Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/11/04

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Subject: [Leica] convert to DNG? sweet barking cheese! NO!
From: harrison at mcclary.net (Harrison McClary)
Date: Sat Nov 4 16:38:53 2006
References: <85E82150C9268149B89695D00778A6CA016BBC@EXCHANGE.asc.local>

Kyle Cassidy wrote:
> the only thing you should convert to DNG is your camera's RAW files.
> DNG is Adobe's "Digital NeGative" format. it's a type of RAW.
>
> many camera manufacturers have a propriatary RAW format (such as nikon's 
> NEF format). DNG is an open source raw file. one reason to convert your 
> NEF to DNG files is that some day NEF files may go away but the ability to 
> read a DNG file will, theoretically be around longer because the standard 
> is open. DNG files are also compressed, so they're smaller than NEF files.

Kyle,

In theory I like DNG and think it is a great idea.  In practice I am not 
so sure it is working.  I can get any number of secondary applications 
that convert my Canon RAW, Nikon NEF files but several of these that 
work on the proprietary formats will not read the "open" format from 
Adobe.  In some ways I think DNG is a way for Adobe to "marry" 
photographers even tighter to Photoshop.

Nikon wants to hold Nikon Users to the Nikon software by encoding white 
balance information and Canon has their own formats and every Canon 
Camera is different in file structure from the one before it, same with 
Nikon.  Since the files from the DMR are so much larger than those from 
the M8 I am assuming that Leica's "open" DNG's are actually different 
file structure also, so how "universal" is this?

In the long run you better keep an old computer and also some of the old 
software if you want to read you Nikon D1x or Canon 1D files in 10 
years.....

-- 
Harrison McClary
Harrison McClary Photography
harrison@mcclary.net
http://www.mcclary.net
ImageStockSouth - Stock Photography
http://www.imagestocksouth.com
Tobacco Road: Personal Blog:
http://web.mac.com/whmcclary/iWeb/tobacco-road/Blog/Blog.html 


Replies: Reply from abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge) ([Leica] convert to DNG? sweet barking cheese! NO!)
Reply from photo.forrest at earthlink.net (Philip Forrest) ([Leica] convert to DNG? sweet barking cheese! NO!)
In reply to: Message from kcassidy at asc.upenn.edu (Kyle Cassidy) ([Leica] convert to DNG? sweet barking cheese! NO!)