Advice on Nikon D800-Concerned About File Size

[manaheim]

RAW files on the D800 run about 50 meg or so. RAW files on a D7100 are probably, what? 15-17 meg? You're transferring across a pipe so if it's 3x the data, then it's about 3x the time.

That guy that went off about how you don't need new CPU and stuff... yeah... well... I upgraded my entire machine because the one I had before was being crushed by the D800 raw files. The SSD and the new WD Black spinning disk I got are most definitely the biggest contributor to performance improvements in my setup, but there is no question that the CPU upgrade and RAM speed improvement were also a big help. (which also required a faster motherboard...)

Can you work the images on the Corei5? Sure. It'll work fine. You'll just wait a bit between images. Not a HUGE deal unless you're going through hundreds of them, and I can tell you... even on the system I'm running now, going through hundreds of D800 raw images can be pretty annoying.

I'm really trying to mitigate the misinformation that the original poster is being provided with here regarding computer hardware... Remember, he is using an i5-3450, not an "i5" (it's not one overarching category).

"i5" is a line of processors by Intel. They tend to be built similarly to their i7 counterparts generation-to-generation, save for not having built-in hyperthreading. There's a bit more to it than that. But the best camera analogy based on you referring to all i5's as i5's is like putting a D80 and a D7100 on the same level because they're both crop sensor cameras. If you refer to benchmarks for the i5-3450 (specifically pertaining to relevant tasks, giving second measurements instead of referring to point-based benchmarks on non-related software), it handles processing in photoshop and lightroom at speeds that are at par with any other equivalent i7 processors. He'd have to spend an arm and a leg to get any worth-while performance increase by upgrading his computer. Essentially, what he has now is a practically brand-new computer with a good, current $200 processor.

Increasing RAM speed also won't make a significant difference. Whether he's running on 1600MHz RAM or 1333MHz RAM, it won't matter. There's actually a bigger difference in the configuration of your RAM (the RAM timings). That gets technical, and again it doesn't really matter all that much. He has 16GB of RAM, and that's more than sufficient and all that really matters in this case. He doesn't even need 16GB of RAM, although it's definitely useful (I run on 8GB and I don't like rebooting my computer all too often, so it gets bogged down & 16GB can be useful with all the applications I run at once).

I occasionally do some part-time professional work contracting out to build computers. I just really don't want people giving out misinformation. Don't refer to every i5 as "an i5". That's incorrect and absolutely misleading.

Oh so you occasionally do some part-time professional computer work, do you?

Well, I'm a FULL TIME IT consultant. I have been in the industry for about 20 years, and have used computers since I was 9. I serve as CIO for two companies, and also serve as architect and senior IT consultant for those two, and a couple more. I have been personally responsible for organizations consisting dozens of IT professionals, managing thousands of servers, tens of thousands of desktops, and several petabytes of enterprise-grade storage. I am also a software developer and can program in more languages than I can usefully articulate without sitting here for an hour trying to remember them all.

I'm pretty sure I know that the Corei5 is, and what the differences in processors are.

I'm gonna' go out on a limb and say that I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, so please be aware of who you're addressing before you try to put someone in their place.

I stand by what I said previously... which, btw, was NOT that his i5 wouldn't do the job. In fact, I pretty pointedly stated that the SSD and very fast disk were the biggest contributors to the performance boost. Obviously, you need to make your purchases wisely. There are current generation Xeon procs that do not compete will against some of the current generation Corei5s.

Oh, and just for fun... there is a motherboard from Intel named after my Dad, who happens to have spent many years as a senior VP at Intel, most recently responsible for the motherboards division.

Thank you, and good night.

 

[PaulWog]

Oh so you occasionally do some part-time professional computer work, do you?

Well, I'm a FULL TIME IT consultant. I have been in the industry for about 20 years, and have used computers since I was 9. I serve as CIO for two companies, and also serve as architect and senior IT consultant for those two, and a couple more. I have been personally responsible for organizations consisting dozens of IT professionals, managing thousands of servers, tens of thousands of desktops, and several petabytes of enterprise-grade storage. I am also a software developer and can program in more languages than I can usefully articulate without sitting here for an hour trying to remember them all.

I'm pretty sure I know that the Corei5 is, and what the differences in processors are.

I'm gonna' go out on a limb and say that I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, so please be aware of who you're addressing before you try to put someone in their place.

I stand by what I said previously... which, btw, was NOT that his i5 wouldn't do the job. In fact, I pretty pointedly stated that the SSD and very fast disk were the biggest contributors to the performance boost. Obviously, you need to make your purchases wisely. There are current generation Xeon procs that do not compete will against some of the current generation Corei5s.

Oh, and just for fun... there is a motherboard from Intel named after my Dad, who happens to have spent many years as a senior VP at Intel, most recently responsible for the motherboards division.

Thank you, and good night.

I'm happy for you and your Dad that there's motherboard named after him. Congratulations. I'm here to argue the facts, not provide a life bio and get into an immature pissing match. You said "That guy that went off about how you don't need new CPU and stuff... yeah... well..." That guy was me. I said he didn't need to upgrade his i5, and you responded by implying he in fact should upgrade his computer. You then followed up by stating that he will have to wait between his images *because* of his i5. The clear implication you set out was that a more recent i7 processor would do him much better. That certainly isn't the case for the purpose of file transfer, editing in Lightroom, or most functions in Photoshop as well... 16GB of RAM and his particular i5 processor perform at a top-notch level.

 

[ratssass]

...subscribing

 

[manaheim]

You're the one who threw his credentials out there first. I just responded in kind. IF you don't want to play "who has a bigger one", then keep yours off the table.

I've spent a career dealing with people giving misinformation and acting like they know ohhhhhhhhh so much, just because they happen to have a little experience. My irritated response comes from the very same reaction you had to me... only I'm in a better position to make the argument. I hope the irony isn't lost on you.

And no, that's not what I said. In fact, I restarted what I ACTUALLY said, and you seemed to ignore it both times.

I've nothing more to say on this, so you can have the last word if you like.

(For the record, I know the comment about my Dad was totally childish... but it was funny, so I went with it.)

bye.

 

[PaulWog]

You're the one who threw his credentials out there first. I just responded in kind. IF you don't want to play "who has a bigger one", then keep yours off the table.

I've spent a career dealing with people giving misinformation and acting like they know ohhhhhhhhh so much, just because they happen to have a little experience. My irritated response comes from the very same reaction you had to me... only I'm in a better position to make the argument. I hope the irony isn't lost on you.

And no, that's not what I said. In fact, I restarted what I ACTUALLY said, and you seemed to ignore it both times.

I've nothing more to say on this, so you can have the last word if you like.

(For the record, I know the comment about my Dad was totally childish... but it was funny, so I went with it.)

bye.

Word.

 

[BillM]

I could be wrong, but doesn't the D7100 have a USB 2 port while the D800 has a USB 3 port? I think the OP's bottleneck may actually be in the USB 2 connection.. just a thought before we go building supercomputers

How dare you try to get this thread back on track, I'm kind of sure it's against Internet rules

 

[coastalconn]

How dare you try to get this thread back on track, I'm kind of sure it's against Internet rules

Terribly sorry, I will go back babbling about birds and leave tech stuff to the experts

 

[harishu]

like to chip in with my experience with computers.

i am one of those guys who was developing software on mainframes. a 200mb array of disk was mounted into a current washing m/c size drive and kept cooled to approx 0deg C
then switched (1982) on to ibm pc running at a super fast 4.77mhz with 16kb memory which used 360kb diskettes.
my personal m/c was a 6mhz AT which had a button when pressed jumped to 8mhz , 64kb memory and 1.2 mb diskette drive. after a year i bought a 10mb hard disk and it was like wow
thru the years and many pcs later, since 2009, i own a 7i (2nd gen) with 16gb, builtin graphics, 120gb ssd for windows and raid (2tb disks) for programs and data. backups on external disks.
i own a D800 and a D7100 and shoot raw. i transfer pics using a usb3 card reader (multitype) into lightroom 5 running in windows 8.1. difference in transfer time for 100 pics will be in seconds.

so
1. no computer will be fast enough within a few months of use.
2. your "fast/slow" might not be the same "fast/slow" for others.
3. there are lots of people still using windows xp on their celerons and find it more than enough.
4. how important is that few minutes of wait when transferring/processing 100s of pictures.

 

[Gavjenks]

Honestly I don't think there's a ton of need to edit RAWs for highly controlled studio shots of still objects, so the whole question seems kinda moot.

I would still shoot RAW + jpeg for safety, but most of the time, I'd be editing the jpeg in lieu of any rare and unexpected issues and throwing out the RAW, and therefore not caring about how long it takes the RAW to load. Why? Because RAW is for editing latitude in lightness and coloration, primarily. In a highly controlled studio setting, your lighting is pretty much always the same, and you can dial in custom WB that pretty much never changes. So 99% of the time, you should be getting exactly the exposure and color you want straight out of camera, since nothing is changing and you already optimized.

Why deal with the headache of everything being slower and more complicated with RAW when you don't need the flexibility it provides due to a very rigid and consistent setup?

 

[Roger3006]

Thanks Harishu, you answered my question.

My turn. I do not feel I have a bottleneck. My power pack recycles in about 6 seconds, when shooting at full tilt, which is close to the amount of time it takes a file to render in Lightroom. My computer handles what I am doing now fine.

I started with the same PC that HarisHu did. An IBM PC with an 8084 processor. Big jump to an 8086 and Lotus did not need a math chip for an additional few hundred bucks (assuming you were smart enough to write a spreed sheet complex enough to need it). Prior to the PC I was loading punch cards into and IBM 360. FYI-if it were not for that little box Neil Armstrong would not have made his famous little walk.

I appreciate y'all answering my question about the difference in transfer time between a D7100 and a D800. I was curious about whether Lightroom or Photoshop would use any significant amount of horsepower offered in a graphics card with a bunch of ram, fans, etc. I am smart enough to know if your software cannot utilize the architecture of the card you are wasting your money. I do use an aftermarket card with a gig of ram. I needed it for 2 VGA ports. My built in graphic did not have that.

I am not a computer expert but I have been using them to process data for forty plus years. I do believe a little of it has rubbed off on me. I started with DOS 1.0 in PCs and am now running Windows 7. I have used almost everything in between including Unix.

I very much appreciate y'all answering my question. In short I found the difference the time it take to render D800 files over D7100 files is no big deal. It will take a few seconds longer to load the file which should be about four seconds after my US made strobes strobes charge. If it took longer I guess I could use Chinese strobes and spend the time loading the files swapping my lights.

FYI-my studio shots are not as rigid as you think. Please advise me on how I should do after you have done it. It is obvious you have no clue. There is no reason for me to shoot a jpg along with a raw file. I shoot tethered and do not use a memory card. The file is backed up as soon as it hits my hard drive. For me, a jpg is a waste of time and space.

Y'all have a great week.

Roger

 

[Mike_E]

HI again Roger.

If I've read this thread correctly you seem to be wanting to get the D800 for your on-line business.

I have to tell you that the D800 for on-line use is like using a Nuke for rabbit hunting, the file size is just a waste.

Shooting tethered as you do and mentioning the amount of time needed to upload the files it seems to me that you are wanting to be able to view the photos to assure that you have the shot that you want before moving on to a different view.

If this is correct I'll mention again Control my Nikon for viewing the shot before you take it. I don't know if lightroom has added your camera yet but the software I mentioned should.

If you aren't using this technique I'll tell you for product shots, for me -I've done a few but just a few, being able to see exactly what you'll capture on the monitor is great because you can make adjustments to your heart's content before you ever press the shutter. And, you can adjust the focus and actuate the shutter from the PC.

Good luck with whatever you wind up doing.

WPS btw!

 

[Gavjenks]

FYI-my studio shots are not as rigid as you think. Please advise me on how I should do after you have done it. It is obvious you have no clue.

I have done many many studio shots. When you control all of the lights, generally what you do is set up the right exposure and white balance and then just keep it in manual without touching any of the settings again, because nothing is changing and this gives you consistent lighting and coloration for the whole shoot, so that photos you give out look like they go together. I would only change exposure or color if I made a dramatic change to lighting halfway through the shoot. This is true for still objects certainly (even shiny ones) and moving people too. If you have a shiny object, you just make your settings as bright as possible but without blowing out if/when there is a glaring spot, and you're good to go whether or not there is one.

And if you aren't changing your exposure or color shot to shot (which you shouldn't be in like 95%+ of studio situations), then there is no point to editing from RAW, because all you're going to do is open the RAW converter, click "yup, this is what I wanted. Convert to jpeg now please." and then send it out. Which is exactly what the camera does when you save a jpeg alongside. ESPECIALLY if you're shooting tethered and can see everything.

If you change everything to "optimize" every single shot with extensive RAW editing, then your customers can see that the lighting is changing from shot to shot and it looks weird. Maybe you only post one image of each gun, if so whatever, not gonna look weird because there's nothing to compare, but usually high end merchandise dealers will do a whole set of images for a single item. And if they have the same background/setting, they should look consistent. I.e. you shouldn't be extensively editing the curves or the exposure settings in between. I.e. RAW isn't that useful.

I still always shoot RAW as well as a backup. But unless something went horribly wrong, the jpeg is faster and just as good. The RAW is only there in case the flash hadn't recharged fully or something and the exposure was off, etc.

There is no reason for me to shoot a jpg along with a raw file. I shoot tethered and do not use a memory card. The file is backed up as soon as it hits my hard drive. For me, a jpg is a waste of time and space.

1) A jpeg is vastly faster to open and edit. Since the whole point of your thread is about loading times, opening and editing lag is obviously important to you, and jpeg is THE fastest option available to you.
2) Jpegs take up like 5x less space, and you can immediately delete the RAW once you look at the photo on the computer and verify that nothing unexpected happened and that the color and lighting is indeed once again correct. Thus you save space, too.

 

[manaheim]

Gav and Mike make some really good points here.

+1 to each.

 

[bigal1000]

RAW files on the D800 run about 50 meg or so. RAW files on a D7100 are probably, what? 15-17 meg? You're transferring across a pipe so if it's 3x the data, then it's about 3x the time.

That guy that went off about how you don't need new CPU and stuff... yeah... well... I upgraded my entire machine because the one I had before was being crushed by the D800 raw files. The SSD and the new WD Black spinning disk I got are most definitely the biggest contributor to performance improvements in my setup, but there is no question that the CPU upgrade and RAM speed improvement were also a big help. (which also required a faster motherboard...)

Can you work the images on the Corei5? Sure. It'll work fine. You'll just wait a bit between images. Not a HUGE deal unless you're going through hundreds of them, and I can tell you... even on the system I'm running now, going through hundreds of D800 raw images can be pretty annoying.

I'm really trying to mitigate the misinformation that the original poster is being provided with here regarding computer hardware... Remember, he is using an i5-3450, not an "i5" (it's not one overarching category).

"i5" is a line of processors by Intel. They tend to be built similarly to their i7 counterparts generation-to-generation, save for not having built-in hyperthreading. There's a bit more to it than that. But the best camera analogy based on you referring to all i5's as i5's is like putting a D80 and a D7100 on the same level because they're both crop sensor cameras. If you refer to benchmarks for the i5-3450 (specifically pertaining to relevant tasks, giving second measurements instead of referring to point-based benchmarks on non-related software), it handles processing in photoshop and lightroom at speeds that are at par with any other equivalent i7 processors. He'd have to spend an arm and a leg to get any worth-while performance increase by upgrading his computer. Essentially, what he has now is a practically brand-new computer with a good, current $200 processor.

Increasing RAM speed also won't make a significant difference. Whether he's running on 1600MHz RAM or 1333MHz RAM, it won't matter. There's actually a bigger difference in the configuration of your RAM (the RAM timings). That gets technical, and again it doesn't really matter all that much. He has 16GB of RAM, and that's more than sufficient and all that really matters in this case. He doesn't even need 16GB of RAM, although it's definitely useful (I run on 8GB and I don't like rebooting my computer all too often, so it gets bogged down & 16GB can be useful with all the applications I run at once).

I occasionally do some part-time professional work contracting out to build computers. I just really don't want people giving out misinformation. Don't refer to every i5 as "an i5". That's incorrect and absolutely misleading.

Oh so you occasionally do some part-time professional computer work, do you?

Well, I'm a FULL TIME IT consultant. I have been in the industry for about 20 years, and have used computers since I was 9. I serve as CIO for two companies, and also serve as architect and senior IT consultant for those two, and a couple more. I have been personally responsible for organizations consisting dozens of IT professionals, managing thousands of servers, tens of thousands of desktops, and several petabytes of enterprise-grade storage. I am also a software developer and can program in more languages than I can usefully articulate without sitting here for an hour trying to remember them all.

I'm pretty sure I know that the Corei5 is, and what the differences in processors are.

I'm gonna' go out on a limb and say that I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, so please be aware of who you're addressing before you try to put someone in their place.

I stand by what I said previously... which, btw, was NOT that his i5 wouldn't do the job. In fact, I pretty pointedly stated that the SSD and very fast disk were the biggest contributors to the performance boost. Obviously, you need to make your purchases wisely. There are current generation Xeon procs that do not compete will against some of the current generation Corei5s.

Oh, and just for fun... there is a motherboard from Intel named after my Dad, who happens to have spent many years as a senior VP at Intel, most recently responsible for the motherboards division.

Thank you, and good night.

I guess he told you all right !!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!

 

[vimwiz]

"There are current generation Xeon procs that do not compete will against some of the current generation Corei5s."

I will give you that 2013 E3v3 (22nm Haswell) Xeons are very simiar to the current gen consumer i5 on the surface, except they have with double the amount of threads per core, around 10% greater clock speeds, 30% more cache, and support for EEC memory.

The increased cache and thread count does really set them apart somewhat for many applications.

Blurb: DevOps for a major CDN provider, was involved in seriously looking at at benchmarking such processors recently, for video transcoding and MapReduce.

Though I admit, considering the cost, it is not the solution for the OP.