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Image quality settings

HarveyMushmanHarveyMushman Registered Users Posts: 550 Major grins
edited January 28, 2004 in Cameras
My Olympus digicam, a 3mp point-n-shoot, takes decent pics. Lately I've been shooting almost exclusively on the "Super High Quality" setting, which yields a .jpg file with a resolution of 1984x1488. At this setting my 128MB memory card is good for a little more than 50 pics. If I shoot at the default "High Quality" setting I can take over 170 pics. Depending on the shot, it's usually fairly easy to see the improved quality when I shoot at the higher setting.

Now, the camera also allows me shoot in different image ratio formats, and this is where I get lost. It's possible to select a image ratio format that produces a TIFF file. If I select that option my 128MB card is good for fewer than 10 frames.

Why are these files so big? What is the incentive to using the larger files, given that my camera is still only capable of 3mp?

Camera specs: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Olympus/oly_c300z.asp
Tim

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    patch29patch29 Registered Users, Retired Mod Posts: 2,928 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2004
    The short answer is the TIF is uncompressed and the JPG is. If you open the jpg in photoshop and check its document size when you do it should be the same as the TIF when you use the highest quality jpg from the camera. The jpg is a lossy format so you are losing some info that the tiff has, but probably not enough for you to tell a difference. If you had a RAW format that would be a different story. I think you are safe shooting the highest quality jpg your camera will take, it is worth the storage savings. If it was a shot you knew you wanted to print really large (large enough to require interpolation to make a bigger file), then you could always shoot that one as a tiff and go back to jpg for the rest.
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    wxwaxwxwax Registered Users Posts: 15,471 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2004
    Harvester, I'd add that you might consider splurging for more memory. Some people believe in multiple cards. So far I'm more on the side of having one really big card in the camera. Either way, if you add memory you won't feel constrained by the memory card and can take all the shots you want.
    Sid.
    Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam
    http://www.mcneel.com/users/jb/foghorn/ill_shut_up.au
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    knaryknary Registered Users Posts: 61 Big grins
    edited January 28, 2004
    wxwax wrote:
    Harvester, I'd add that you might consider splurging for more memory. Some people believe in multiple cards. So far I'm more on the side of having one really big card in the camera. Either way, if you add memory you won't feel constrained by the memory card and can take all the shots you want.

    Splurge on some more cards. I like having a couple bigger cards. On rare occasions, a card's formatting can get wonky and it's nice to have a backup. Besides, you can never have enough room, right?
    scott - pdx
    www.conary.org
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    HarveyMushmanHarveyMushman Registered Users Posts: 550 Major grins
    edited January 28, 2004
    knary wrote:
    Splurge on some more cards. I like having a couple bigger cards. On rare occasions, a card's formatting can get wonky and it's nice to have a backup. Besides, you can never have enough room, right?
    Yes, a bigger card is on the shopping list.

    A couple days ago I read an article about working with RAW files . . . add it to the list of reasons to start saving pennies for a D-SLR.
    Tim
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