Quality in pentax S4

Hello:

I´m an S4 user and I allways use the best quality(***) mode, but last day, I tried with the poor(*) and normal(**) qualities and find no diference, only the disk space.

Really i find a bit diferences but no as much as use the best quality instead the disk space.

It´s normal? Do you notice the diferences with the quality modes? I use to print mi images in a laboratory so what is the best configuration for my S4?

Thanks

It all depends what you are doing with the image files. If you are using the camera to e-mail images, make web sites or print small prints then you may not notice much difference. If you are printing A3 then you certainly will and will need all the quality you can get. There is a real difference here between using film and digital - with film you always have the highest resolution original, with digital you can decide the level of quality depending on the final use. However, I always use the highest quality settings as the final use might change if I like the picture. I can always reduce the quality later if needs be.

The quality setting varies how compressed the JPG file will be.
*** means little compression, more detail and quality, but larger file size.
* means high compression, less detail, but smaller file size.

If you compared the images close up on the PC you should see more "artifacts" on the * setting. If you took a picture of the sky - you'd see little difference. However, take a picture of something with contrast (like some newspaper text in macro mode) and you'll see what I mean High compression makes strange blobby effects around contrasting areas - it can look very "yucky".

As John rightly said, it's always best to take on *** and worry about the use later. Once shot on * it can be really difficult to remove the colour and JPG noise and artifacts introduced.

Hope that clarifies things,
Matt

While we are on the subject of quality, is there really much difference between a TIFF and a JPEG (***) at max resolution, that has only been saved once?

Mark