Extra-Fine vs. Fine JPEGs

[Andy B]

Like my A700, the A77 allows extra-fine, fine and standard jpegs, while the A580, A65, and A55 allow only fine and standard. How big of a deal is this for most uses? How large does one have to print to see the difference between an extra-fine jpeg and a fine jpeg?

I've never used the fine setting on my A700, not seeing any reason not to use extra-fine and preferring the larger files for cropping purposes. However, numerous posters on various forums have suggested that they see no difference between the A700's extra-fine and fine jpegs. Now, some have suggested that the difference between the A77's extra-fine and fine jpegs is like comparing Photoshop quality levels 12 and 11--virtually indistinguishable to the human eye.

Most A580 owners appear to be quite satisfied with their camera's image quality (both raw and camera-processed jpegs), and I've seen some pretty nice A65 jpegs posted recently. So ignoring other differences in features (and without getting into the trade-offs between shooting raw and jpegs), how much of an advantage is it to have an A77 with extra-fine jpegs versus an A65 with fine jpegs or even a 16mp a580 with fine jpegs?

Andy

[edrice]

I mostly use raw files but do occasionally use a good jpg from my A55, even the A350 on occasion. My gut tells me that a fine jpg from the A55 or A65 would at least equal, and maybe be better than an extra fine from the A700, but it's something I would like to hear an answer to also.

I've never been able to tell the difference between fine and extra fine, so why did Sony even add the extra fine setting to the A700 and A77, if not just for a feel-good selling point?

Ed

[Andy B]

Any thoughts anyone? Is extra fine just a marketing gimmick or does it offer significant improvement in image quality over fine?

Andy

[gio67]

your the best judge of that, basically we take photos to please ourselves so whatever you like best is right for you

[agorabasta]

The Xfine is much more editable. I think it was even intended as a substitution for an uncompressed TIFF. But there are too few progs out there that take JPEG editing for serious. I think it's only the Silkypix that treats the JPEG photos as well as it does the raw.

[Greg Beetham]

I always use extra fine in the KM5D and as it's only a 6MP camera I think it makes sense, the JPEG's always looked quite ok photo quality wise too me so I never bothered with RAW very much. But with a camera that's 24MP I don't know if it would make any difference at normal print size or on screen view if it was a fine or extra fine JPEG you were looking at, I very much doubt it myself.
Greg

[twm47099]

I always use extra fine in the KM5D and as it's only a 6MP camera I think it makes sense, the JPEG's always looked quite ok photo quality wise too me so I never bothered with RAW very much. But with a camera that's 24MP I don't know if it would make any difference at normal print size or on screen view if it was a fine or extra fine JPEG you were looking at, I very much doubt it myself.
Greg

One of the advantages of 24Mp should be the finer gradations of color and tone between adjacent contrasting areas (Sort of like MF vs 35mm). I wonder if the JPEG compression handles those transitions well. That might be where xfine is better. Although, thinking about it, I wonder how well the 8bit color reproduces those transitions anyway? (actual question)

tom