I notice on my a5000 I get a choice of two photo quality settings, standard and fine.My Olympus cameras have a multitude of quality settings and I use Normal, a step up from Basic and below Fine and Superfine.  Long ago I reasoned that over a lifetime the smaller file size of my photos, assuming quality was sufficient, is better.Over the internet a small file transfers quicker.  Storage requirements are less.  Searches are quicker.  Less is more, when it involves megabytes.But my a5000 defaults to Fine, so I’m leaving it there until I study the matter a little.  Not enough megabytes is a bad thing, and not correctable.What quality settings do you use or recommend?

Humansvillian wrote:I notice on my a5000 I get a choice of two photo quality settings, standard and fine.My Olympus cameras have a multitude of quality settings and I use Normal, a step up from Basic and below Fine and Superfine. Long ago I reasoned that over a lifetime the smaller file size of my photos, assuming quality was sufficient, is better.Over the internet a small file transfers quicker. Storage requirements are less. Searches are quicker. Less is more, when it involves megabytes.But my a5000 defaults to Fine, so I’m leaving it there until I study the matter a little. Not enough megabytes is a bad thing, and not correctable.What quality settings do you use or recommend?I use fine on A6100 with 24 MP. The 4k video  creates large files. For landscape photography I want fine. I'm not worry about upload, or download times, but storage may be an issue after a while. That is manageable with proper storage.

I always use the highest quality settings - you can always reduce quality, but adding it back is more difficult (despite what the AI-based scaling tools claim!). Besides, memory cards and disk drives are relatively cheap ...

I have been shooting in RAW at highest quality for same reasons others mentioned and copy files to a laptop.I leave files on the camera memory card for a while. I post-process in the laptop, save as .JPEG, typically reduced to about 2 MP for sharing online.I don't print anything. Most of what I shoot is experiments with lenses, so I try to keep track by creating a new folder on the camera, noting the folder name/number. I still lose track of which folder has which lens' photos occasionally.The copied raw files go into a new folder on the laptop each time. I edit the folder name by adding any details like lens name. BTW,I use the camera setting that increments the folder number with each new folder and embeds the date.This current attempt of organizing leaves me with the originals and copies which are what I edit.Most of mine are unimportant but I occasionally want to find them again and this method is better than my minimal efforts at organizing in the past. It has helped me find my photos with a particular lens and/or camera,say, for selling a piece of equipment, and unfortunately for a funeral.I occasionally clear the camera memory card. I have a couple portable hard drives if I want to back things up but am more likely to purge rather than backup.

Murrayatuptown wrote:I have been shooting in RAW at highest quality for same reasons others mentioned and copy files to a laptop.I leave files on the camera memory card for a while. I post-process in the laptop, save as .JPEG, typically reduced to about 2 MP for sharing online.I don't print anything. Most of what I shoot is experiments with lenses, so I try to keep track by creating a new folder on the camera, noting the folder name/number. I still lose track of which folder has which lens' photos occasionally.The copied raw files go into a new folder on the laptop each time. I edit the folder name by adding any details like lens name. BTW,I use the camera setting that increments the folder number with each new folder and embeds the date.This current attempt of organizing leaves me with the originals and copies which are what I edit.Most of mine are unimportant but I occasionally want to find them again and this method is better than my minimal efforts at organizing in the past. It has helped me find my photos with a particular lens and/or camera,say, for selling a piece of equipment, and unfortunately for a funeral.I occasionally clear the camera memory card. I have a couple portable hard drives if I want to back things up but am more likely to purge rather than backup.I don't have time for post process. But, I copy and keep everything to the laptop then to a NAS, later delete from the laptop. Of course I have a back up of the NAS, portable, easier if I want to take the stored pictures with me on the road, for quick access, instead of slow network connection. I can access the NAS memory with the laptop, a smart tv, or the phone. I keep them in folders by the dates.

My photographic objective is the print. I edit via PSE and then print my own, up to the 13X19" size limit of my printer.Once I have downloaded all the images off any given card, and backed them up to my three outboard hard drives, I format the card(s). Storage is not a problem.I want my print quality to be the best my equipment and I can make. So I keep all of my cameras set at their highest quality settings.

On the EM1.2 I have one card set to jpg standard, and the other card recording raw. 80-90% of the time standard jpg are just fine. But still have the raw files if it looks like further processing will improve an interesting image

Humansvillian wrote:... Long ago I reasoned that over a lifetime the smaller file size of my photos, assuming quality was sufficient, is better.Over time, hard drives and other storage solutions have become ever larger.  I save at the highest quality, and usually both JPEG and RAW, so that really chews up the memory! The only time I fall back to "standard" is if I'm filling up my memory card.  Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  But huge memory cards are dirt-cheap today, even from major brands.Over the internet a small file transfers quicker.Even "standard" size is too large for a lot of internet use.  When/if I process the RAW files, I have the option of saving a copy as a 2mb file.  This, I can use to put online or send.  So for some files, I have the original JPEG, the RAW, and now a small JPEG.  It's just not worth my time to try to optimize the process and, for example, only save RAW files when sometimes I can just grab the JPEG.  I'd rather just use extra memory.Storage requirements are less. Searches are quicker. Less is more, when it involves megabytes.But my a5000 defaults to Fine, so I’m leaving it there until I study the matter a little. Not enough megabytes is a bad thing, and not correctable.What quality settings do you use or recommend?I think you have to figure out your backup solution.  Online?  Backup hard drive?  And have more than one copy, as your backup will likely fail at some point.  So, I always have at least two copies.  Saving RAW files really causes some issues.  But once I have it figured out where I'm storing everything, it leaves me free to use the highest quality settings, then I don't have to worry about it. But in the grand scheme of things, for most use, "standard" would be fine.  Yeah, if you zoom in and pixel peep you'll see more artifacts, but viewed on the computer, or on small prints, you won't see it.  The problem is, I occasionally want to print large, and I don't want to have to stop to change my settings, or what usually happens, forget to change my settings, and then have a less-ideal result.  So again, I just burn memory so that I don't have to think about it.

Everybody's different - I enjoy post-processing...many lenses I try are repurposed/misused...particularly when removed from a medium format camera...the image circle is so large it's likely to cause some flare on a relatively small digital sensor.I'm ok with experimenting...time management is not one of my skills. If using Standard is good enough and provides someone with memory and reduced labor and faster uploading, no argument -those are good things.