Shooting at Lower Pixel Setting

[JoeW]

Among my Nikons is a D800 body. I specifically wanted the higher pixel capability for architectural work and some photos I'd want to either blow up or crop significantly. But the high pixel count is a hassle for other stuff I shoot that doesn't fall in to those categories--my lap top has trouble handling multiple RAW files of that size--it slows to a crawl.

I've been thinking of changing the pixel setting to medium (about 20 megapixels) for most of what I shoot, particularly if it's low ambient light (like hummingbirds in shadow or low light). In this specific example, I'm not looking to crop significantly with those shots.

Thoughts about what sort of impact I'll see? Any advice one way or the other?

 

[MartinCrabtree]

I can't predict the results but Nikon seems to have settled on 20MP as a sweet spot for both D5 and D500 are at that resolution. Please post up the results I'm curious.

 

[Alina John]

Great question i am also facing that issue. Please help us Thanks.

 

[Derrel]

In JPEG mode the medium size,medium compression option on the D800 is fairly good.

With the D800 I have noted that the compression uses a really good algorithm, and even highly-compressed images look very good.

For certain types of work, I really see no problem with using even the basic very small JPEG size. Heck, for some tasks a five megapixel phone snap from an iPhone 4S was actually adequate

 

[Strodav]

Why don't you just try it. I have both a D800 and D850 and I routinely use the D850 at 25mp, medium resolution, when I'm shooting subjects that reasonably fill the frame and I'm not going to print bigger than my printer (13" x 19") or when I'm posting on social media. Processing the 25 mp files is much quicker than the native 45.7 mp files and you will not see the difference in resolution on all but the largest prints and certainly not even a 4 k monitor.

A bit off topic, but your post triggered this thought. If you have a lower resolution camera, say 12 mp. By taking overlapping shots and stitching them together with something like ICE (Image Composition Editor, which is a free download) you can easily make images well over the 36.3 mp of the D800 or over the 45.7 mp of the D850.

 

[crimbfighter]

I've actually been curious about using the lower native resolution on my D800. Does the camera actually ignore the pixels on the sensor or does it take the full res image, then use processing to remove pixels before writing it to the memory cards?

 

[Strodav]

I've actually been curious about using the lower native resolution on my D800. Does the camera actually ignore the pixels on the sensor or does it take the full res image, then use processing to remove pixels before writing it to the memory cards?

Also have a D800. My understanding is that Nikon uses the camera's processor to resample the sensor full data as it is writing the image to the mem card.

 

[crimbfighter]

I've actually been curious about using the lower native resolution on my D800. Does the camera actually ignore the pixels on the sensor or does it take the full res image, then use processing to remove pixels before writing it to the memory cards?

Also have a D800. My understanding is that Nikon uses the camera's processor to resample the sensor full data as it is writing the image to the mem card.

That would make the most sense, I suppose. It would probably be a difficult process to build into the actual capture if the image.

 

[greybeard]

Try shooting jpeg fine with the picture control set to Neutral. Processing is minimal and the files will be small enough for your computer to handle.