what format

[jerry_milroy]

<p>I have a D300 and tring to dicide what format to shoot in lossless compressed or uncompressed. I try uncompressed yesterday on some soccer (the pictures came out real nice). When I tried to view them on the computer the first dozen I viewed came up quick after that they were taking forever to view (minutes per photo). So I have not even seen them all on the computer. Is this normal? Here is how i tried to veiw them: inserted the card reader into the usb port, the auto play, view pictures using microsoft windows came up, clicked on it and started viewing pictures one at a time.<br>

I use elements 8 to process some of my favorite pictures in. I did not have this program running at the time i tried to view the pictures.</p>

[wpahnelas]

<p>first thing is copy the files to your computer before viewing. once you know you have a good copy, format the card in the camera and you're ready for the next outing.<br>

if your computer can access the files on the HDD rather than over much slower USB to the camera, you'll get much quicker performance.<br>

as for compressed vs uncompressed, you're not going to gain anything by using the uncompressed. you'll have considerably larger file sizes to transfer and work with, but no improvement in quality. when it says lossless compressed, it means you don't lose anything. so why not go that route?</p>

[howard_m]

<p>there's no reason to shoot uncompressed. Lossless means just that; you do *not* lose any data. even if you choose 'lossy', it's designed to be essentially invisible.</p>

<p>http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/nef-compression</p>

[kohanmike]

<p>One other factor with which to be concerned is the amount of RAM in your computer, under 1gb could slow down the process as you describe.</p>

[dan_south]

<p>Jerry, you are saving your files as RAW files. The buit-in Microsoft software may not be the best way to read these files.</p>

<p>I would suggest one of two options.</p>

<p>Super Easy Option: Set your camera to save images as JPEG files. Make sure that you select the largest size and the highest quality. Just about any photo viewing software on the planet (and lots of other software) can read JPEG files easily. CAVEAT: You'll lose some post-processing options that RAW files provide.</p>

<p>More Flexible Option: Continue so save your files as RAW files (lossless compression is the best format), but install Nikon's View NX software on your computer. A copy of View NX came with your camera, and it's also available as a free download from Nikon's website (Google it). This software is designed to read your RAW files properly. CAVEAT: You'll have to convert RAW files to JPEG files later in order to share them with other people or upload them to a website.</p>

<p>Ultra-Flexible Option: Save you files as RAW+JPEG Large. You're now saving two files for each image. Any software can read the JPEG file, and you still have the RAW file for serious post-processing. CAVEAT: Uses more space on your memory card.</p>

<p> </p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Jerry, it's not clear to me whether you're referring to lossless (raw/NEF/TIFF) vs. lossy (JPEG) or to compressed vs. uncompressed raw/NEF.</p>

<p>However, I noticed a few years ago that compressed NEFs from my D2H took much longer to load and view on my low end Pentium III and P4 machines so I stopped using that option. The space saved on the media cards and storage media wasn't enough to offset the slower access.</p>

<p>I'll often shoot NEF/JPEG simultaneously so I can more quickly review the photos in JPEG format, while saving the raw files for any extensive editing or when maximum quality is needed.</p>

[pcnilssen]

<p>I always shoot compressed NEF's. I dont see any changes in reading time, so for me here is no reason to change that.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Copy the files on your computer, only then start viewing them. Should be much faster. On my computer it takes about 1-2 to go from one raw file to the next in ViewNX and about 5 seconds to do a batch conversion to tiff using uncompressed NEF in Capture NX2. Lossless compressed is a little slower than that, maybe 7 seconds per file for batch conversion.</p>

<p>I shoot uncompressed because once transferred to the hard drive everything is a bit faster using them. It may be system dependent; if you have really slow hard drives and a fast processor, you may find the opposite to be true. Worth testing.</p>