DNG again and again and again...

[Chris Kern]

Ironically, both file formats adhere to TIFF-EP (Tiff for electronic photography). Thomas thinks that a simple firmware upgrade could allow current Canon and Nikon camera to save out DNG files. . . .

I happen to know that certain people can create a synthetic raw file format fille and process the file to be a valid CR2 or NEF that can be opened in the camera company's software. In effect a round trip from raw to DNG and back to raw.

As far as I'm concerned, these are the two most interesting pieces of actual information in an otherwise overly noisy thread.

I read the current DNG spec yesterday — I wanted to understand what the shouting here was all about — and was surprised to find it is pretty accessible.  (I have an IT background and am accustomed to reading technical specification documents; your mileage may vary.)  I got the impression it did indeed include all the features necessary to make a round-trip with just about any raw format so, although I confess it never occurred to me, it strikes me as plausible that Thomas Knoll thinks Canon or Nikon could emit DNGs just by modifying their firmware.

Anybody here got any contacts in either company they could use to make the case for trying to do this?  Would Knoll be available to consult if either of them wanted to try?  Get one of the two big players to do it and the other would no doubt feel compelled to do so.

[Schewe]

Would Knoll be available to consult if either of them wanted to try?  Get one of the two big players to do it and the other would no doubt feel compelled to do so.

Well, Thomas and the Camera Raw team were just in Japan last month. I wonder what they did :~)

[Rainer SLP]

Well, Thomas and the Camera Raw team were just in Japan last month. I wonder what they did :~)

People 

Looks like you will be getting what you want, so why do not smoke the Peace Pipe and get back to the roots what we all enjoy

Photography

 

[rdonson]

Well, Thomas and the Camera Raw team were just in Japan last month. I wonder what they did :~)

I hope they also spent some time with Fuji. 

[mbaginy]

I hope they also spent some time with Fuji. 

I agree, Ron.  While LR6 has improved X-T1 and X-Pro1 raw process capabilities (over LR5), it's far from perfect.  I'm especially thinking of b&w conversions and haloing.  Canon 5D Mk III files are much better in that respect.

[AlterEgo]

Anybody here got any contacts in either company they could use to make the case for trying to do this?

[AlterEgo]

There's no conspiracy - if you're a small manufacturer starting from zero, with simple requirements, DNG probably will make sense. E.g., Leica.

Leica is not small though, neither is Ricoh... they have miniscule marketshare, but not small companies... and we have Samsung, a giant, who had, when it was in alliance with Pentax (in pre Ricoh days) DNG only dSLR cameras and got rid of DNG as soon as the the alliance was over, so they restarted in dSLM market w/o DNG... which clearly says that they had reasons not to use DNG even when they had experience with it already

And BTW, for those that suggest that DNG can accommodate proprietary extensions, sure it can. But DNG with proprietary extensions is just another proprietary format. Almost every raw format out there today is already a standard (TIFF/EXIF) plus proprietary extensions. There's no reason to replace one proprietary format with another.

right, otherwise when they want to disclose everything they can just publicly document all tags in their format(s), again w/o bothering with DNG... so the root of the problem is not the format, but willingness to disclose.

[AlterEgo]

Well, I suspect you know how to talk engineering to Thomas so I suggest you do so. His email address isn't hard to find.

Schewe, Knoll is not a saint... not yet at least.

[AlterEgo]

I stand with Michael (and Andrew) and any others that are fighting against proprietary raw file formats.

by buying cameras mostly w/o DNG... at least you do not review them, give you a credit for that

[AlterEgo]

Nikon and Canon could afford it

certainly they can afford it in terms of PMs, developers, QAs, technical writers, man-hours for design/code/test/build/release/support/etc (you still think that in a big company that is just one tea party ?) - but there is no reason to waste the money...

[amolitor]

I'd like to emphasize and repeat that Rainier has an excellent idea.

I see guys like Michael, Ming, Thom, and probably a bunch more doing a lot of complaining, but not much helping.

They all claim to know how businesses work, and then say 'no matter how many personal conversations I have with these companies, they never build the feature!' Which is a bit of a puzzle. Do they really think personal conversations with bloggers is how large companies develop strategy? Do any of them, in actuality, know anything about business?

These people are all well positioned to actually do market research and to bring actionable data to the major players. They choose instead to write complaining columns and collect clicks. Good luck with that as a long term strategy, by the way. The world is starting to shift.

[digitaldog]

Schewe, Knoll is not a saint... not yet at least.

What a utterly silly and unnecessary sentence to post! No one suggested anything of the sort.

I think John's got the answer here, I wonder if he minds if others inert this into their signatures, it would save us some time and is quite brilliant:

[sandymc]

They all claim to know how businesses work, and then say 'no matter how many personal conversations I have with these companies, they never build the feature!' Which is a bit of a puzzle.

If you have editorial input to a reasonably influential site, than what you are going to hear is exactly what the company reps across the table think you want to hear, just short of an actual commitment to do anything real. That's how companies get favorable coverage. I've been the company rep across that table 

Sandy

[amolitor]

Bingo.

These people are called 'influencers' and if they choose to think the influence is on the company rather than the customers, well, no need to clarify that.

Kampai!

[jrsforums]

What many people forget in having conversations with the Japanese (engineers or otherwise) is that 'hai' is usually more accurately interpreted as "yes, I hear you" rather than "yes, I agree with you"

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

The America version is: No problem, we can fix it! The result is usually some mess.

Best regards
Erik

What many people forget in having conversations with the Japanese (engineers or otherwise) is that 'hai' is usually more accurately interpreted as "yes, I hear you" rather than "yes, I agree with you"

[john beardsworth]

I think John's got the answer here, I wonder if he minds if others inert this into their signatures, it would save us some time and is quite brilliant:

It's only to help others follow any threads where I appear to fail to answer him back, Andrew, and it's neither copyright nor proprietary

John

[digitaldog]

It's only to help others follow any threads where I appear to fail to answer him back, Andrew, and it's neither copyright nor proprietary

Understood, I think it's a excellent idea! I concur with both of the people you mention.

[amolitor]

This particularly unsavory idea has been reported for moderation.

[john beardsworth]

This particularly unsavory idea has been reported for moderation.

As I say, it's only to help others follow any threads where I appear to fail to answer him back. I think it's far more unsavoury that when a forum member is given a 30 day ban (IIRC for being an apologist for war crimes), they immediately register with a new alter ego....