I also always shoot raw plus SHQ jpeg. The E-1 raw is 14-bit. Very good insurance, and I always process the raw file for anything I'm going to print.
Berry On 7/14/07 9:14 AM, "Bob Geoghegan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I wonder if the confusion comes from the option for compressed NEF as the > raw format. The D200 default is uncompressed & lossless but it's easy to > change to the just barely lossy compressed option. Compressed in-camera > squeezes the 12 bit, 4096 native analog RAW value scale into 683 values, > ~9.4 bits but differently allocated. Nearly all the compression loss is in > more highly gradated high values. In uncompressed RAW, the top 4 stops use > 3840 (2048+1024+512+256) values of the 4096. The remaining 256 values cover > the rest of the 8 bits. Compressed NEF's allocate 251 values to the lower > 256 (8 stops) and the remaining 432 to the top 4 stops (3860 raw values). > The result is just a little less recoverable highlight data -- on average > more values per f-stop than the lower range. The loss seems to empirically > provable but hardly ever meaningful in the image. I still shoot > uncompressed NEFs just in case. The D80, D70, D50 & D40 bodies only have > compressed NEF. > > http://www.photography-forums.com/t80862-drawbacks-of-compressed-nef-in-d200 > .html > > Bob G > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Berry Ives > Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2007 8:05 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [filmscanners] Re: color bit depth and digital cameras > > Dpreview.com's review indicates that it is a 12-bit raw format. > ~Berry > > > On 7/13/07 11:27 PM, "David J. Littleboy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>>>>>>>>>> >> >> I was just playing with my new Nikon D200 and discovered >> something that surprised me. Unless there is some quality >> adjustment setting I missed, it's color bit depth apparently is >> only 8 bits in NEF Raw. By comparison, my Polaroid SprintScan >> 4000 scanner has a color bit depth of 12 bits, and other scanners >> have much higher color bit depths than this. While color bit >> depth is a commonly cited specification for scanners, I've seldom >> seen it cited for digital cameras. Does the lower bit depth for >> the D200 imply lower quality color rendition than my 12 bit scanner? >> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >> >> I suspect you've done something wrong. This reference >> >> > http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedetail/digital.sensor.performance.summary/in > de >> x.html >> >> Shows the D200 doing very well indeed at ISO 100. I'm quite sure it uses a >> 12-bit A/D converter. >> >> Note that just because a camera or scanner has X bits in its A/D converter >> doesn't mean you have X bits of valid data in the output files. >> >> David J. Littleboy >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Tokyo, Japan >> >> >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- >> ---------- >> Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe >> filmscanners' >> or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title > or >> body > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------ > Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe > filmscanners' > or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title > or body > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > ---------- > Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe > filmscanners' > or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or > body ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body