Daily image upload limit

[Owen_G]

Hi,

To avoid mass image uploads in our galleries we have decided to limit the amount of pictures that can be uploaded every day. This is now set to 10 pictures. This includes pictures in main galleries, competitions and any other type of post.

Our image counter will be increased as soon as an image has been uploaded to our servers – which means that even if you cancel the process the counter will still be increased.

Thanks a lot for your understanding,

Your community team

[IamNic]

Hello @Owen_G,

I would suggest to use a way smaller limit and to switch from a daily to a weekly limit.

7 images per week would be sufficient in my opinion.

5 for actual posts and 2 as a buffer, if you accidentaly select the wrong image to upload.

I can't recall any week where I uploaded more than 3 images (and yes, that includes images I embedded in posts).

- Nic

[HRRUNDIBAKSHI]

I understand and agree with the number of images that can be uploaded daily but why limit the size of the file that can be uploaded ?

I have two 24.3 mega pixel camera bodies, Zeiss prime lenses, Sony G series and vintage Minolta MD lenses only to then have to reduce the size/quality of the files to upload to the site.

Really ?

Why ??

[IamNic]

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@HRRUNDIBAKSHI schrieb:

but why limit the size of the file that can be uploaded ?

Why ??

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Hi there @HRRUNDIBAKSHI,

that has mutliple reasons, here are two of the many possible reasons:

1. There is a small amount of people which have a volume limited data plan.

If they download your image, they will use up a significant amount of their data volume everytime they download any image.

Imagine someone uploads one image with more than 10MB in size (e.g. an image taken with "Pixel-Shift" being 30MB in size, even as a JPEG file). You click download and with just one image you use up much of your data volume.

 *I edited this part, since preview images are scaled down versions of the image file just like for every other site - only the file you get by clicking "download" is a full size image.

I made the assumption this is not the case, yet by doing further research it turned out to be wrong.*

2. Sony hosts the uncompressed files here, so they can give you a limit.

Most other sites don't care for the size you upload an image as, since they simply compress it heavily after the upload.

Ever tried downloading an image from social media sites? They are usually just a few kilobytes big, while Sony allows images of several megabytes in size here.

So I don't actually care that they dictate the size one image can have.

- Nic

[HRRUNDIBAKSHI]

IamNic thanks for such a prompt response, hoever, there are a couple of points which I'd like raise following your response.

1. The 'small amount of people' with limited data plans - not sure whether this should be a barrier. I myself have a limited mobile data plan for my phone and would not use them as devices to view these type of images although others may chose to do so. Not sure whether it's possible to quantify how small the amount of other people there are.

2. Sorry but can you please explain this ?

If Sony are good enough to host the uncompressed file is there a limit to the number which can be posted to the site

because in effect by making the file smaller before uploading I'm compressing the file beforehand saving sony the task of doing so once it is uploaded.

Lastly, I do use other sites such as Flickr for showcasing my files and do realise that the image file is compressed and the quality reduced once the file is uploaded and I've never, nor will I ever, download images from other authors from a website. I will only view, take inspiration and comment on images hosted on these sites

Regards

[IamNic]

Hi @HRRUNDIBAKSHI,

my first point was not factually correct, since I made a mistake, check the edited version for more insight on what my mistake was.

I was thinking back about an indie game developer, who accidentally uploaded an uncompressed .gif-animation to one of their blog posts, resulting in people opening their blog post using up over 20MB each time they realoaded the page.

Not only were the people on limited data plans very angry, but also did the developer-team have to pay a huge fine to their ISP, since they used a gigantic amount of bandwidth because of this mishap.

The forum here though does not display the uncompressed images by default (luckily).

My second point wasn't about downloading images, it was just an example. You generally don't see how big an image-file on a webpage is and by downloading the displayed image, you can see how big its hosted filesize is the easiest way.

Whether you personally download images or not doesn't matter.

Sony pays for the server space and the bandwidth to let other people view the content, so they are in the position to give you every limit on filesize/amount they want, without needing to explain why they choose to do so.

In the early days of YouTube your video files weren't allowed to be bigger than 2GB and no longer than 15 minutes.

Why? Because YouTube choose to give you this limitation, simply because they were hosting your files for free.

Getting back to Sony - yes, 10MB as limit is just a number they choose, it could have been 5MB or 15MB as well.

Only the people who choose the limit know why it turned out to be 10MB and nothing else. 

Maybe it was because it is a nice middle ground when you look at the image size Sony cameras produce, maybe it has a completly different reason, who knows.

- Nic

[HRRUNDIBAKSHI]

Thank you for such an explicit reply !

The limit does not detract from my enjoyment of both the community site or Sony camera equipment and I will continue to support both.

With regards