t6s - Image Quality inquiry

[Michae1f]

Greetings,

   I have recently acquired a t6s, and have a question concerning Image Quality. I can naturally select between L 24M 6000x4000 (presumably Large) reduced L, M 11M 3984x2656 (presumably medium), reduced M. I'm wondering what changes when switching between these image size settings. For example, is the color depth reduced going from L to reduced L? And M to reduced M? How does the image size get smaller - what is lost?

When going from L to M, it appears that the pixel size is about split in half, from 24M to 11M. What does this mean? Does it mean for example that for L every pixel is used and for M perhaps every other pixel it used? Or perhaps a smaller area of the sensor is used, a smaller central rectangular area emcompassing 11M pixels?

What changes in the way the image is captured when using these reduced quality settings? Thanks.

~M  

[jrhoffman75]

The smaller files are created by the Digic processor by throwing away data. 

Youve got got a great camera, storage capacity is cheap, and pretty much any post processing program will read and process RAW files transparently to the user, so

I recommend you shoot RAW and take advantage of all your camera has to offer. Unless you have a specific reason to go right from camera to a JPEG upload you will have much more flexibility shooting RAW. 

[ScottyP]

Completely agree.

[ebiggs1]

The human eye can not see the difference between pixels when the shade change is slight.  So the lesser qualitysettings throw away the pixels that are that particular range.  The less quality you choose the wider that range becomes.  All jpg settings discard some data.  RAW discards nothing.

[Michae1f]

Thanks very much all. I realize that file storage is inexpensive, but I maintain a large cloud family archive (Onedrive), that I share with family members via a link, and so they can view stills on their own devices whenever they like. Previous to the t6s, I had been using a T3i, and the filesize was about 5M, and it seemed to load quickly enough to enjoy without much lag. With the t6s the Large jpg filesize is about doubled and my concern is that it would slow viewing.

Then it occured to me though, and especially, what is the difference between the large 24M file and the Medium 11M file. It seemed to me that this was an indication that less pixels were being used, rather than simply filtering by dropping subtle shade differences. I can image the 11M for example, using a smaller inside rectagular area of the 24M available.

Since the reduced L captures the same filesize as the standard M, it seemed to me I would rather prefer the reduced L because it's using all 24M pixels.

What does anyone think?