# Anything wrong with mRAW or sRAW



## jaayres20 (Dec 21, 2014)

With all this talk of a possible 50mp camera I am starting to think how I would utilize a camera like that for my work (mostly weddings). I would definitely not mind having access to 50mp for portraits, but for other aspects of the wedding day, like shots at the reception, it would probably be my preference to switch to mRAW which with a 50mp sensor would be what? Around 20mp? However, I have never used those formats and am wondering how much, if any, IQ you loose from compressing the image in camera like that?


----------



## sanj (Dec 21, 2014)

jaayres20 said:


> With all this talk of a possible 50mp camera I am starting to think how I would utilize a camera like that for my work (mostly weddings). I would definitely not mind having access to 50mp for portraits, but for other aspects of the wedding day, like shots at the reception, it would probably be my preference to switch to mRAW which with a 50mp sensor would be what? Around 20mp? However, I have never used those formats and am wondering how much, if any, IQ you loose from compressing the image in camera like that?



I believe nothing is wrong with mRAW or sRAW as long as you realize that the large prints will not be as good as full RAW. And you not be able to crop successfully.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 21, 2014)

Sraw and Mraw are really for those who have a temporary need to reduce file sizes, and don't mind the IQ reduction.

It would not make sense to spend more $$ for a 50 MP camera and then throw away 1/2 or even more of the pixels on a regular basis. Just get a 6D.

It is true that it takes computer power to process high MP images, NR and brush functions use a lot of horsepower and can be slow. Recent generation i7 pc's will handle it fine if you pop in a SSD. Older (5-7 yr) computers may be slow, my first generation i7 took forever to process NR with my D800 images. My new $699 Dell XPS does it in 1/8 the time. since I don't do video, I don't need a high end machine for stills. If I used DXO, I'd probably want a $3,000 machine.


----------



## privatebydesign (Dec 21, 2014)

If you are going to shoot mRAW or sRAW you might as well shoot jpegs instead. 

Neither of them are full bit depth files, they cannot contain the DR of a true RAW file and just give you a false sense of security. This isn't a DR thread, the point, to my mind, of shooting RAW is editing capability and although an m/sRAW does have more editing latitude than a jpeg, it doesn't have close to the levels of the actual RAW file.


----------



## LetTheRightLensIn (Dec 21, 2014)

jaayres20 said:


> With all this talk of a possible 50mp camera I am starting to think how I would utilize a camera like that for my work (mostly weddings). I would definitely not mind having access to 50mp for portraits, but for other aspects of the wedding day, like shots at the reception, it would probably be my preference to switch to mRAW which with a 50mp sensor would be what? Around 20mp? However, I have never used those formats and am wondering how much, if any, IQ you loose from compressing the image in camera like that?



They are somewhat compromised in that, for starters, they have already had a sloppy in camera de-bayer and downscaling process applied and even the color and range info isn't quite the same. That said I'm sure you could get away with all that for your intended usage (although sometimes maximum DR can certainly help for wedding stuff, if they improve the DR it might be better with mRAW on the new one than RAW on the old one though anyway perhaps though).

Personally I think they need to offer, as well, true cropped modes so the reach is maintained and fps can be given a big boost. For me that matters much more than sRAW,mRAW which I would probably never use.


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 21, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> If you are going to shoot mRAW or sRAW you might as well shoot jpegs instead



Now I'm a bit heretical because I'm an early adopter, but I can only recommend "lossy dng".

It cuts the file size to 1/3rd while retaining the dr and lossless wb adjustment. It's meant to be the middle ground between full raw and jpeg, and it's just great for this purpose. With the DNG converter (but not PS/LR's menus) you can even downsample the lossy dng to a smaller resolution.

In comparison to this, mraw/sraw is just outdated unless you use it to save card space when shooting.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 22, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > If you are going to shoot mRAW or sRAW you might as well shoot jpegs instead
> ...


 
When I bought my first DSLR right after the Canon Rebel came out, I was using jpeg images for a few years.

Now, I view those images and wish I had the RAWs, because raw processors could re-process those images and do a much better job. 

I think its important to save the original RAW images, because 10 or more years down the road, you may be able to do much more with the processing, and having thrown away data, you just can't get it back.

I was thinking I wanted mraw for my D800 which produced some very large images that opened in my pc to almost 200mb. Now, just 4 years later its not a issue.


----------



## privatebydesign (Dec 22, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > If you are going to shoot mRAW or sRAW you might as well shoot jpegs instead
> ...



If the manufacturers gave you in camera DNG options I would agree, but they don't so it isn't going to help our OP.

I am a bit like Mt Spokane, I just don't worry about file size as storage is cheap (though the processing power to handle really big files isn't quite so cheap), I have many full size TIFF files up to their max of 2GB, and many many PSD files between 2GB and 4GB which is their max, I have a fair few PSB files up to 8GB that started life as a single 21MP 24mb CR2. PSB's are what you need after you exceed the 4GB PSD file. The worse thing about PSB's is that LR doesn't recognise them, and I think that is a big mistake.

When all is said and done, if I have to buy a >30MP camera I will shoot RAW, as always, and just suck it up, knowing I will have to budget for a newer computer as part of the cost of having it. Worrying about the file size of unannounced high MP cameras does smack a little of getting a Bugatti and bitching about finding the recommended 100 octane gas!


----------



## jaayres20 (Dec 22, 2014)

As a wedding photographer, I have a somewhat unique situation, because I am shooting so many types of photography in one day. A few asked, "why buy a 50mp camera if you are not going to shoot RAW". Well I will be shooting full resolution RAW for portraits, details, and other similar types of images. For photojournalistic images and other candids at a reception for example, I will never need a full 50mp. In fact I probably don't need more than 10mp. It would be convenient to change the resolution according to what I need. I was just worried that the IQ would suffer.


----------



## tolusina (Dec 22, 2014)

jaayres20 said:


> As a wedding photographer......
> 
> .........For photojournalistic images and other candids at a reception for example......


 
Any and all of those candids have the possibility of being stunning portraits, why rule out the best possible outcome with such a file size choice?


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 22, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Now I'm a bit heretical because I'm an early adopter, but I can only recommend "lossy dng".



Are you new around here? The grand ol' CR tradition has it that after post #3, we shouldn't care about any op no more 



Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I think its important to save the original RAW images, because 10 or more years down the road, you may be able to do much more with the processing, and having thrown away data, you just can't get it back.



Actually, this is the very reason why Adobe recommends converting proprietary file formats to dng :-o ... though of course for the big players like cr2, support won't go away just like that. But with dng, I feel just as secure I'll always have access to my images, and dng support is widespread now even outside Adobe apps.



privatebydesign said:


> I am a bit like Mt Spokane, I just don't worry about file size as storage is cheap



Sure, but the lossy dng is designed with the future in mind - at some point, raw file sizes might rise faster than (at least internal) cheap hd space. SSD anyone? And currently, we're still stuck with 2-3tb per magnetic hdd. One of the aspects why Adobe introduced their "proxy dng" files for editing downsized files while keeping the raw elsewhere, btw.

And sooner or later, more people might think having a full raw for a below-mediocre "remembrance keeper" might not be worth keeping the full raw. Me, I'm just a grumpy old man: A penny saved is a penny saved, and recovering 1/3rd of my hd space just like that means a penny saved is a penny earned :->


----------



## BozillaNZ (Dec 22, 2014)

jaayres20 said:


> With all this talk of a possible 50mp camera I am starting to think how I would utilize a camera like that for my work (mostly weddings). I would definitely not mind having access to 50mp for portraits, but for other aspects of the wedding day, like shots at the reception, it would probably be my preference to switch to mRAW which with a 50mp sensor would be what? Around 20mp? However, I have never used those formats and am wondering how much, if any, IQ you loose from compressing the image in camera like that?



I worked extensively with the Canon CR2 format, the m/sRAW all have white balance pre-baked into the data, and de-mosaic processed so they are in theory not really "RAW".

Where real RAW format has the raw bayer data like RGRGRGRG, GBGBGBGB in each row;

m/sRAW has data demosaic processed and WB applied, then converted to Y-Cb-Cr format, and -

mRAW stores as YCC 4:2:2 format, and sRAW stores as YCC 4:2:0 format

If you ever worked with video codec you will see that they are not really "RAW" format anymore, so tonal range and DR will suffer, and the file will not be as mallable as the real RAW data.

Hope this helps.


----------



## BRunner (Dec 22, 2014)

Maybe I'm in minority here, but I actually like sRAW option on my 1DsIII. I use it in dual cards configuration. Fast CF for full RAW and SD for sRAW as backup instead of JPEGs when shooting events.

While sRAW offers marginally smaller editing latitude than full RAW (in terms of DR and WB), it's actually night/day difference in comparison to JPEGs.

It fits well to my workflow. First I go thru sRAWs (it's faster than browsing full RAWs, even on fast computers) rate them and do basic PP on snapshots. Then I replace the "keepers" with full RAWs, on which I do more extensive PP. This keeps my workflow faster and storage requirements lower.

Unfortunately, there are some other drawbacks. Some RAW developers don't support all features on s/mRAW (lens and CA correction in case of C1 for example).

If my camera had only one memory slot, I would stay with full RAWs only, but with the option to keep one or another, I found the 5Mpx sRAW more than sufficient for non-critical work and small prints and much better backup solution than JPEGs. As small bonus, higher ISOs sRAWs need's only very low NR to look good and conversion from sRAW to JPEGs in DPP is very fast even on slow computers, if you don't want to do any PP.


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 22, 2014)

BRunner said:


> While sRAW offers marginally smaller editing latitude than full RAW (in terms of DR and WB), it's actually night/day difference in comparison to JPEGs.



Right, that's because jpeg is even crappier than s/mraw :-> ... but obviously plenty of folks are happy with it, otherwise they'd bump up the file format to lossy dng and probably even make their histogram cover the raw dr range.

As I understand it, the (or at least my) main "problem" with s/m-raw is not that there's no niche for it, but that it's called "raw" at all while it simply isn't. I for one was quite mislead by the name, but fortunately shot "real" raw right from the start - but maybe other people only discover after some time.

Not everybody rtfms, and Canon knows it - so the biggest fallacies should be self-explanatory.


----------



## BozillaNZ (Dec 22, 2014)

RAW = fresh ingredients

s/mRAW = cut up and marinated ingredients

JPG = done dishes

It's obvious which one makes better dish, if you know how to cook... 8)


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Dec 22, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> Sure, but the lossy dng is designed with the future in mind - at some point, raw file sizes might rise faster than (at least internal) cheap hd space. SSD anyone? And currently, we're still stuck with 2-3tb per magnetic hdd.


 
Internal 4TB hard drives have become a common commodity and can be had for $140. There are external 4TB hard Drives for $200. 6TB for $264, and 8TB Drives started shipping last August, and will be low priced in another year, but now they are priced out of sight. SSD's are also becoming much lower priced with 1TB around $400.

The price of storage is dropping like a rock, and no end in sight. 

4TB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007603%20600457700&IsNodeId=1&name=4TB%20and%20higher

6TB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236797


8TB

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145969

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=1TB+SSD&rh=n%3A172282%2Ck%3A1TB+SSD


----------



## Marsu42 (Dec 22, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> Internal 4TB hard drives have become a common commodity and can be had for $140.



What do you know, something *has* happened since I last looked - for quite a while, platter density wasn't going forward a lot.

Having written that, I'd advise against getting the highest tb drives unless you're really good with backups or have a mirror raid: The more platters they cram into a drive, the hotter it gets and the more faults it'll produce. After near-death experiences with "most platters, most everything" drives I only buy versions with max. 2 platters.


----------



## candc (Dec 23, 2014)

I am not sure how mraw or sraw is created but I have become a big believer in downsampling with the bicubic sharper algorithm when converting raw to jpeg for online viewing. You dont need to do any sharpening first and you get a really nice clean and sharp image but its only 5mpx. If a big megapixel camera could give you that same benefit while creating a 10mpx raw file then that would be fabulous.


----------

