In the end, much of our preferences will be subjective unless one process produces poor results. I've seen that in the past with ICC camera profiles so I'd like to know what reason DNG profile creation and use seems to be far more reliable or if that's even the case among multiple users.
Andrew, as you mentioned elsewhere before, often folks want ICC camera profiles to adapt to similar but not identical shooting conditions. Especially for color critical work, that is bound to fail. In a strictly controlled setup for copy work and reproductions, with carefully selected lighting (probably handpicked light sources to match two or more lights), it is possible to make excellent ICC profiles, especially with a color target like the SG, I am told. The shot must be more or less "right" in camera by getting the lighting ratios and angles right, so that no additional curves are applied in post processing, just a neutral rendition from the raw converter, coupled with an ICC profile.
If we can avoid specifying a white point in an ICC camera profile it would be even better. I quote from ArgyllCMS's documentation:
"
If profiling a camera in RAW mode, then there may be some advantage in creating a pure matrix only profile, in which it is assumed that the camera response is completely linear. This may reduce extrapolation artefacts. If setting the white point will be done in some application, then it may also be an advantage to use the -u flag and avoid setting the white point to that of the profile chart:
colprof -v -D"Camera" -qm -am -u scanner"
That is pretty much I can gather from ICC profiling so far. Haven't done anything since I don't use applications that support ICC profiles, and I don't have access to a mac all the time to try and run ID.
DNG profiles are by design more adaptable, even more so for dual illuminant profiles. That's why we find them so useful in varying situations. But then again most folks using DNG profiles are not doing critical reproduction work, so extreme accuracy isn't on the radar, especially since they are going to be applying all sorts of adjustments in ACR/Lightroom, which will throw off accuracy anyway, as neutral representation of raw photos are just not aesthetically pleasing most of the time.
Shall we start a new thread on the Color Management forums about DNG and ICC profiling? I think Hening as already got what he needs for shooting targets.