Playing with some of the setting menus in my D7100 I found one I don't understand. JPEG compression gives 2 choices; size priority or optimal quality, which one of these should i consider using? I know a lot of people will tell me that I should shoot everything in RAW, but I dont have the software or the time right now to adjust my images. Any help would be appreciated.
Shooting Menu ???????
- Thread starter Chubby
- Start date
Let me clarify just a little bit more. The "Size Priority" spits out somewhat uniform file sizes for each photo. Optimal Quality spits out file sizes that vary depending on the shot. More colors, contrast, etc. means a larger file size. A simpler shot ie two colors, not much contrast, will result in a smaller file size. The Optimal Quality just does what it needs to do to get the best of the shot.
NIKONIAN_DREAMWEAVER
Senior Member
Load up 2 sd cards. Shoot both RAW + jpeg fine/large/optimal quality. Don't be lazy, download a free copy of Capture NXD. It'll retain your camera settings for you in both jpg and raw. If you don't want to improve your photos today, you can just use the jpeg's for now and later on, when you realize how much you can do with the software after-the-shoot, you can retrieve the raw photos and make the improvements.
I consider post-production work (software) with my RAW images to be 50% of the photographic process now (with digital). I come from decades of film camera usage. I've taken images that would have been throw-away shots with film, and made them into award-winning photos just by tweaking some of the camera settings after-the-shoot.
There are very few photos that I take, that I can't improve somehow with the photo editing software. I run everything through Capture NX2.