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Author Topic: DNG again and again and again...  (Read 85741 times)

digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #40 on: July 16, 2015, 08:39:42 pm »

Andrew...suggest you just give up.  I've been through this.  It is like the old story about teaching a pig to sing...
You are so correct on that point!
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amolitor

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #41 on: July 16, 2015, 08:40:06 pm »

Andrew, the question still boils down to what is the advantage to ME to use DNG?

I think Michael has a point about long term support. To be honest, I think TIFF is the right answer for long term storage of high bit depth files, but they're not as raw as they could be.

Michael is very much a purist, and is steeped in the Adams tradition to the effect that we need to preserve photographs. If he was working in the darkroom, he'd be selenium toning and washing his prints for hours to get full archival effects. He wants to apply the same fetish to the digital world, and who am I to deny him? He'd rather archive a universal RAW format than TIFFs. OK.

It's not a bad idea at all, technically. The ROI analysis doesn't pan out, unfortunately. Same as for most of the other stuff Michael agitates for, like ETTR exposure modes and so on. Good ideas, terrible ROI, and hence not gonna happen.

But great for generating discussion!

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amolitor

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #42 on: July 16, 2015, 08:43:02 pm »

OK, I'm being a jerk to ask you to prove your points (and you can't)?
I've already predicted the end result of this thread. Not pretty.

What would constitute proof? Nothing would, obviously. You can just keep asking "But why?" like a 5 year old.

I've been on the internets since they were invented, so you're not gonna pull that one over on me. What I've said makes sense and is as checkable as is reasonable for an internet forum. I'm not going to work up a rough BOM cost for a Nikon D7100 and rough out ongoing firmware development costs just to please you, and so that you can lazily take 4 seconds to say "Eh, I don't believe it, do you actually WORK for Nikon?!!"
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RogerGW

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #43 on: July 16, 2015, 08:44:47 pm »

In practical effect, is there any issue other than that camera reviewers have to use crappy RAW processing software until the major RAW converters support the new camera?

Sometimes it's not as bad as that. For example, there's a nice little dodge doing the rounds for owners of the new Fuji X-T10. Capture One, for example, won't recognise its files. The trick is to change the EXIF data on those files to "X-T1", which fools C1 into working with them. The two cameras use the same sensor and processor, so the results are good.

This doesn't, of course, invalidate the general argument.

Roger
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digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #44 on: July 16, 2015, 08:47:05 pm »

What would constitute proof? Nothing would, obviously.
Well having a lick of experience actually working for or with a company that builds a digital camera would be a good start. Have you done this?
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I've been on the internets since they were invented, so you're not gonna pull that one over on me.
IOW, if asked to prove or back up your points, nothing is fair game, you can speculate about costs and revenue and we are just to accept it as fact?
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digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #45 on: July 16, 2015, 08:48:04 pm »

I think Michael has a point about long term support. To be honest, I think TIFF is the right answer for long term storage of high bit depth files, but they're not as raw as they could be.
A DNG and a TIFF are pretty darn close. Cousins in fact, owned and controlled by the same company.
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Michael is very much a purist, and is steeped in the Adams tradition to the effect that we need to preserve photographs. If he was working in the darkroom, he'd be selenium toning and washing his prints for hours to get full archival effects.
Which Michael would that be? How well do you know Michael Reichmann?
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jrsforums

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #46 on: July 16, 2015, 08:49:47 pm »

OK, I'm being a jerk to ask you to prove your points (and you can't)?
I've already predicted the end result of this thread. Not pretty.

Easy to predict.  This thread should never have started.  Michael was fully aware that his article would just raise passions....with no result.  

The issues are part "religious" and mostly economic and freedom to provide creative features and functions.  Some just are not honest enough with themselves to see, or admit they see, all sides of the discussion.
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John

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #47 on: July 16, 2015, 08:50:50 pm »

You are so correct on that point!

Sorry Andrew...I was addressing the other Andrew
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John

amolitor

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #48 on: July 16, 2015, 08:50:56 pm »

No I have not worked for a camera company.

And now that I understand that camera companies are magical unicorns, unlike technology companies, in that they do not use metal, plastics, integrated circuits, and so on, but instead build their equipment out the bones of winged horses, archangel tallow, and the powerful wishes of whining idiots, I see that all my speculation is irrelevant. Since I only know a tremendous amount about how to build technology based products.
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RogerGW

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #49 on: July 16, 2015, 08:55:14 pm »

Easy to predict.  This thread should never have started.  Michael was fully aware that his article would just raise passions....with no result.  

The issues are part "religious" and mostly economic and freedom to provide creative features and functions.  Some just are not honest enough with themselves to see, or admit they see, all sides of the discussion.

In his article, Michael refers several times to "proprietary raw formats", seemingly overlooking the proprietary nature of DNG. This is wholly owned by Adobe Systems (as is TIFF).

In discussions like this, "open" is often made to do two jobs at once. On the one hand, it is treated as a synonym for "standard". On the other, is put in opposition to the word "proprietary". Therein lies confusion.

Instead, imagine that the terms "proprietary", "standard", "closed" and "open" lie not on one scale but two. On one axis (the horizontal, say) is set out the range between completely proprietary at one end and completely standard at the other.  These concepts are  distinct — proprietary objects are owned by one person or organization (e.g. Adobe), while standard ones are owned by many (e.g. the members of ISO).

The other, vertical, axis has at its base the notion of an object's being open.  In other words, the details of it have been published. The converse of this, at the top of the axis, is the notion of an object's being closed, or kept secret.

To simplify matters, one might position these four attributes at the corners of a four-cell matrix. Thus:

1. The upper right quadrant refers to objects or designs that are proprietary and closed. I think this is what Michael means with his "proprietary raw formats".

2. Lower right is stuff that's proprietary and open. As noted, DNG and TFF would seem to belong here.

3. The lower left quadrant encompasses material that is open and standard. Its details are readily available and its application doesn't vary (or vary much). ISO standards are an obvious example, as are those of IEEE.

4. The upper left quadrant (standard but secret) is logically possible but commercially absurd, unless it's intended for spooks or the some of the military.

Of course, none of this addresses Michael's gripe but I hope that it will help the debate. Greater precision in terminology often clarifies thinking.

Roger
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digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #50 on: July 16, 2015, 08:56:16 pm »

Easy to predict.  This thread should never have started.
Exactly what I stated in my first post (we agree, surprise?)
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Michael was fully aware that his article would just raise passions....with no result.  
Part of the sentence is correct, the last part, maybe not. Those of us who keep asking for DNG or open raw format support expect and hope for results.
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The issues are part "religious" and mostly economic and freedom to provide creative features and functions.

One religion asks to simply give us data as we desire without restriction (like the other file format it can create), the other religion deny us that request because they don't use it. Worse, they come to the defense of big companies keeping our data proprietary, acting unlike selfless photographers.
Using DNG is a bit like same sex marriage. You don't believe in marrying someone of the same sex or using DNG, don't. Let the rest of us have that option.  
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digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #51 on: July 16, 2015, 08:58:57 pm »

In his article, Michael refers several times to "proprietary raw formats", seemingly overlooking the proprietary nature of DNG. This is wholly owned by Adobe Systems (as is TIFF).
Please look at the differences in what proprietary means and what owning a file format means. Yes, Adobe owns TIFF too, it's not a proprietary format.
DNG isn't proprietary in it's an open format anyone can use without cost (unlike PSD but just like TIFF) and is fully documented for anyone to do so IF they desire.
Or maybe your take is, we should just store all our image data in a format no company owns, like JPEG? I'll pass thank you.
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jrsforums

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #52 on: July 16, 2015, 09:00:52 pm »

No I have not worked for a camera company.

And now that I understand that camera companies are magical unicorns, unlike technology companies, in that they do not use metal, plastics, integrated circuits, and so on, but instead build their equipment out the bones of winged horses, archangel tallow, and the powerful wishes of whining idiots, I see that all my speculation is irrelevant. Since I only know a tremendous amount about how to build technology based products.


Today's cameras are basically computers.  I worked my last 20 years in development and product management for a major computer company...PCs and Servers.  I can attest to what 'amolitor' says.  The green eye shades (accountants) will want every dollar spent to contribute to the ROI.  By the time you go through the distribution chain, every penny of cost must generate big dollars in sales.
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John

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #53 on: July 16, 2015, 09:05:59 pm »

Exactly what I stated in my first post (we agree, surprise?)
no
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Part of the sentence is correct, the last part, maybe not. Those of us who keep asking for DNG or open raw format support expect and hope for results.  
Hoping for results and getting results are quite different.  In this case it doing something up a rope or into the wind
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One religion asks to simply give us data as we desire without restriction (like the other file format it can create), the other religion deny us that request because they don't use it. Worse, they come to the defense of big companies keeping our data proprietary, acting unlike selfless photographers.
Using DNG is a bit like same sex marriage. You don't believe in marrying someone of the same sex or using DNG, don't. Let the rest of us have that option.  
...but arguing wildly to have an option without admitting the economic cost to the other party results in my answer to the second response above.
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John

RogerGW

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #54 on: July 16, 2015, 09:10:22 pm »

DNG isn't proprietary in it's an open format...

You appear not to have read all my message or not to have understood it. "Proprietary" and "open" are not mutually exclusive.

Re my "take". I have put forward no suggestions for a solution. If you choose to infer one from what I wrote, I can't stop you.

Roger

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dchew

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #55 on: July 16, 2015, 09:25:15 pm »

Today's cameras are basically computers.  I worked my last 20 years in development and product management for a major computer company...PCs and Servers.  I can attest to what 'amolitor' says.  The green eye shades (accountants) will want every dollar spent to contribute to the ROI.  By the time you go through the distribution chain, every penny of cost must generate big dollars in sales.

But wait a minute. I don't buy amolitor's analysis. It seems to me there is a lot of savings not accounted for. What about the costs to maintain the proprietary software that goes along with that proprietary file format? If they switched to DNG, they no longer need to supply or support that software. No software code writers. No more software updates for Windows 19 / OS 10.37.4. No more shipping shipping CD's (really?). No more download pages. No more tech service questions about the bloat ware that comes with the CD.

None of those savings were considered, but it all could go away. He just didn't go far enough with the cutting. Jeeze if little Leica can do it, surely the others could figure it out.

Dave

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digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #56 on: July 16, 2015, 09:30:36 pm »

no  Hoping for results and getting results are quite different.  In this case it doing something up a rope or into the wind ...but arguing wildly to have an option without admitting the economic cost to the other party results in my answer to the second response above.
So give up?
What I find so sad is the number of photographers, or people who say they are photographers, who argue so loudly that a feature I and many others use is something we don't deserve. As Mr. Schewe has said a number of times on this subject (and I agree), you're either part of the solution or part of the problem. Don't use or like DNG? Don't use it. The only people who can and should argue against some or our desires isn't here and never have come here to give us their side of the story; the camera manufacturers, their reps. We get so called 'photographers' who speculate about the poor burden of the big camera companies of which I don't give a damn about. I'm a consumer. I pay for my cameras. I should have a say in the data it provides. I'll pay more to get what I want. I'll gladly refrain from Canon (the system I currently use) ceasing it's expense to produce a raw processor in the box for a DNG from the camera.
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amolitor

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #57 on: July 16, 2015, 09:32:39 pm »

Can you really make your proprietary software go away, or does it just need to also support DNG now?

There is also a cost to end of life-ing a product.

It's turtles all the way down.

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digitaldog

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #58 on: July 16, 2015, 09:34:38 pm »

Re my "take". I have put forward no suggestions for a solution. If you choose to infer one from what I wrote, I can't stop you.
I'm not inferring such a solution, I'm simply saying that DNG isn't proprietary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprietary_software
Proprietary software, non-free software (in the sense of missing freedoms[1]), or closed-source software is software, where the developers or distributors reserve all freedoms and rights.
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amolitor

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Re: DNG again and again and again...
« Reply #59 on: July 16, 2015, 09:34:56 pm »

Bold move, digitaldog. Trying to argue that people who disagree with you actually have no right to speak.

Insane, but bold.
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