Shooting w 7D: M or L or RAW?

[darrenwilson]

I have been shooting with a 50D and a 7D for a while now. I edit my photos using PS3 on a Mac Mini with 2G RAM.

Once I got my 7D, I noticed my computer was struggling when opening and editing the larger files shot in LARGE file mode. I've been going back and forth between L and M size and am getting ready to settle for shooting in M from now on because they are easier to edit.

Here's my question? Is there any difference in image quality between the two settings, or is it just the final image dimensions being affected? I am pleased with the image quality I have been getting in M, but have this nagging feeling that I may be missing performance by not using L.

Short of buying the 27" iMac, is there anything else I can consider doing? If I end up moving to another computer, what's the benefit of stepping it up to shooting RAW?

[ldelacruz]

Cropping and printing is the major difference in M or L. Raw has more info per pic and allows for more adjustments.

[dmcantrell]

Can you put more RAM in your current computer? The RAM is the bottleneck in your current system I think.

I don't know much about Macs, but do you know if it's using the 64-bit version of PS3? If it is, you should get an immediate performance increase by doubling your RAM to 4G.

[darrenwilson]

I upgraded this Mac Mini to 2G RAM last year and that's all it can take, as far as I understand. I'll have to investigate...

I usually shoot pretty tight, so I rarely need to crop any frame too much. So there's no lower image quality when shooting M? Only width and height dimensions?

[dmcantrell]

This website says that it is upgradable to 4GB of RAM : Apple - Mac mini - Features of Apple?s smallest desktop computer.

Is this the model you have?

If it were me, I would be looking for ways to have my post-processing flow handle the larger files and not give up the quality that you've paid thousands of dollars in lenses and bodies to attain. You can always downsize, but if you need to go larger you can't always upsize. Of course, this is just my opinion.

[Tom]

You can never get the resolution and detail back that you have lost by shooting M.

The only time I don't shoot full-size RAW is when I am shooting sports on deadline, and then I shoot full-res JPG.

I don't care about spending a little more time in photoshop for having more detail and resolution.

[rusty_tripod]

Are you shooting in the 18mpix or 10mpix format? The 10mpix would be smaller but would be affected by cropping and reproduction size.

[ldelacruz]

I use a Pentium Core solo 1.66 with 3gigs to process RAW 5D MKII files which are huge. Your MAC shouldn't have issues with .jpgs. Do you really see a big difference?

[dryicerx]

That machine's specs shouldsn't have any problem working with those images...

You are copying all files over to your hard disk from your SD/CF card before editing/working on them right?

[ramblinray]

Yes there is a difference in image quality. By shooting in M, you are throwing away information. I believe the full data information is run through an algorithm that skrunches the data, averaging data points to get a new value to fit the new image size. It looks acceptable but will never look as good as the full sized image. Shoot raw, then you can do your own data manipulation.

[darrenwilson]

Thanks all, for the great responses.

Is this the model you have?

I chatted w Apple tech support and found out that my Mac Mini is old enough as to NOT support more than the 2G RAM that I already have installed. More horsepower on this computer is not an option.

You are copying all files over to your hard disk from your SD/CF card before editing/working on them right?

Yes. And this takes FOREVER when transferring the files from the card to the computer.

...and not give up the quality that you've paid thousands of dollars in lenses and bodies to attain

Exactly. I hate to let extra time spent processing photos force me to sacrifice image quality that I've paid a lot for (7D, 70-200 2.8L).

I'm going to be shooting a few sessions later this week and will shoot full-res jpgs and see what happens.

[dmcantrell]

I use Photoshop (CS4) on a 32-bit Windows System to process 12MP full-res images from my D300 (2848x4288 16-bit). Windows will only allow 1.7GB of RAM for the process, and it works flawlessly. I do have to be careful of what else I have running on the machine though.

Here are some details from Adobe on my situation : 64-bit Operating System benefits and limitations in Photoshop CS4 (Windows)

I'm not sure how this is applicable to Mac Mini though.

Does this article help any : Optimize performance in Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS

[darrenwilson]

Does this article help any : Optimize performance in Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS

David, that did it! 10 minutes of these fixes worked miracles. I didn't have near enough RAM dedicated to PS. Its working much better now.

I highly recommend this anyone else having these same type of problems.

Thanks again.

[Dobick]

I would highly recommend shooting in raw. In my opinion, there are several reasons that you would want to shoot in raw, and only a handful of reasons that you would not.

The most prevalent advantage IMHO is that the original image is easier to keep track of when you shoot in raw. Bring the raw image into your computer, make a few small tweaks if needed, save those changes to a sidecar, and then develop to jpg for print or display. But for backup and archive purposes, no need to save archive the jpgs, unless you have made significant development changes to them, otherwise just save and archive the original, and it will contain all the information that can be captured without throwing any data away.

[dmcantrell]

Awesome! :cheers: