sRAW

[KevinA]

Canons sRAW how does it work, would it be like Phaseone does with their new backs to decreasing noise. I know Canon says it's for when you want smaller files, but I wondered if it improved the signal to noise ratio as it isn't a crop, has anyone here done the experiment?
I will give it a real try myself, I did shoot a few the other evening and thought it looked significantly better, even resized up.

Kevin.

[madmanchan]

Hi Kevin, to the best of my knowledge, there is no image quality advantage of shooting sraw over full raw. In terms of image quality, everything that can be accomplished via sraw, can also be accomplished via raw.

[NikoJorj]

I know Canon says it's for when you want smaller files, but I wondered if it improved the signal to noise ratio as it isn't a crop, has anyone here done the experiment?

I don't know for sure but have heard it involved color subsampling, which effectively decreases chroma noise and at least improves the 'signal to perceived noise' ratio.
I'd guess there is also some pixel binning, which would increase S/N.
Of course all that is at the cost of resolution!

Anyone better informed, please?