compressed RAW?

[Algernonep]

Does anyone compress there RAW in camera? I was just taking a look at my camera, it gives the option to compress the RAW image. I alway convert my RAW to DNG. I was just wondering if I compressed my RAW image in the camera to get more space on my memory card, would it effect the quality of my images when I convert them...

[Dirt_Bike_Ryda]

it would simply convert them to JPEG and hence make it pointless even shooting RAW. just go buy another card if you need more space, they aren't that expensive considering.

[Doug Pardee]

Originally Posted by Algernonep

I was just wondering if I compressed my RAW image in the camera to get more space on my memory card, would it effect the quality of my images when I convert them...

It depends on the camera. Some Nikons have a lossy compressed-Raw option, some have a lossless compressed-Raw option, some have neither, some have both.

Apparently you have the D60 and D700.

The D700 offers all three choices: uncompressed, lossless compressed, and lossy compressed (called just "compressed"). The default setting is lossless compressed.

I don't believe that the D60 gives you any options for this. I believe that it only offers lossy compressed Raw.

Possibly interesting link: http://terrychay.com/article/lossy-r...pression.shtml

[Algernonep]

Originally Posted by Dirt_Bike_Ryda

it would simply convert them to JPEG and hence make it pointless even shooting RAW. just go buy another card if you need more space, they aren't that expensive considering.

No... Not JPEG.. RAW. My D700 give me an option to compress the RAW.

[Dirt_Bike_Ryda]

hmm... well then that i did not know. sorry my bad lol

[dcclark]

I'm curious about how much smaller compressed RAW files are. Typically JPEG images don't compress well, because they're already compressed (in their own way). I'm curious how much RAW files would compress.

[sk66]

I used lossless compressed RAW on my D300. Typical 14mb files were at 11MB (I think that's what it was), so there was a space savings. But I believe there is also a write time penalty (buffer load).

[Jim Bryant]

Agh.................don't compress. If you need room on card, just get a 4 gig or 8 gig as they are pretty cheap these days. The RAW gives you a digital negative, which is more information to work with instead of a compressed jpeg, which compresses like color bands into one. Remember, when shooting RAW....more information is truly better

[dcclark]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

Agh.................don't compress. If you need room on card, just get a 4 gig or 8 gig as they are pretty cheap these days. The RAW gives you a digital negative, which is more information to work with instead of a compressed jpeg, which compresses like color bands into one. Remember, when shooting RAW....more information is truly better

I think everyone here is talking about lossless compression, i.e. compression that does not lose any data -- much like zipping a file so that you can download it faster over the internet.

[kirbinster]

Raw compressed works very well on the D300. It is lossless, and while it may add some time to compress you have to remember that it takes less time to write since it is smaller also.