How Does Lossless Compression in Fuji Raf Files Work? (2020)

Biggest problem with good raw compression is you have a linear DNG, half processed essentially. Great, the file size is smaller, but now you miss data that processes like AI denoise can benefit from as the image is already debayered.

On the flip side, good compression like DNG 1.7 spec's jpeg-xl compression is borderline magic. Lossless is actually lossless. The lossy flavour is so good even at 105 megapixels in 16 bit (per color channel) I would challenge anyone to spot a noticeable difference compared to the original, a file possibly 20x it's size.

On a tangent, bits per channel is yet another part people split hairs over. 14 vs 16 has almost no difference, no the colours are not 'better' even in a full 16 bit workflow, the only real world perceivable difference is your darkest darks are more precise and under extreme editing conditions do look a little better if being raised extensibly in post. I digress 16 is bigger than 14 and yay marketing.

Looping back to compression, 14 bit raws without compression are padded to 16 bit lengths due to word sizes and file constraints. This bit throws off the less technically minded who make all sorts of assumptions about file sizes and being 'more lightweight to edit'.

If you shoot a few thousand photos and then find you can't fix exposure as well as you'd hoped and the whole batch is worse, it's a pretty big disappointment, so it's smart to be risk adverse and skeptical.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150220012844/http://www.machin...

https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/digital-negative.html#dng

Nitro¹ (macOS, xOS), the spiritual successor to Aperture², does support Fuji compressed RAW: https://www.gentlemencoders.com/extended-raw/

(I left Lightroom for Nitro + Apple Photos a couple years ago, and can strongly recommend Nitro to fellow photo takers.)

¹ https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/ ² https://www.gentlemencoders.com/about/

You don't have to go very far before you've cropped a 20 MP source image into a 4K or 2K image, and if that part of the image that you've wanted to highlight is not well-lit, well, exposure is logarithmic and I want all of that RAW color depth that the camera can find if I'm going to turn black or white into perceptually accurate colors.

It's true that when my framing and exposure are great out of the box, I probably wouldn't notice or care if JPEG compression cut my file size by a factor of 4...but that's not always the case.

macOS, but my understanding of Retina is that even if your effective resolution is lower (e.g., my 6K ProDisplay has a resolution of 3008x1692), applications can designate regions to be "original resolution," so I'm getting the image's original resolution in the editing window or region.

The question is whether you actually need such a camera for anything. With a new smartphone that has multiple lenses, out-of-the-box photos will turn out MUCH NICER than from a camera, because initial processing is built into the software. Digital cameras don't have this. You need to take RAW and work pretty hard on it to make the photo look as good as what a smartphone delivers right away.

In tourist destinations, you can often find middle-aged guys running around with huge cameras when in reality most of their photos are quite poor. Because they don't realize that with a regular phone, their pictures would be much nicer.

I have the X-T4 and X-E3, both of which purchased used for much below the price of the newest models (about $800 each). No regrets, and I love both equally.

The E3 is my stripped-down pocketable camera; with the Fuji 27mm pancake lens, I can fit it in a jacket pocket or shoulder strap bag, and it weighs almost nothing, less than my iPhone. This combo is pretty much equivalent to the immensely popular X100IV, but much better value for money.

The T4 is the bigger camera I use for nature and macro shooting. Tons of settings, more advanced features (focus bracketing and "picture in picture" focus closeup are important to me), more advanced dials. It's heavier and bulkier, but also more solid (IBIS, weather sealing).

For some reason Fuji appears to consider yellow focus peaking (which IMHO is the best colourbfor it) to be a high-end feature reserved for the T4, which is annoying.

The biggest annoyance I've found is the horrendous battery life on the X-T3. For a long day outside on a trip, I end up going through at least 3 batteries.

The XT-4 is identical to the X-T3 (well, more so than any other x-tn -> x-t(n+1) camera) but fixes a few of the flaws in the X-T3 with massively improved battery life + IBIS which I'd recommend just because a lot of acclaimed lenses these days forgo OIS (ref: many Sigmas for instance), which could be worth it over the long term.

If you are very price sensitive then the X-T3 is still a really good purchase, with nifty features like dual SD slots which make it great to have backups/RAW+JPEG on two cards. Compared to an average photo from a phone, there just isn't much computationally going on in mirrorless cameras so even an x-t1 would be a good purchase.

If you want to shoot photos for the experience rather than getting clinically perfect images, and do not want absolute performance wrt focusing etc., it's definitely at the top IMO; analog with every control having a dedicated physical control (ISO, Shutter Speed and Exposure Compensation and aperture on Fuji lenses). I love it because it's the equivalent of driving an air-cooled Porsche, warts and all.

I will say the only thing that gives me FOMO is the lack of the Classic Negative film sim, as a lot of recipes that I see online that I really like uses that film sim as the base.

If what appeals to you about Fuji's are the recipes and film sims, I'd make sure to research which ones you like, and then work out which model has the film sim you need to recreate it.

Yes, this is a very good camera. I love UI of Fujifilm cameras; and by that I do not mean the menu system (which is... serviceable) but the physical dial for each of the main setting. Putting them in "A" for automatic just make sense compared to the usual PSAM modes.