How much quality am I losing by using mRaw

[rado98]

Hi guys

Ever since I got my 7D a coupel of months ago I started using mRaw almost exlusively. I figured that I might as well save the storage, I rarely print anything bigger than 5x7, I look at photos on a 1080 display and if DXO is right my camera and lenses combinations peak at 10Mp so on paper at least I am not losing anything.
Doing some very quick numbers I figured at since sRaw is about 1/4 of full resolusion the camera can simply delete 3 out of every 4 pixels and keep the 4x6 ratio without having to "manipulate" any pixels to get there, therefore maintaining their raw status.
If what I am thinking about sRaw is right, the principle could not be apllied to mRaw ang some sort of pixel manipulation/blending would be required.
The question then how much "quality" adn on what am I losing by processing mRaw files vs processing Raw files and then downsampling to mRaw size?

 

[Nethawk]

Hi guys

Ever since I got my 7D a coupel of months ago I started using mRaw almost exlusively. I figured that I might as well save the storage, I rarely print anything bigger than 5x7, I look at photos on a 1080 display and if DXO is right my camera and lenses combinations peak at 10Mp so on paper at least I am not losing anything.
Doing some very quick numbers I figured at since sRaw is about 1/4 of full resolusion the camera can simply delete 3 out of every 4 pixels and keep the 4x6 ratio without having to "manipulate" any pixels to get there, therefore maintaining their raw status.
If what I am thinking about sRaw is right, the principle could not be apllied to mRaw ang some sort of pixel manipulation/blending would be required.
The question then how much "quality" adn on what am I losing by processing mRaw files vs processing Raw files and then downsampling to mRaw size?

If you're just posting to the web or printing small sizes then you won't notice a difference. On the other hand, if you are consistently shooting in low light with high ISO then you will be losing the advantage of preserving more detail during post processing and noise reduction.

My opinion - storage is cheap, and I never know - someday that photograph will look beautiful printed 16x20. I also convert to DNG, and at least back when I did the research this didn't work well on any of the lower resolution RAW file formats.

Your best approach is to do a comparison with some serious pixel peeping. If the difference is fine for your purposes then mRAW is a fine choice.

 

[Freddie]

I've always wondered about that...

but I was never brave enough to try it. I guess research is called for.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Why buy a 20 MP camera and then throw pixels away.

I can understand not needing them, but its a expensive camera, and you can never recover the lost resolution if you shoot in mraw. Memory cards and hard drive space are so cheap in relation to the price of the camera that its not a factor. You must still convert to jpg for either mraw or raw, and the image size can be set during that process without affecting the original.