, I can't imagine what it would be used for. It still sounds like a bizarre feature to throw in to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I want it because I like the flexiblity of RAW with white balance and the like but I don't need large images. Such as I had two shoots this past weekend. One was for a personal trainer wanting photos for her web site and later that day I shot a 6 month old for her parents. The sRAW would have been nice for the web shots. Sure I could shoot it in JPEG but I like RAW, period. Some of the shots may be used on a buisness card. All IMHO.

 

Jason

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dunno why it's on the 1DsIII, but I can see the use for the 1DIII and 40D, when I don't need the resolution (shooting for web or newspaper) but need the extra card space.

 

sRAW would be perfect for Airshow use for me (I normally shoot JPEG for airshows, to save card space) since I'm shooting for Web and 2.5MP is enough.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"It's there simply as an option - and being there it extends the usefullness of the camera to a wider group of people."

 

I semi-agree with that being a good thing. So far, only one person came up with a decent situation for shooting sRAW (for website images), where as most people don't have a purpose for it. I wonder how often there'll be slip ups when you wanted to select RAW and you actually selected sRAW without knowing and shot a bunch of pictures like that. I bet that can get really annoying. As for the web images, I'd still shoot in full resolution and have the flexibility to sell prints to the client later on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be honest with myself I think I would use it for stuff like the web photos, but in real practice I may find it is a mistake and simply go back to useing normal RAW files. But I would like to give it a try. Personally, If I could print a good 8X10 from it I think I would use it for alot of my "every day snap shots" of the kids and stuff.

 

Jason

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"sRAW uses pixel binnning? Then does that mean it can effectively have a higher ISO with the noise of a lower ISO?"

 

My thoughts exactly. I haven't seen that documented anywhere, though, but it would seem an obvious possibility.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I shoot some golf tournaments every year where we need to provide 200-300 people with 8x10 prints and web images at the end of the day. Speed of work flow is very important when you only have two hours to meet your deadline. An extra time to copy files, extra time to browse and select images and extra time to process would just cause more stress and no benefit. A 21MP file will generally slow down production without providing any benefit in this situation. I think sRAW would ideal for that.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is a discussion from dpreview where the potential binning in the 1DIII is discussed. Apparently the Bayer filter could cause some problems. There were no clear answers then, but that was in February...

<P>

<a href="http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1000&message=22161540&changemode=1">DPReview 1DIII binning</A>

<P>

Personally, I think it is very pessimistic to think that we would be at a level where 2x2 binning would essentially not result in a lack of information - we don't have 1x1 um sensors and ISO 12800 yet. Maybe in a compact camera close to you soon? :-) Hence - sRaw only makes sense for people with large quantity/quality requirement ratio.<p>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It may also be possible to infer something from the <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/public_files/Canon_EOS-1D_Mark_III_White_Paper.pdf">1D Mark III White Paper</a> about sRAW - particularily from the table on p. 30. Interestingly, the approx file size for sRaw is 7.6 MB vs. 13 MB for Raw dispite only storing a quarter of the number of pixels. (I don't get how 10.1 MP x 14-bit workes out to just 13 MB, but that is another story - lossless compression?) This must suggest that some "improved interpolation" is done to derive unknown color information compared to what is done at full resolution. Since each 2x2 sensor block conatins 1R, 2G and 1B-filtered sensor, though not exactly in the same location, interpolation may be unnecessary. I'm not sure how you can do binning on a Bayer sensor - binning the colors one by one may mean even more loss in resolution.<P>
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...