Shooting Sony .HIF files at a Soccer Game (HEIF) by Patrick Murphy-Racey

Рет қаралды 2,083

9 ай бұрын

This is the second game that I used the Sony .HIF or HEIF files on and I have to tell you all, I'm hooked. I cannot see shooting RAW or JPG again for sports, portraits, or landscapes. There is so much dynamic range in these files, it boggles the mind. I show you my best images from a soccer game I shot a few days ago during the eclipse (made some different lighting at times). Sports photography will really benefit from the newer .HIF format for sure. I offer a few tips at the end of the video on how to approach your own testing of these files for your own work. Studio video was shot with the Sony FX6/50mm f/1.4GM lens.
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Пікірлер: 39

@that1cameraguy 9 ай бұрын

Thanks, didn't know that Heif files were supported in Lightroom already. I use to use Photo Mechanic to cull through sports images, but since I switched to the newer M1, M2 Ultra chips on Mac, I found that Lightroom was just faster to cull with for my needs.

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

it's a pretty cool format that I am quickly adopting. I edit on a Mac Studio with the M1Max chip--and this really helps!!!

@PMRTV 4 ай бұрын

sadly, PM is slow to amp up the speed of editing these HIF files. I'm hoping they will get it going faster, but for now, Like you, I'm using LR to cull.

@ngosh08 9 ай бұрын

Another advantage of using HEIF files is the ability to crop them in the camera and still maintain high resolution image. This is especially if you are under pressure to deliver real time images to clients.

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

yes!!!!!

@BenjaminAdamsVu 2 ай бұрын

PMR, thanks for sharing the HIF files, I will be using HIF from now on instead of RAW & JPEG, I think HIF is more superior than Jpeg's and much smaller in file size, I did a quick comparison, JOOC on 7R5 is about 42MP vs. Raw = 61MP and HIF = 15MP ..nice space savings with plenty of dynamic range and color gamut as you said. Thanks again for clue me to HIF's ..CHEERS!!!

@PMRTV 2 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing

@alexg0742 9 ай бұрын

Thanks Pat, good info as usual. Studio looks great.

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

thanks Alex!!!

@howardesse1686 9 ай бұрын

Interesting! I have a volleyball game tomorrow to shoot. I will mark my favs, put the CF-A in the reader, then open up LR to see how it works. We’ll give it a shot.

@alexg0742 9 ай бұрын

@@howardesse1686 I shoot raw to card 1 and jpegs to card 2 then send the starred to my phone. I changed card 2 to hif but couldn't send to phone. Changed it back to jpeg. However I do see a use especially if pm is usable.

@ahn583 5 ай бұрын

I use SONY's viewer, in a windows environment, to convert from hif to 16bit tiff format. The camera setting to only HEIF together with HLG setting causes the camera to use BT.2100 (an HLG extension of BT.2020). The Viewer program can convert BT.2100 to 16bit RGB (in TIFF format).

@PMRTV 5 ай бұрын

cool!

@Biosynchro 9 ай бұрын

I have two things to say: 1. This feature is 10-15 years late. I don't understand why 16-bit compressed files were not available sooner. JPEG 2000 was invented 20 years ago. People said they wanted progress in digital cameras, but they shunned mirrorless, and they shunned better file formats. 2. The downside is that you are relying on the camera's debayering algorithm, which isn't quite as good as a proper RAW converter. Having said that, does it matter for sports photography? I would say no. P.S. There is no device, even a Windows computer, that can't read a four letter extension (like .HEIF). Three letter extensions are just obnoxious these days. Again, where is the progress?

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

great points... funny too :)

@henryrichardson3508 4 ай бұрын

I have been shooting HEIF recently using a Sony A6700. What HEIF settings are you using? On Sony you can can choose 4:2:2 and 4:2:0. With HEIF one can select sRGB or HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) that Sony says is "BT.2100 color space (BT.2020 color gamut)". Also one can select the compression level: Extra Fine, Fine, Standard, Light. I have tried various settings. For the last few days I have been using HEIF 4:2:0, HLG, Fine. I cull using the free XnView MP which pretty much fully supports HIF files. I can view thumbnails, view the full-size photo, compare 2 or more files side-by-side, etc. After culling with XnView MP I import into Lightroom Classic and edit there. What are you using?

@henryrichardson3508 4 ай бұрын

I have also tried HEIF 4:2:2 with HLG. 4:2:2 keeps a bit more chroma info in the compression. Hard to see a difference with 4:2:0 though. It is supposed to be a bit better though so I am still trying both. 4:2:2 files are just slightly bigger so I will probably settle on HEIF 4:2:2 with HLG with Fine compression.

@henryrichardson3508 3 ай бұрын

Here is just an update after using the A6700 + HIF for almost 3 months. I decided not to use HLG because sometimes it was hard to edit and get good results in Lightroom Classic with SDR. HLG is designed for HDR, of course, but with the larger color gamut than sRGB I thought it was worth a try. Therefore after the trial of using HLG I have settled on 4:2:2 and sRGB when I am shooting HIF. Other times I shoot raw. Like the maker of this video, I have situations where I do not need or really want huge raw files and for those times in the past I would shoot 8-bit JPEG and tweak them in Lightroom Classic. With my A6700 I am using 10-bit HIF for that though. Too bad Sony does not offer Adobe RGB with HIF.

@rghurst 9 ай бұрын

I am not a sports photo journalist, but I always thought you guys shot JPG (instead of raw) so you could deliver photos to your editors/customers straight out of camera. My understanding is that HEIF files still can't be posted directly online and still require post-processing and conversion to JPG for delivery. Seems like you are giving up "straight out of camera" delivery, and except for file size, you might as well be shooting raw. HEIF is interesting but I still wonder if it will ever gain "universal" acceptance like JPG. Just being better doesn't guarantee acceptance ... thinking Sony Betamax. Regardless, keep the videos coming. I always enjoy your perspectives!!

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

Actually, the clever engineers at Sony made the cameras so that even when you shoot only .HIF files, the camera can still produce a jpg from that file in either 2m size or full-size so that you can share from your camera directly to your phone and even to ftp. Remember that HIF files take up about 1/3rd of the space of a jpg, so their future is much brighter than you might think.

@eow13 Ай бұрын

Tried already the app can't transfer the .hif file thru . The hif file also can't be read via various phone apps

@piksnapper 9 ай бұрын

I use Photo Mechanic early on but realized that once the images were edited in raw I couldn't see the changes in PM. With LightRoom I find that after the initial ingest the proofing is as fast as PM, I use P on the keyboard to make picks and a Smart Collection to collate them into a group automatically. The Smart Collection can list only the Pics from the last few days for instance or for all time within the catalogue. Just a thought for a future video.. Lightroom's "lens blur" tool may be a bit gimicky but I think there may be a place for keeper shots to be treated with them. Maybe it's possible to give that 600 f4 look to the 600 f6.3 images?? Thanks for opening my eyes to heif, I may try to use it on my next job where social media jpgs are needed asap.

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

Just be careful with the new AI power of LR as most wire services like AP, AFP, and Getty will not allow the use of that. It could be a good way to lose work instead of gain it. if you work only for yourself and sell to parents, do whatever you want. But yes, you can now make the 100-400GM look like 600GM.

@rghurst 9 ай бұрын

Curious what you are using for your intermediate file when sending to Topaz Denoise AI ... TIF, PSD, JPG? TIF retains best quality but is around 250MB for a full-frame image. I tried sending HIF to Topaz Photo AI like a raw file. It processed the file and output it to a updated HIF, but the updated HIF output was no longer readable by Lightroom. I tried to view the updated HIF from Topaz Photo AI in Imaging Edge Desktop Viewer, and it caused the Viewer to close. Still some bugs to work out.

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

Great points. I have been shooting in .HIF and then converting to jpg and THEN going into Topaz if needed. I don't feel like the Topaz undoes any of the goodness that the HIF file provided in the first place at all, and I prefer to denoise outside of LR as I feel like Topaz does a better job. I'm just using LRC though and the newer version is probably much better so I should thing about trying.

@PhilipJohnson-eg6vo 9 ай бұрын

Hoping PM can figure out the HEIF issue. The software does a great job with the raw for culling.

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

they are working on it. I've been exchanging e-mails a couple times a week

@LanceRazon 2 ай бұрын

Anybody here having issues with Sony HIF files? When I import it to LRC 13.3 the portraits are imported as landscape photos in LRC. But with jpeg and raw I dont have issues. I have Sony A7IV This is both in Windows and Mac. Is this a camera specific issue?

@PMRTV 2 ай бұрын

This is a known issue with LR. When I shoot vertical images for portrait work, I have to manually rotate them one at a time--PITA!!! Please send Adobe a note about this. Very few of us are shooting HIF files so far so they are in no hurry to change the software. the more of us that demand change, the more likely they will do something about it.

@LanceRazon 2 ай бұрын

@@PMRTV I see I thought it was sony firmware problem. Because Im still on early firmware for a7iv, I guess no need to update

@zacualpeno100 9 ай бұрын

What was the buffer like in comparison to shooting RAW?

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

I didn't do any testing on that but as the files have higher compression, it should mean they would buffer much faster.

@javierraaz9493 7 ай бұрын

Hi! I have a archives with the extension .HIF provident to my FX30, and i can´t open with anyone program in Windows

@PMRTV 7 ай бұрын

you will need a photo app specific to do so. Affinity photo is really inexpensive if you have to buy something...

@TraddSlayton 9 ай бұрын

Last time I used the heif files LR wouldn’t work with them. I guess that’s changed?

@PMRTV 9 ай бұрын

yes, I am using LR Classic and everything is working fine :)

@TraddSlayton 9 ай бұрын

@@PMRTV Thanks it has been a few months maybe longer since I tried it, and even asked Adobe support and they were like yeah doesn't work pack sand. I will try it again.