I set the "Film Mode" in my Panasonic Lumix cameras to record in black-and-white, which gives me a black-and-white image on my LCD for composing purposes. I capture in both RAW and JPEG. However, this seems to result in an initial black-and-white RAW image when copying my memory card to the My Pictures folder on my PC. I can run a conversion of these RAW black-and-white images to Adobe DNG, which then of course gives me the RAW images in color. My preference would be to see the black-and-white image on my camera['s LCD, have it captured in black-and-white in the JPEG format for evaluation purposes, but have the RAW image be retained in color without the need for conversion to DNG. I don't really think there's a way of achieving this, but I thought I'd query this forum for possible solutions any one might have.
With respect, I think you're confused.
There's no such thing as a "black-and-white RAW image". A raw file contains all the data which came from the camera's sensor plus some other settings. I imagine that whatever software runs on your PC to allow you to view the raw file when it's copied to your My Pictures folder is simply honouring the settings which your camera has recorded you want to use when converting this raw data to a viewable image. In this case, those settings include "make this image b&w".
When you create a DNG raw file, you are not running "a conversion of these RAW black-and-white images to Adobe DNG". You are converting one form of raw data file into another. Whatever software you then use to view the newly-created DNG files does not honour the settings recorded by your camera, so it creates a colour image from the raw data.
In essence, you are already doing what you say in your penultimate sentence you want to do. I think you need to get a better understanding of how to use your PC software.
Of course, if I'm wrong, I'll be corrected.
Jeremy
