stevegoldenberg Posted March 29, 2013 Share #1 Posted March 29, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi everyone, I just got my new M (and it's AMAZING) and I have a question: is there any downside to using the compressed DNG? The instructions say that the compression is loss-less which sounds good but I'm curious if there are any negatives of using it? Are there any downsides? -Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 29, 2013 Posted March 29, 2013 Hi stevegoldenberg, Take a look here New M DNG compression. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
rsmphoto Posted March 29, 2013 Share #2 Posted March 29, 2013 Nothing to worry about that I'm aware of. Maybe others can weigh in. I use it with my S2 and have not seen nor heard of any down side. Richard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonoslack Posted March 29, 2013 Share #3 Posted March 29, 2013 Hi everyone, I just got my new M (and it's AMAZING) and I have a question: is there any downside to using the compressed DNG? The instructions say that the compression is loss-less which sounds good but I'm curious if there are any negatives of using it? Are there any downsides? -Steve HI Steve I also understand it's lossless - I've not done any really detailed comparison, but it seems to me that if it's lost anything I can do without it! Enjoy your new camera. all the best Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jffielde Posted March 29, 2013 Share #4 Posted March 29, 2013 Everything I've read suggests it is completely lossless - no reason not to use it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted March 29, 2013 Share #5 Posted March 29, 2013 To me the definition of compression means something is lost. My gosh memory is so cheap if I need another TB of backup over many years of M use I do not care. Jono's images are superb so for him it's OK. I am a duffer and as such I need all the help I can get. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdlaing Posted March 29, 2013 Share #6 Posted March 29, 2013 And the recording time is quicker too..... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest roey Posted March 29, 2013 Share #7 Posted March 29, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) To me the definition of compression means something is lost. My gosh memory is so cheap if I need another TB of backup over many years of M use I do not care. Lossless compression is a well established technique that allows the data to be completely reconstructed (see Lossless compression - Wikipedia). The best real-world analogy I can come up with are those vacuum storage bags, where you remove the air from the packaged goods (usually clothes, blankets, cushions, etc.) in order to save storage space. As already pointed out using lossless compression on the 240 does not only save space on the card and on disk but also allows the camera to write the files to the card more quickly. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted March 29, 2013 Share #8 Posted March 29, 2013 Point well taken on all counts. So what if in 3-5 years some new ACR becomes available that takes old uncompressed files to a new level and gives them a new lease on life, but does nothing to improve on lossless images because the air has already been sucked out of them? As for writing files to the card more quickly, I dare say it is SD card development that helps more than about anything else. A couple of nano-seconds for me is not an improvement and I will gladly wait that long while I take in the scene before me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haroldp Posted March 29, 2013 Share #9 Posted March 29, 2013 To me the definition of compression means something is lost. My gosh memory is so cheap if I need another TB of backup over many years of M use I do not care. Jono's images are superb so for him it's OK. I am a duffer and as such I need all the help I can get. Modern lossless compression algorithms are truly lossless. The most commonly used is probably zip and it's variants. A simple example, if the next 100 characters are '0', noting '0' X 100 is smaller than 100 0's, and completely lossless when decompressed. The network pages you use to read this are lossless compressed. There is no downside that I can think of to lossless compressed if it is available. The extra computing time is made up by smaller data transfer. Regards ... H Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted March 29, 2013 Share #10 Posted March 29, 2013 Thank you Harold. So why does Leica offer uncompressed as an image option on the M if there is nothing to gain from uncompressed over compressed? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted March 29, 2013 Share #11 Posted March 29, 2013 So why does Leica offer uncompressed as an image option on the M if there is nothing to gain from uncompressed over compressed? Hard to say, but nearly all the camera vendors offer the option of storing either uncompressed or losslessly compressed data. I couldn’t say why one would choose the uncompressed option. One could argue that a few damaged bits within a compressed file might render the file unreadable while a similar damage would only affect a few pixels of an uncompressed file. In practice I have never come across a case where this made a difference, though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted March 29, 2013 Share #12 Posted March 29, 2013 So what if in 3-5 years some new ACR becomes available that takes old uncompressed files to a new level and gives them a new lease on life, but does nothing to improve on lossless images because the air has already been sucked out of them? ‘Lossless’ means that you can reconstruct the original data from the compressed file – there is absolutely no difference between the original and the decompressed data. If there was a difference than the compression wouldn’t be lossless. Typical image files can be losslessly compressed to about 40 to 70 percent of their original file size. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
k-hawinkler Posted March 29, 2013 Share #13 Posted March 29, 2013 Hi everyone, I just got my new M (and it's AMAZING) and I have a question: is there any downside to using the compressed DNG? The instructions say that the compression is loss-less which sounds good but I'm curious if there are any negatives of using it? Are there any downsides? -Steve Lossless compression is just that: lossless. It means that there is an algorithm at work that can convert the two representations, namely uncompressed and compressed, into each other without loss of information. Of course doing so requires a bit of computational processing power that the M has. The M9 doesn't have that processing power and therefore offers only lossy compression. So, In order to use lossless compression requires more processing power than using lossy compression. I wouldn't call that a downside but instead call it a requirement. Of course, that also requires more energy, therefore a larger battery. Here is your downside. If the necessary processing power is available, then using it and compressing the data losslessly before moving and storing it, is typically more efficient. One uses one commodity, namely compute or processing power, in order to reduce the requirements for communication bandwidth and data storage. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
theno23 Posted April 3, 2013 Share #14 Posted April 3, 2013 Thank you Harold. So why does Leica offer uncompressed as an image option on the M if there is nothing to gain from uncompressed over compressed? I believe that some older software tools can't open lossless compressed DNG files. - Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted April 3, 2013 Share #15 Posted April 3, 2013 I believe that some older software tools can't open lossless compressed DNG files. But then, any software supporting the new M wouldn’t be one of those older apps. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted April 4, 2013 Share #16 Posted April 4, 2013 Lossless compression is just that: lossless. Lossless Compression is just that: compression. So far no one can answer for me this simple question. If it's a no brainer to use lossless compression then why give us the choice? Why even have the line item with 2 choices? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ledfut Posted April 4, 2013 Share #17 Posted April 4, 2013 Regular DNG is there for backwards compatibility with old software editors. If your software can handle compressed DNG then you should use it. Ledfut Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted April 4, 2013 Share #18 Posted April 4, 2013 Lossless Compression is just that: compression. So far no one can answer for me this simple question. If it's a no brainer to use lossless compression then why give us the choice? Why even have the line item with 2 choices? If you use software which does not handle files which are compressed, do not compress the files. If you use software which does handle compressed files, compress the files. It's all been said in this thread before. A simple question is just that: a question. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeinzX Posted April 4, 2013 Share #19 Posted April 4, 2013 I prefer to use my Photoshop CS 5, where the last ACR version for it is 6.7, as Adobe releases no newer ACR suitable for CS 5. And therefore I open my uncompressed DNG files from the M 9 with CS 5 and do all necessary work with it and not with LR 4. This workflow will not be possible any more with loseless compressed DNGs of the M, if I understand right. Seems that two options remain, if DNGs should be processed. Either to use the uncompressed DNGs and to do all work in CS 5 or to use LR 4 (actual version LR 4.4) and the loseless compressed format at least for opening and converting the files (if I want to work with them in my CS 5). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted April 4, 2013 Share #20 Posted April 4, 2013 I worry over future reconstruction . Storage is cheap. I can go for coffee during the download. The only downside is perhaps a longer wait while the camera does its thing after an exposure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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