Sony a7R V RAW File Comparison || Uncompressed VS Lossless VS Compressed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2024
- As a photographer in Sony's latest cameras - including the a7R V and a7 IV - you have a number of RAW file compression options to choose from. This includes Uncompressed RAW, Lossless Compressed RAW in a variety of sizes (large, medium, and small) as well as Compressed RAW. But which of these compression options should you actually utilize, and what are the tradeoffs between these choices?
In this video, I'll explore what the major and minor differences are between each of Sony's latest RAW file compression options, and why you might want to use one over the other depending on a few different factors. This includes evaluating the main differences between them: from lossy vs. lossless formats, to file size, to the ability to shoot fast bursts in the camera, and more.
From here, we'll do a comparison between the options using a number of photos taken on my Sony a7R V and a variety of lenses (e.g. 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II, 70-200 f/2.8 GM II). We'll use the Compare View in Adobe Lightroom Classic to pit each of these options up against one another, evaluating their effectiveness both at their native resolution, and up to 10x zoom for larger, pixel peeping efforts. We'll look at not just quality and clarity in zoomed-in situations; however, we'll also explore how each of these compression formats hold up when massively overexposing (+2.5 EV) or underexposing (-5.0 EV) your image.
Overall, it's fair to say that each of Sony's RAW file compression options provides both pros and cons depending on the photographer, and the specific shooting situation you find yourself in. Hopefully this video will point you in the right direction to make the best choice for your needs.
If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comment below. Also, be sure to subscribe for even more Sony a7R V videos that will be on the way!
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0:00 - Intro
0:20 - Uncompressed VS Lossless VS Compressed RAW: The Main Differences
3:12 - Quality, zoom RAW comparison using 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II
7:31 - Quality, zoom RAW comparison using 70-200mm f/2.8 GM II
9:59 - Overexposure (+2.5 EV) RAW comparison
13:32 - Underexposure (-5.0 EV) RAW comparison
16:01 - Summary
17:37 - Conclusion
The SIMPLE Sony a7R V Memory Card Guide:
• The SIMPLE Sony a7R V ...
My COMPLETE Sony a7R V Photo and Video Settings:
• My COMPLETE Sony a7R V...
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My Current Kit:
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Cameras & Lenses:
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Sony a7S III: amzn.to/3Gd87kK
Sony a7 IV: amzn.to/3g3Ipoq
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Sony 50mm f/1.2 GM: amzn.to/3m2GbIT
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM: amzn.to/3AryrbN
Sony 24-70 f/2.8 GM II: amzn.to/3OWeb6k
Sony 70-200 f/2.8 GM II: amzn.to/3IPSge6
Audio:
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Tripod/Monopod:
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Love the organization and delivery of information! Your videos are consistently straight forward and thorough.
Thanks Matthew, I really appreciate that!
I just got the A7rV and have been checking out your videos, great useful information in all of them! Thanks for making these videos!
No problem John, glad you've found them useful. And there are more on the way! 🙂
This review save me so much time! Great work! I did my own testing, and frankly, I can barely tell the difference between uncompressed and fully compressed raw. Gaining an extra three frames per second is a much bigger deal for me then the slight difference in image quality.
Thanks Joseph! Agreed, I think the differences are negligible enough for most folks to leverage the size or fps benefits of the other RAW options.
Great work. Was wondering about how much difference really existed between the RAW files. Now I know!!
Thanks Mike!
Finally a complete review with numbers and comparison and all the info that i needed, thank you
No problem!
Nice comparison, helpful breakdown! :)
Thanks!
GREAT VIDEO!!! thanks for the comparison.
No problem!
You answered my question. I couldn't figure out which RAW file comparison meant what, even when I searched on Google. Thank you for explaining specifically which mp settings applied to each.
No problem, glad to hear it helped!
Superb video, very well presented and extremely useful, thank you ! I am considering a Sony A7V but am wary of the huge file sizes so this video may well give the me courage to press ahead... : ))
No problem, I appreciate that! You definitely have some options with file sizes on the a7R V.
Very useful work on our behalf! Thank you.
No problem!
THat was really helpful, thank you!!
No problem, glad it was helpful to you!
I bought a A7R5 a couple of weeks ago. Im now a ex Nikon hybrid shooter, the files are great coming out of the A7R5, Im mainly shooting medium RAW. Im also impressed with the new AWB and Auto ISO, this really helps me work fast. Im using Captue One as I prefer it over lightroom.
Congrats on the purchase! Yeah the flexibility of RAW options on the recent Sony's are great. To your point, the a7R V has a new dedicated light sensor that helps with improving things like AWB and Auto-ISO.
Great work. Thanks a lot.
No problem!
I notice that lightroom is using the embedded preview in the comparisons which will not give the correct impression of the quality of the uncompressed and lossless compressed images. You can generate either standard or 1:1 previews which will give you a better comparison between the images at the different settings (it is under library previews)
That's a fair point to mention. FWIW, I did go back and re-check all of the embedded preview shots, and on the super-zoomed in (e.g. 5x-10x) shots for the first comparison of the brick re: detail, there's a slight difference. Beyond that, pretty much everything else remains the same.
I thought compressed RAW (at least L @61M pixels) was Lossless, like FLAC vs WAV in audio for comparison
@@Speccy48k Nope.
u r so helpful thank u!!!!!
No problem!
Thank you for this
No problem!
Excelente video!! Thank you
No problem!
@@andrewsaraceni
Just one doubt... JPEGs...approximately how much do they weigh? 61 MPX JPEG, how much does it weigh? 26 MPX JPEG, how much does it weigh? And 15 MPX JPEG, how much does it weigh? Excuse my bothering
@@efroy2959 You mean file size? It will vary depending on the photo, but you can expect them to be around half the size of a compressed RAW. e.g. Usually in the 20-50MB range.
@@andrewsaraceni thanks!!
Thanks!
Thank you so much for this great video! I just bought an A7rV to upgrade my A7iii and was shocked when I realized that I have to use compressed raw to have the full 10fps (since I shoot action/animals and want the 61MP to crop A LOT). Hopefully it will be just fine, but I'm worried a little about this since the cam was so expensive. 🙏
No problem, and congrats on the upgrade! I've found compressed RAW with 10fps has been fine for action/animal situations. Hoping Sony pushes the envelope on FPS in future bodies though.
Thank you for your videos ! Do you know if 26mp medium files are good for wedding prints ? I want to buy a Sony A7R V but Iam little scare if files from 26mp would be are not good enough for prints since I want this camera for weddings because I love the colors and the option to use 61mp once in a while...Thank you for your time
No problem! 26mp works fine for prints, especially for typical photo album sizes, wall art, etc. You'll get plenty of detail for the size.
@andrewsaraceni Thank you so much for all the info you provide us. Looking forward for more of your videos
great videos
Thanks Oscar!
Very interesting comparison, thank you.
What was your metodology while shooting? What conditions? Your results are really... strange. 1st photo uncompressed is superior and lossless (which should be completely the same and just need a bit more computation power to work with in post as it have to decompress file first - if its really lossless and not lossy just labeled as lossless) was noticably worse, but same as lossy compression. Second one they seems to be the same for all 3, but in the third +2,5EV it looks like compressed have slightly more details than uncompressed - small difference is noticable in zoom in on tree branches. That makes me wonder whether there might have been other unmanaged external variables that might have influenced the result (stability of tripod, wind condition,...)?
Another think that makes me wonder is whether there is some problem with how Lightroom works with compressed format as it should not have green overcast (especially lossless variant) in last example compared to uncompressed. But even if thats the case it wouldnt explain inconsistent differences in details.
No problem. Overall conditions, settings, etc. were identical, but obviously slight changes in exposure, environmental conditions (e.g. wind) could've occurred while I was shooting. So some might be explainable through those factors, but probably others wouldn't.
Ciao Andrew, are you italian? Kudos for your video(s). Did you find out how to postproduce the Sony YCbCr cropped pseudo-raw format (lossless raws in medium and light size) with programs like LR, Neo and lots of others that don't support these two hybrid camera profiles? Greetings, from Rome!
Ciao Nicodemo, yes I'm also Italian (technically half-Italian). 🙂 I haven't had any issues with those formats as far as LR Classic goes, but have only used them in more recent months, and I know there were issues when they were originally launched. I'd probably check to make sure you're running the latest version of Adobe's, etc. software, and that your camera firmware's up-to-date.
Grazie, you're right. It works in LR Classic 12.4 I had to upgrade my program. These two file types still don't work with Luminar Neo or Topaz Photo AI.
Hi. Please tell me, what program do you open the rav with?
I'm using Adobe Lightroom Classic to view them.
LOOOL i have been shooting compressed RAW and I never even noticed a difference. I didn't even realize the setting was set to that on my camera :D
Considering I have not seen anything that I would worry about, I think I might keep it on this setting. Unless its product photography or some still life, that requires the max file sizes
I shoot with Compressed RAW most of the time myself - it's still a great option in a lot of cases.
Super useful. I am using compressed RAW on my 7RV and this lets me rest easy! Off on a big trip next week where I will take a lot of photos. I use my second card slot for JPEG’s, basically as backup files. For this trip, though, I will keep some of them. The lesser ‘memories’ shots worth keeping, but not worth taking to post. Considering using the 26mp jpeg extra fine option for these to save some space (I will still have the RAW filed) and be more manageable. Any thoughts?
Thanks! I'd say so long as you're capturing RAW versions of the photos of some kind, you have a lot of room to explore smaller/lower res JPEG files. I usually use extra fine at the full megapixel value for JPEGs, but the smaller files should be fine. Worse comes to worst, you could always take the RAW ones and export them as lower res JPEGs in Lightroom too if needed. Enjoy the trip!
@@andrewsaraceni thanks so much for that. These cameras are pretty complex bits of equipment (which I find good) so help always appreciated
Any benefit on noise level when i shoot in low light from lossless M RAW to Uncompressed RAW?
That's a good question - I haven't noticed any major difference in the noise levels between the compression options (e.g. for high ISO shots), but it may be worth a more explicit test. You'll see some of those results in the corrected over/under exposure tests later in the video.
i am not getting any preview in windows 11 when shooting in lossless compressed raw. The problem is not there when shooting in uncompressed raw. Is there any solution of the situation?
This is on Windows, in the File Explorer itself, and not in a program like Lightroom /Classic? There are some third-party codec packs you can try installing to support it. Otherwise, I'd just view them in a program like Lightroom, or switch to either Compressed or Uncompressed RAW.
13:17 How can Compressed RAW look better than Uncompressed RAW? Is it because you couldn't get the focus sharp on the Uncompressed RAW photo?
Could have been an ever-so-slight difference in focus, motion blur, changing sky/cloud conditions, etc. I would say they look roughly equivalent in that comparison.
How about comparing the a7rv lossless med (26mp) to an uncompressed from the a7iv(33mp)? Thanks
That's an interesting idea...something to think about for a future video.
@@andrewsaraceni I would like to know it too and I'm an A7 IV user.
Yes please me too!! It really helps me such a comparison !
when you compare lossless compressed to uncompressed and you see sharpness difference, that must be because of difference in focus right? because isn't lossless compressed as the name suggests lossless? they can't call it lossless if there is an actual difference.
Sharpness difference could be part focus, or embedded previews vs. full uncompressed RAWs in Lightroom (as some other noted), etc. But the "lossless" compressed options at lower resolutions especially do have some tradeoffs, it seems.
Thanks for all the informations ! From what we learn here there is a far biggest drop in dynamic range in medium raw when overexposing recovery than underexposing recovery. You confirm ? Underexposing recovery still retains blue color in the sky when overexposing recovery completely blowns out
No problem! Yeah overexposure will lose you DR in that case, and underexposing will mostly just account for noise, which you'll have an easier time removing at this point photo-wise, e.g. given Lightroom's newer AI-powered Denoise feature.
Have you tried comparing in Capture One? I've been exclusively shooting Lossless compressed M since I got my A7RV and I've never noticed any lack of dynamic range in Capture One.
Haven't tried it in Capture One, though I wouldn't be surprised if it's really only in an extreme situations you'd notice anything.
@@andrewsaraceni I think I'm going to switch over to the Compressed raw to see if I notice any difference. That's the smallest full raw file size it looks like from your video.
@@NickDelDuca It's worth a try if you haven't yet, Compressed RAW is still my go-to for a lot of cases.
@@andrewsaraceni Compressed Raw is the smallest for full resolution raws right?
@@NickDelDuca For full resolution, yes.
The definition of "lossless" is that there should be no difference between the data of an uncompressed and lossless compressed photo once the data has been un-compressed. This is similar to how .zip works. Is sony mis-using this term?
I wouldn't say they're misusing it, but I do wonder a bit more about the technical implementation behind it to see if it's as simple as a .zip-like process as you mentioned, or if there's more to it.
@@andrewsaraceni "lossless" is a technical term that means something very specific. If people start using it to mean something that it is not then we have lost the meaning of the word when it had a very specific meaning previous. This will cause confusion in the future.
@@ymom11to be honest words don’t really mean what they mean in 2023 like what is a woman? Pure insanity if you ask me.
@@lewcehjitl3282 true
@@lewcehjitl3282 I can only imagine if you had a child born a male and then one day that child looks you tearful in the eyes and admits to you he feels deep down in his bones he is a woman, you would then insist on calling your child a man for the rest of your childs life? Nah... you would eventually start calling your new daughter a woman, and just like that, you suddenly understand.
I think something's wrong with comparison of compressed and uncompressed 6:32 it shouldn't make that much difference. I believe it's out of focus or there was some confusion.
As I think a couple folks noted, it's possible embedded previews played a role in evaluating those. But you'd only really notice the different at a 5-10x zoom.
Shouldn't lossless be same as uncompressed when it comes to image quality. The word lossless means it doesn't loose anything. The file is smaller, and requires more computing power to deal with - and uncompress. Enlighten me if I am wrong. If the term is used correctly, it should be same with PNG vs JPEG.
That's a good description of it, it should effectively be the same when decompressed.
But, according to your tests, it isn’t, right? So either the name implies the wrong process, or something in the methodology is not recovering all the info from the compressed file. Maybe Lightroom is decompressing without using some additional metadata or something else? I’m curious about this. Uncompressed and Lossless L should be IDENTICAL!
I just bought a A7RV and one of the reasons was I wanted the option to shoot the medium raw. After watching this video I doubt I will ever shoot anything but uncompressed raw. The loss in quality on the other options in unacceptable.
I would say a lot of it depends on how much you intend to push your images (e.g. in grading, over/under exposure, zooming and pixel peeping). But it'll always be a person-to-person or shooting situation type of judgement call.
@@andrewsaraceni My concern is detail in the image. I will do some experimenting and see if the medium setting will be good enough for my needs. I imagine for social media it would be more than enough. For large prints it might be an issue.
My guess is when viewing at 100% the difference is close to imperceptible. Remember these images were being zoomed dramatically to see the difference.
That said, one thing I wonder is maybe if it’s better to shoot uncompressed RAW always and have a batch workflow to resize to ~26-33MP on the shoots you would typically consider shooting in Medium uncompressed.
Thoughts @andrewsaraceni?
I wish you also tested JPG against RAW
Could be an idea for a future video, but JPEG will pretty much always be worse in terms of quality, detail, recovery, etc. compared to RAW.
Does this go for a7cR aswel?
Yep, should be the same sensor so the same would apply.
The first brick example is really strange to me, it's as if the other 4 options didn't fully hit the focus plane of the bricks.
Focus should've been pretty similar, the Embedded Previews of some of them could've played a role in that.
Just bought this and gearing up. Next up I'll need a new laptop to deal with these files.
Congrats! I can say the new M1/M2 Macs are great at handling these bigger files.
Well done... but the speed of your speech is insane (for me... I am Italian) 😅
Thanks! I've been told I talk fast by native English speakers as well, so no worries. 😂
3:47 this is weird... I would expect lossless compressed raw large to be.. well.. lossless. I'm surprised the difference is so large. 7:49 is more like what I would expect.
There are variables that can impact things, e.g. focus, using embedded previews in Lightroom, etc. as far as the earlier comparison goes. But especially with the different sized lossless compressed options, it's not always 1-1.
Quite stupid that you can’t use lossless compressed for 10 fps with a £4000 camera
It definitely remains a big limitation until they figure it out. It's even the case on the a1 (although at 30fps max).
@@andrewsaraceni I actually switched from the A1 to A7RV lately, A1 isn’t a flagship anymore. Misses too many features and a useful screen.
@@frostybe3r That's a good move, I'm hoping at some point Sony can start to do periodic catch-ups with firmware updates (the a7S III and a1 are definitely well behind).
The naming is so stupid. If it's "lossless" it should be exactly the same as the "Uncompressed RAW". Compression should be just an efficient algorithm to save on hard drive space - it shouldn't throw away data if it's "lossless". So what Sony call "lossless" is actually "lossy". Lame.
Some of the differences are tough to explain, for sure. Still holds true that if you really need the absolute best, Uncompressed RAW is the way to go.
so Lossless in Sony terms is in real world a fake... there is a loss. 🙁 There should be no visible difference if called "lossless"!!!
I'd still say for the most part it holds up, but there are very slight differences between them when pixel peeping at a high zoom level.
Thanks!
No problem, Veselin!