[Harvey Stearn Silver Member Posts: 14]

Sony R7IV File Size, Processing Power, Storage

on: August 1, 2019 at 11:05 pm

Jack raises an interesting question, that given a steady march to higher resolution (read more data and larger files), and a parallel objective of higher image quality, at what point do we reach diminishing returns as buyers and users? The diminishing returns probably have less to do with adjusting for increased storage volume, and more to do with whether the cost and effort of achieving “better” images is justified by useable improvement. Companies like Sony can certainly continue to produce technical improvements in sensors and lenses that might continue to motivate us photographers to suffer the brain damage of selling prior models every other year or sooner to buy the latest thing. But, what we gain in useable image size increases may be something that many of us can’t take advantage of except for bragging rights. You almost have to be in the billboard advertising business to justify cameras with 100 and 150 MP sensor outputs.

Yet, as a longtime landscape photographer, I still tend to feel that 61 MP produced by the Sony A7rM4 camera is not a bridge too far, even though my gallery exhibition days are largely over. In fact, 200 or 300 megabyte files are nothing new to me, as even five years ago, I made many stitched panoramas using a sharp 85mm narrow focus lens to ultimately produce a single image that could have been made by one exposure with a 16mm or a 24mm lens. This has been an effective way to capture more detail as an alternative to more expensive high resolution cameras. But, it’s simpler and quicker to use a higher resolution camera. And so, I was among the very first buyers to order the Sony A7rM4, as I do perceive practical value from this additional resolution which is still very cost-effective.  My objective in capturing landscapes and other content rich subjects is to achieve the greatest sense of reality which corresponds to human vision. Since we see in individual bites of two degrees which our brain stitches together to cover approximately 46 degrees, our reality is based upon substantial resolution. But, there are other aspects of reality besides detail as we well know, which includes color accuracy and contrast control.

However, if the ultimate objective is duplicating visual reality, then the larger question is where does photography go from here? Do we ultimately wind up making high resolution holistic videos? We won’t know until technology and consumer tastes evolve further. As far as storage space problems go, earlier this year I spent three months reducing my 43,000-image library to 14,000 images and mining older images for un-extracted gold. I found some, and made peace with trashing almost 30,000 failed and duplicate files that I now know were not worth keeping. And, it isn’t to save storage, as that’s cheap as Kevin points out. It’s to save time and effort sorting through my inventory. More about the benefits of this process in another article that I started last month.

Harvey

AZfotopro

[Harvey Stearn Silver Member Posts: 14]

Re: New Article Published – Western Mountain Landscape Photography

Reply #1 on: July 29, 2019 at 8:51 pm

Alan, there were actually three mis-captioned images that resulted from my copying the format from a previous image and then failing to change the wording to match the new image. Somehow, I missed it after four proof-readings. Hope you enjoyed the photo’s though.

Harvey

AZfotopro

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