[Leica] LR question - Adobe or Camera standard profile

[jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore)]

2010-04-29-14:36:36 Vince Passaro:
> When you say you shot "DNG" does that mean raw? Because I know that when 
> I'm
> importing raw files via Adobe Bridge from my Nikon or (even worse) from the
> G1, they have to be 'converted' to DNG, in the G1's case, over 2 steps.

Really?  Because Lightroom 2.7 can directly import and use the .rw2
images from my DMC-GF1 (support for which should be less mature than
for the G1), and... just checked... Bridge CS4/Adobe Camera Raw 5.7
can open them fine via Camera Raw.  The only weird thing there is that
for some reason a straight "open" doesn't work, but the separate menu
item "Open in Camera Raw..." does.

> So now I shoot the G1 exclusively in jpeg and then Bridge 'converts' it to
> DNG which I assume means stripping it of the firmware activities that took
> place in the camera?

Aaaugh!  So you're having the camera's little onboard computer do
lossy compression of the data before writing anything to the card,
irretrievably throwing away all the picture detail which would give you
that essential extra bit of leeway to fine-tune the photo without gross
artifacts if it wasn't ABSOLUTELY perfectly exposed and color-balanced
as first converted to JPEG, then for some reason expanding that
crumpled-up tissue of lossiness into a simulacrum of a raw file but with
the dynamic range which makes raw files worth working with conveniently
pre-discarded?

There are people doing really time-sensitive picture taking where the
photo gets taken, uploaded, used, and never really cared about or
reworked to look its best after that immediate ephemeral use.  That's
the only circumstance I can think of which (possibly) justifies
shooing jpegs.  It'd be kind of like recording your only master of a
live musical performance as a low-bitrate MP3.  Eww.

> This takes much less time, I've noticed, than when
> Bridge converts the Nikon raw files to DNG.

Perhaps because it's working with around a tenth the data.  Is your
computer, or particularly its disk subsystem, particularly slow by
today's standards?  Because with the honkin' fast computers which have
become pretty common, this isn't usually so much of an issue.
On my Mac Pro, Lightroom sucks in a few hundred raw files in a minute
or two.  Admittedly it's a pretty mighty machine, but it's about three
generations older and slower than what they're selling today.

 -Jeff