Doc Nickel
26th of April 2006 (Wed), 14:36
First, yes, I know about RAW. I'm working towards it, but I need a faster PC first. :D
So at the moment, I'm shooting large JPEG. One of the first things I did was set the JPG "quality" up to 10- minimum compression. But, interestingly enough, that cut the card capacity down to about half over the default 8.
So I took some experimental shots, shooting the same scene at the same distance with the same area in focus, in settings 4, 7 and 10. Obviously there's a major difference in actual file size, because I'd have 500+ shots at 4, and only 150 at 10.
One of the main projects I have in mind involves printing photos at poster size- I've had "large JPEG" shots from the XT blown up to 18" x 24" and they look great. Though the printer did do a bit of upsampling and sharpening. But I still want the best image I can get to start with- which is why I bought the N in the first place. :D
I'm not all that worried about running out of space. I have four gigs of cards now and six more on the way- typical, I can now buy a 2Gb Ultra II for what a 1Gb cost me a year ago. :)
But in my experimental shots, even at 200% I can't tell the difference between JPG settings 4, 7 and 10. Obviously some data is lost since the file sizes change so radically, but I'm having a hard time spotting any artifacting or other image degradation.
Dropping from 10 down to the default 8 gives me a solid 25% more space in the cards, and doesn't seem to visibly affect the image.
So, to those of you who shoot JPEG with a MkII or N, what setting do you use? Have you tested the various compression levels? How would I quantify the difference, is there is any?
Doc.
So at the moment, I'm shooting large JPEG. One of the first things I did was set the JPG "quality" up to 10- minimum compression. But, interestingly enough, that cut the card capacity down to about half over the default 8.
So I took some experimental shots, shooting the same scene at the same distance with the same area in focus, in settings 4, 7 and 10. Obviously there's a major difference in actual file size, because I'd have 500+ shots at 4, and only 150 at 10.
One of the main projects I have in mind involves printing photos at poster size- I've had "large JPEG" shots from the XT blown up to 18" x 24" and they look great. Though the printer did do a bit of upsampling and sharpening. But I still want the best image I can get to start with- which is why I bought the N in the first place. :D
I'm not all that worried about running out of space. I have four gigs of cards now and six more on the way- typical, I can now buy a 2Gb Ultra II for what a 1Gb cost me a year ago. :)
But in my experimental shots, even at 200% I can't tell the difference between JPG settings 4, 7 and 10. Obviously some data is lost since the file sizes change so radically, but I'm having a hard time spotting any artifacting or other image degradation.
Dropping from 10 down to the default 8 gives me a solid 25% more space in the cards, and doesn't seem to visibly affect the image.
So, to those of you who shoot JPEG with a MkII or N, what setting do you use? Have you tested the various compression levels? How would I quantify the difference, is there is any?
Doc.