diff --git a/data_tamer/include/data_tamer/sinks/mcap_sink.hpp b/data_tamer/include/data_tamer/sinks/mcap_sink.hpp
index 04b3716..9fc18a7 100644
--- a/data_tamer/include/data_tamer/sinks/mcap_sink.hpp
+++ b/data_tamer/include/data_tamer/sinks/mcap_sink.hpp
@@ -26,7 +26,14 @@ namespace DataTamer
 class MCAPSink : public DataSinkBase
 {
 public:
-  explicit MCAPSink(std::string const& filepath);
+  /**
+   * @brief MCAPSink
+   *
+   * @param filepath   path of the file to be saved. Should have extension ".mcap"
+   * @param do_compression if true, compress the data on the fly. Note that in case of a crash/segfault
+   * some of the data may be lost; it is therefore more conservative to leave this to false.
+   */
+  explicit MCAPSink(std::string const& filepath, bool do_compression = false);
 
   ~MCAPSink() override;
 
@@ -43,6 +50,7 @@ class MCAPSink : public DataSinkBase
 
 private:
   std::string filepath_;
+  bool compression_ = false;
   std::unique_ptr<mcap::McapWriter> writer_;
 
   std::unordered_map<uint64_t, uint16_t> hash_to_channel_id_;
diff --git a/data_tamer/src/sinks/mcap_sink.cpp b/data_tamer/src/sinks/mcap_sink.cpp
index db195b2..f60c8f4 100644
--- a/data_tamer/src/sinks/mcap_sink.cpp
+++ b/data_tamer/src/sinks/mcap_sink.cpp
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ namespace DataTamer
 
 static constexpr char const* kDataTamer = "data_tamer";
 
-MCAPSink::MCAPSink(const std::string& filepath) : filepath_(filepath)
+MCAPSink::MCAPSink(const std::string& filepath, bool do_compression) : filepath_(filepath), compression_(do_compression)
 {
   openFile(filepath_);
 }
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ void DataTamer::MCAPSink::openFile(std::string const& filepath)
   std::scoped_lock wlk(writer_mutex_);
   writer_ = std::make_unique<mcap::McapWriter>();
   mcap::McapWriterOptions options(kDataTamer);
-  options.compression = mcap::Compression::Zstd;
+  options.compression = compression_ ? mcap::Compression::Zstd : mcap::Compression::None;
   auto status = writer_->open(filepath, options);
   if (!status.ok())
   {