Had a chat with a Sony rep

Jul 21, 2010
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dilbert said:
Compression reduces the amount of image data that needs to be written to the card. The internal speed of the camera is much faster than the speed of the card, so massaging the data before being written out makes sense. That's why all on-card formats are compressed (CR2 is also compressed): faster write times to your memory stick/card.

Compressing the data absolutely makes sense. Enforcing a lossy method of compression for 'RAW' data does not.
 
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May 4, 2011
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Maximilian said:
K-amps said:
neuroanatomist said:
Mt Spokane Photography said:
Its interesting that they can build a high tech sensor, but don't know how to use a lossless compression, and have to investigate for what has been 3 years or so already.

Yeah, but their method of lossy compression is innovative.

Don't know how old you are John, but remember ATRAC ?
I can remember using MiniDiscs with ATRAC in good HiFi (won't call it HighEnd).
And it really sucked. A lot of room information loss, etc. compared to the original (CD) recording.
For mobile it was okay. But not for home HiFi. (At least for me)

Minidiscs were awesome...far better than the cassette tapes I was using before. Yes, compared to CD there were a few shortcomings sound-wise, but it was never meant to replace the CD.

Having said that, I will never understand why Sony didn't utilize MD to its full potential. They unnecessarily crippled its music transfer functions to protect their music business. Ended up shooting themselves in the foot (as well as those of us who bought into their format). At least they gave us a way out in the end, however...

This is to say...I'm hesitant to make any kind of serious commitment to any Sony ILC because, among other issues, who knows if it'll still be around in 2 years? I am glad that they are putting some pressure on Canon though. In the end, we all win.
 
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dilbert said:
YellowJersey said:
...
So I was introduced to the Sony rep. I expressed my hesitation to buy the camera due to the lossy raw files, but made it clear that if/when true lossless raw files are available, I'd buy the camera in a heartbeat (again, stretching the truth a little). He confirmed what has been popping up a bit lately, that Sony is investigating lossless raw files and that they might be enabled via a firmware update. I thanked him for his time and he thanked me for my feedback.
...

1) What would you expect him to say?
2) If you think about what he said in terms of the rep being a salesman, does it make more sense?

I read your transcript and think "The Sony rep said exactly what anyone would expect him to say in order to increase the chance of a sale." i.e. He didn't promise anything but did try to answer your questions/queries in a way that would increase the likelihood of a sale.

He did say exactly what I expected him to say. I didn't speak to him for the sake of getting assurances, I spoke to him to give him feedback. I emphasised that it was the lossy raw compression that held me back from buying the camera, giving him feedback to let him and by extension Sony know what they had to do in order to get me to buy the camera. Now, one person giving this feedback is pretty insignificant, but when lots of people cry out, it carries more weight. Whether Sony is listening and whether they can/will make lossless raws available remains to be seen, but, at the very least, it can't hurt to say, "you want my money? Then do this." Given how aggressive Sony is in the camera market, I think enough people crying out for this MAY be enough of a kick in the pants for them actually do it. What will happen? We shall see.
 
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This jives with other statements made by Sony regarding this issue. There was a recent interview that went like this:

http://www.mirrorlessons.com/2015/06/18/sony-interview-a7rii-rx100-iv-rx10-ii/
ML: Many users wish to have an uncompressed Raw option on the A7 series. Why hasn’t it been implemented yet?

YH: I’ve heard of this request. If there is a high demand, we can consider developing it in the future.


And this interview here:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/06/16/sony-qa-the-must-have-sensor-tech-of-the-future
This next question is more of a request maybe, but we've had a lot of questions asking about raw format. And...

KM: Ah, raw. <laughs> 14-bit.

DE: Yeah, well 14-bit is OK, but many people are asking "could we please have uncompressed RAWs?"

KM: Sony RAW is compressed, not uncompressed. But if we're getting a lot of requests for it, we should make such a kind of no-compression raw. Of course we recognize that. But I cannot give you a guarantee when we're going to fix or not fix.

DE: Right. When you're going to address that, yeah.

KM: Sure, sure. And so we recognize the customer's requirement, and actually we are working on it.

DE: So it's something that you're aware of. I'm sure that the image processing pipeline is optimized for the way that it is now, but it seems to me that, while it might involve some trading off some performance, that it could just be a firmware change. Could it? Would you be able to provide uncompressed raw as a firmware update, or would it require new hardware?

KM: Right, yes. So... not hardware.

DE: It is firmware. OK, good! I think people would be willing to accept a slower transfer time or lower frame rate in an uncompressed mode. Some people really, really want that.
 
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Jul 21, 2010
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So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...
 
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neuroanatomist said:
Mr1Dx said:
Shot nearly two thousand photos from my recent Safari trip(1Dx(2) with 70-200 and 600mm & A7r + FE 16-35), I do not see "loss-less RAW files" impact in final results.

Well, when your sensor captures data that the camera throws away before saving the file, you don't really know what you're missing.

Unless Canon raw shows better in final result, this discussion will have no end.
 
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Sep 15, 2012
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neuroanatomist said:
So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...

Yea i have no idea why anyone would be asking for uncompressed RAW when compression saves you transfer speed and space. What they really want is a loss less compression, i am sure Sony firmware guys understand what they are asking but it would be funny if a firmware came out with uncompressed RAW files with huge performance penalties.
 
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neuroanatomist said:
So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...
How would "Sony lossy compression" impacts your image quality?
 
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Sep 15, 2012
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Mr1Dx said:
neuroanatomist said:
So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...

How would "Sony lossy compression" impacts your image quality?

Because Lossy means its getting rid of information to make the compressed file smaller. It already results it some situations bad image quality like astrophotography. Please don't defend Sony its a extremely stupid decision to have lossy compression on what is supposed to be RAW files.
 
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emko said:
Mr1Dx said:
neuroanatomist said:
So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...

How would "Sony lossy compression" impacts your image quality?

Because Lossy means its getting rid of information to make the compressed file smaller. It already results it some situations bad image quality like astrophotography. Please don't defend Sony its a extremely stupid decision to have lossy compression on what is supposed to be RAW files.

Any photos to prove between the two? I have few hundreds to share if you interested.

Learn to use proper software might not be a bad for certain individuals.

I have a plane to catch.... 8)
 
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Don Haines

Beware of cats with laser eyes!
Jun 4, 2012
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If you want the ultimate in image quality, you want lossless RAW files. Compressing them with a lossless algorithm takes time.... but it also takes time to write the larger uncompressed files to your card... Odds are that compressing and writing the smaller files is faster than writing the larger uncompressed files....

Lossless compression is easy to do..... it's easier than a customized lossy raw compression....

If you are ok with files that have loss of information, save them as jpgs.....
 
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emko said:
neuroanatomist said:
So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...

Yea i have no idea why anyone would be asking for uncompressed RAW when compression saves you transfer speed and space. What they really want is a loss less compression, i am sure Sony firmware guys understand what they are asking but it would be funny if a firmware came out with uncompressed RAW files with huge performance penalties.

There's a very good chance these sales & exec types don't know the difference between uncompressed RAW, lossless compressed RAW & lossy compressed RAW. If English is a second language for them, it will be even harder to speak with precision. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that if they implement the feature that they'd at least do it right, although the fact that they've implemented lossy RAW files to begin with does leave one room for skepticism.
 
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Sep 15, 2012
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yorgasor said:
emko said:
neuroanatomist said:
So, Sony is looking into uncompressed RAW and might implement that at some unspecified future time. This is what people want? Likely results: huge files, slower frame rates, effectively shallower buffer.

Many of us here know the issue isn't compression, it's lossy compression. But from the interviews, it seems that Sony is getting a garbled version of the message, with frequent references to uncompressed RAW. Moral: be careful what you ask for...


Yea i have no idea why anyone would be asking for uncompressed RAW when compression saves you transfer speed and space. What they really want is a loss less compression, i am sure Sony firmware guys understand what they are asking but it would be funny if a firmware came out with uncompressed RAW files with huge performance penalties.

There's a very good chance these sales & exec types don't know the difference between uncompressed RAW, lossless compressed RAW & lossy compressed RAW. If English is a second language for them, it will be even harder to speak with precision. I'd give them the benefit of the doubt that if they implement the feature that they'd at least do it right, although the fact that they've implemented lossy RAW files to begin with does leave one room for skepticism.

yea its a very dumb move since people want to use RAW for specific reason in the first place not a lossy compression like JPEG, i would of thought it a good idea if they had lossy and lossless RAW for the people who want to save the few megabytes and think its not that big of a deal or dont notice the loss.
 
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Mr1Dx said:
Any photos to prove between the two?
Not mine, but this photo is pretty clear on compressed RAW issues for one scenario that I care about, astro:
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2014/20140214_1-SonyA7-artifacts-star-trails.html

I could believe this isn't an issue in general photography without such extreme contrast situations.
 
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Feb 26, 2012
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dswtan said:
Mr1Dx said:
Any photos to prove between the two?
Not mine, but this photo is pretty clear on compressed RAW issues for one scenario that I care about, astro:
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2014/20140214_1-SonyA7-artifacts-star-trails.html

I could believe this isn't an issue in general photography without such extreme contrast situations.

I'll try remember to test this next time I've got a Nikon out at night; FWIW I've never had any issues with lossless or lossy compressed Nikon raw but haven't done star trails to see how that pixel-level high contrast stuff's handled.
 
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