Why the size of photos taken by Lumia 950 is much smaller than 16 MB?

Majid Bastan

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The size of photos taken by my Lumia 950 is about only 4 to 5 MB although I set it to JPEG(16 MP) . Another confusing point is that their dimensions are about 3000*5400 which roughly gives 15 MP not 20 MP!!
Apart from the size and dimensions, the quality of photos also do not sound superb in general, there are just fairly good, so I guess that something might be wrong.

Does any of you have the same problem? Please help if you know the reason.
 

DoctorSaline

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16 Mega Pixels(MP) is not the same as Mega Bytes(MB). Jpeg compression gives 4-5MB for a 16 Mega Pixel(MP) image on avg.
Also, it is about aspect ratio. 20MP is for 4:3 aspect ratio. If you take photo in 16:9, it will crop the sensor to 16MP which is what you are getting (roughly).
 

Harrie-S

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The camera sensor is 20 Mp not the picture. And with this sensor 16:9 AND 4:3 pictures can be taken (without cropping). So take a picture on 16:9 and one on 4:3 and check the "dimension". If you then take the larges numbers of both and multiply then you get 20 Mp.
JPEG means that the original picture size is reduced to much lesser size "without" loosing "quality". But if you want "big" size photo's use the DNG .

4:3 = 4992x3744=18690048 ≈ 19Mpix
16:9 = 5376x3024=16257024 ≈ 16Mpix
5376x3744=20127744 ≈ 20Mpix


Hope this helps a little.
 

Majid Bastan

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Thank you so much all for your swift response. Apparently, I made a stupid mistake of confusing MP with MB, and also not having enough information about different aspect ratios.
 

EMitchell

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Thank you so much all for your swift response. Apparently, I made a stupid mistake of confusing MP with MB, and also not having enough information about different aspect ratios.
I certainly wouldn't say a 'stupid mistake'. This was all new info to me, and very useful.
 

John M Beauchemin

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Here's a question from some one who knows nothing but wants to learn. Why would you want to take a "DNG photo"?

A DNG photo is a RAW photo. If you want to google what it means for photographers, google RAW not DNG. Basically, If you plan on post processing your photos in an application like Adobe Lightroom, you will want to take your photos in RAW (DNG) so that they are uncompressed and retain all of the information that the sensor was able to collect when the photo was taken. This is why the file size is so much larger. The DNG formatted photo's filesizes are around 22MB, compared the the JPEG compressed file sizes of around 5MB.
 

jes1888

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so whats the difference between the aspect ratio on our cameras, or what's the most ideal ratio for everyday use or the advantages/disadvantages. Happy holidays by the way
 

RumoredNow

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On my 1520 running 8.1 Update + Denim...

I shoot 5MP jpg + 16MP dng (what can I say, I'm a 16:9 kind of guy).

The 5MP is great for sharing out and it is oversampled so quality is high compared to a regular 5MP shooter. I believe 950/XL ups this to 8MP? Nice bonus. And that size is more convenient for sharing, especially straight from the phone where most share methods will compress the photo anyway.

Plug into USB and get your .dng files if you want to save them. I go through and purge from my phone every so often as the files that accumulate will eat up a lot of storage pretty fast. Save what you want to PC and unclog your card. You have lots of options for raw/dng editing on desktop and a search will reveal them.

Put Rawer on your phone and edit the .dng files right on your device and save them as .jpg in high quality and resolution.

If you shoot jpg+dng and use Rich Capture, the bracketed originals are saved as dng files and you have a choice of the original or the +ev or -ev. Neat trick that, IMHO. Here is one I shot in Rich Capture recently, then opened the +0.5ev dng in Rawer and tweaked just a bit. Result is 5376x3024 or 16.3MP at a 5.27MB file size. Just a couple small tweaks made it much better than the "original" to my eye. http://1drv.ms/1VBYFuW


Here's a thing about .dng, it is lossless. With .jpg, every time you open it to view or manipulate it it degrades slightly. Over time this can add up. With .dng (and .raw) the file never degrades and is fresh every time you view or manipulate it. You can "print" .jpg from it over and over in the same or different edits and maintain quality on each "print."
 

msirapian

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I do, or used to do as RumoredNow on my 1020: 5MP Pureview JPG (for instant sharing) and 38MP RAW.

So I've opted for the same configuration on my 950 (and JPG+DNG won't prevent from using RichCapture for the JPG, which is sweet).

BUT.

Even though I've disabled Living Images, and when RichCapture is in automode, resulting JPG weigh 4-5 MB. It's a lot for a 8 MP picture, it should be 1-2 MB max. If RichCapture was triggered, why not, but when RichCapture assesses there's not enough light nor contrast to "rich-capture" the scene, the JPG are still huge.

I've disabled living images for that (as it's ALSO embedded into the JPG).

Sharing a 4 MB picture by email is a pain, especially to share 2-3 pics. I've already reported this via Feedback.

So I was I bit surprised by this thread "why is it smaller than 16 MB", when I'm shocked why JPG are so big actually :D
 

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