Is it best to use NEF or TIFF/Tif?
sorry if this has come up before or a really stupid question...
NEF, definately.
Nick
NEF files range between 12mb to 20mb but saved as a Tiff each would be 35mb on my D3. Raw files like NEF are Tiff files but with a special compression applied, which reduces their size but still contain the same infomation as a full Tiff file, which contains no compression. ;D
Quote from: Oldboy on May 26, 2010, 05:31:22 PM
Raw files like NEF are Tiff files but with a special compression applied, which reduces their size but still contain the same infomation as a full Tiff file, which contains no compression. ;D
Well...neff files are only compressed if you choose to compress them.....some people recommend not doing this due to a loss of dynamic range. http://regex.info/blog/photo-tech/nef-compression
Also, neff files contain more "information" than tiff files. I.e. they contain everything a tiff file does plus more. They are smaller when uncompressed because they don't pad the high end bits with zeroes.
Oh and tiff files support 2 different types of lossless compression - zip and lzw. Neither are used by Nikon.
As long as you have the s/w to decode it properly and believe you always will have then nef is almost always better than tiff. I can think of a couple of times when you might want tiff but really not many.
Quote from: Jonathan on May 26, 2010, 06:35:17 PM
As long as you have the s/w to decode it properly and believe you always will have then nef is almost always better than tiff. I can think of a couple of times when you might want tiff but really not many.
Which makes me womder why Nikon included Tiff as a shooting option on a D3. ???
Quote from: Oldboy on May 26, 2010, 10:26:48 PM
Quote from: Jonathan on May 26, 2010, 06:35:17 PM
As long as you have the s/w to decode it properly and believe you always will have then nef is almost always better than tiff. I can think of a couple of times when you might want tiff but really not many.
Which makes me womder why Nikon included Tiff as a shooting option on a D3. ???
Same on a D700
Okay so... NEF it is I think... :o :D
Thanks folks!
Quote from: Oldboy on May 26, 2010, 10:26:48 PM
Quote from: Jonathan on May 26, 2010, 06:35:17 PM
As long as you have the s/w to decode it properly and believe you always will have then nef is almost always better than tiff. I can think of a couple of times when you might want tiff but really not many.
Which makes me womder why Nikon included Tiff as a shooting option on a D3. ???
Because
1. It costs them nothing. Apart from the increased write time there is no "cost" to producing a tiff. They have the data in the right format as part of the processing.
2. Because there are a couple of special applications where you might want a high quality uncompressed file that comes out of the camera ready to use. Off hand I can think of high quality magazine work and (possibly) some branches of forensics. The people who need this will buy another brand if their required format isn't supported.