Why hasn't DNG become standard in digital backs?

[digitaldog]

standard question - you are Panasonic, you want to bring a new camera to the market with software optics corrections, DNG does not support that (tags)... what are you going to do ?

You let the user set the camera to something other than JPEG and DNG.

You make the assumption that the Panasonic user who wants that option is NOT going pick JPEG so let's assume the same people have the intelligence to pick whatever Panasonic wants to call super-duper, high end special proprietary raw on the switch that currently allows one to select JPEG.

[deejjjaaaa]

You let the user set the camera to something other than JPEG and DNG.

sure, as soon as Adobe will pay for extra hours of development/qa/tech writers/etc to maintain extra functionality.

[digitaldog]

sure, as soon as Adobe will pay for extra hours of development/qa/tech writers/etc to maintain extra functionality.

Your arguments are really nonsensical. It isn't about Adobe, it's about customers.

[deejjjaaaa]

Your arguments are really nonsensical. It isn't about Adobe, it's about customers.

customers en masse do not care... it is a non factor marketwise.

[torger]

I've not read up on the details on DNG but I'm assuming that in its default incaration is quite extensible concerning meta data, so I don't think that the features we see in cameras today is a problem.

Sure, we could in the future see some radically new sensor tech that needs fundamental extensions of the format, but then you can always fall back to proprietary formats while its worked out in DNG.

My guess though is that DNG is quite "future proof" so I find it unlikely this would be a large problem.

[yaya]

Some pointers for you Anders;

1. The Leaf Valeo 6 was the first digital back EVER to be supported by ACR (2003). Since then, every time we bring a new model out, we make sure that Adobe receives files, sometimes before the back is shipping (the Credo 80 is one example) so that they can test, tune (if needed) and add support in the next release of ACR & LR. There are no politics involved and no conspiracy theories. Adobe choose what format types they wish to support and to what extent and we all respect that. They also work according to their own schedule and we respect that as well.

2. If a file is supported, there is no real difference, workflow wise between DNG/ CR2/ NEF/ MOS/ IIQ etc....in your case the only difference is LCC and that is where (I believe) using our own software (LC or C1) is a plus.

3. Leaf Capture provides one of the best LCC implementations for your back (if not THE best) and it leaves you with .mos files that are corrected for colour cast, falloff and dust spots and that are 100% compatible with Adobe software (and I assume RT and DCRAW as well)

4. If you insist on using RT for its LCC function, all you need to do is run your compressed files through our Raw Converter (Leaf Software download page). This can be done straight off the CF card so you can convert and copy the files at the same time, or you can convert the files from your HDD while backing them up so there's a gain there as well

5. Capture One 7's new and improved LCC function is intuitive and easy and you can export the files as DNG with some of the corrections applied (no colour cast).

6. I've been personally involved (since 2000, that's Leaf Capture 7 for you...) in developing and testing the LCC workflow from the user's stand point most people here at that time did not know that it existed...I am always happy to discuss it with people who use it regularly and who may have suggestions for improvements.

Any serious developers or customers (including OEM customers) who wish to work closer with us can contact us with their requirements and have access the relevant SDK (Capture One or Leaf Capture and subject to signing NDA or licence agreement). Our business model requires that these enquiries will be genuine and present value for our business so that we can justify and plan any resources allocation.

So as a start I suggest that you spend some time trying the above options and see if they work for you, you may even find that they work better than what you already use

BR

Yair

[digitaldog]

customers en masse do not care... it is a non factor marketwise.

Can you share we us where this metric can be varied? Also how you came to the cost analysis to add a setting via the LCD for DNG and all the work it would take to engineer DNG into the system.

Be also interested to know the percentage of cameras that capture raw + JPEG, the percentage of users who use one versus the other.

[deejjjaaaa]

Can you share we us where this metric can be varied?

check marketshare of non DNG companies vs DNG companies... that simple... nobody cares about absence of DNG really... and 99% of those who do typically care until the next ACR/LR RC release and somehow still buy the camera...

and... if you care about the customers 2 examples

1) GH3 - no cameras sold so far but already supported by ACR/LR RC, w/o any DNG...

2) Fuji XTrans - where is the Adobe's love to their users to help them w/ Fuji's CFA ?

[digitaldog]

check marketshare of non DNG companies vs DNG companies... that simple... nobody cares about absence of DNG really... and 99% of those who do typically care until the next ACR/LR RC release and somehow still buy the camera...

I asked you to provide the data, where can I find it please? URL and numbers if you have them for us.

Also please explain how your conclusions about the number of cameras supporting DNG equates into the number of people who care or don't care for such an option. IOW, if 5% of market share supports a system that provides DNG as an option, what methodology did you use to conclude the other 95% of those users don't care about DNG?

I think your arguments are nonsensical but I'd like to find out if you have any facts or figures to back up your belief. Otherwise I'd find your arguments both nonsensical and without any facts.

You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. I have to assume you perhaps shoot raw and you don't care for DNG as an option. Great. Don't use it. There's as yet zero support from your camp that it would be unduly expensive to provide an option for DNG to those who do want it. Again, this is all politics. If enough customers make a stink for what they want, the more likely we'll get it. The more people such as yourself defend the practices of the big camera companies, the less good done for the photo and imaging industry. Now if you have actual facts and figures that using Canon as an example, that company would undergo an unfair expense to implement DNG versus actual numbers of users who, when told the options would or wouldn’t use it, we're all ears.

and... if you care about the customers 2 examples

1) GH3 - no cameras sold so far but already supported by ACR/LR RC, w/o any DNG...

2) Fuji XTrans - where is the Adobe's love to their users to help them w/ Fuji's CFA ?

OK, so where in those two stat's does this explicitly and accurately account for these differences due solely to DNG?

I suspect vastly more images are captured as JPEGs world wide and within all digital capture devices than any other format. That therefore equates to my suggesting that people who purchases cameras don't care about the option to capture raw? Silly thought pattern.

[digitaldog]

1) GH3 - no cameras sold so far but already supported by ACR/LR RC, w/o any DNG...

And of course, it didn't cost Adobe anything to do this.

Funny, if we ask the camera manufacturers to do the work, it's too costly for them (poor babies). But it's OK for Adobe engineers as well as ever other raw converter's engineers to figure out the newer format and support it.

Do camera manufacturers have lobbyists?

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I have not bought any Leaf back publicly or privately, but I still think that the situation which all vendors having proprietary file formats is just insane. Also, the way I see it, photographers should own their images. If the images are in an undocumented format that ownership is at risk.

Having a lot of incompatible formats has in my view little benefits but lots of costs and creates frustration.

Best regards
Erik

I assume your annoyance is at your legacy Leaf Aptus back which you purchased privately. If purchased from a good dealer your initial training would have covered (from the start) the use of the compressed raw, free leaf raw convertor, and DNG options to make sure that, from the getgo, your captures would be available in whatever software you wanted to use. It can, for sure, to learn these lessons and wade through some of the complexity on your own.

[deejjjaaaa]

I have not bought any Leaf back publicly or privately, but I still think that the situation which all vendors having proprietary file formats is just insane. Also, the way I see it, photographers should own their images. If the images are in an undocumented format that ownership is at risk.

do you see that photographers should own their cameras and then why don't you ask the manufacturer to disclose you the firmware code the for example ?   

Having a lot of incompatible formats has in my view little benefits but lots of costs and creates frustration.

what is incompatible (and with what) there exactly ?

[deejjjaaaa]

Funny, if we ask the camera manufacturers to do the work, it's too costly for them (poor babies). But it's OK for Adobe engineers as well as ever other raw converter's engineers to figure out the newer format and support it.

when dcraw code will be released you can find how how many bytes were added to support GH3 specifically... I bet < 100 ASCII symbols (including comments if any)... shall we check then ?

much more work is to profile the camera and Adobe shall do it in any case as any selfrespecting vendor of raw conversion software...

[torger]

Some pointers for you Anders;

Thank you for your time Yair. I surely shall investigate these options with great interest. I'm not too worried about solving my own issues. This thread is actually mainly about why DNG is not supported in current products although there seems to be a great interest in why I came up with this question at this particular time .

So may I ask, why do you not provide a DNG option in your newest backs? Is it because you there are no customers asking for it any longer, or is it lack of resources, or don't you think DNG is mature enough yet, or is it some other reason?

Concerning NDAs for getting access to the image format spec I'm as you might expect not particularly fond of that type of arrangement, but Leaf is certainly not unique in that aspect. The typical reason things becomes like this is because the business folks don't see any difference between internal hardware design or image file format, everything is equally secret to them and should be protected. The "soft" arguments about providing a public documented and therefore archive proof format to the photographer (without conversion hassle), and just simply that it would provide goodwill and convey the message that the company is serious about open architecture don't really get through this dense mindset.

There's no commercial need to support compressed .mos files in the type of commercial image software I and collegues are currently developing, because the customer base is too small. So there's no need to apply for that NDA, and we would probably not get it anyway since you would consider the sales of our specialized software too small and not present enough "value to your business".

In the open source world we are however many tech enthusiasts and we like to support our own gear and cool legacy stuff, and leaf backs are certainly very cool legacy stuff. In this case reverse engineering seems to be the way to go though also with this format. This is not always the case though. Many years ago I implemented a sound card driver for Linux for a pro studio sound card, and I got the documentation from the manufacturer, no NDA or anything (and that was not legacy stuff). They knew it would do no harm. The sound card did become quite popular on the linux platform later on for serious audio hackers, but of no real "business value" for the company due to the microscopic number of users in relation to other platforms. But I guess someone on that company thought it was cool thing that some tech nerd would implement a driver for free.

[deejjjaaaa]

I asked you to provide the data, where can I find it please? URL and numbers if you have them for us.
Also please explain how your conclusions about the number of cameras supporting DNG equates into the number of people who care or don't care for such an option.

only after you do this for the number of people who can't do w/o DNG - DNG proponents were first in this thread - hence you shall come w/ your numbers first... and let me guess - you own cameras w/ native DNG support and you use Adobe software and you do not have any real issues w/ non DNG raw files because of that.

IOW, if 5% of market share supports a system that provides DNG as an option, what methodology did you use to conclude the other 95% of those users don't care about DNG?

and why do you think that 5% care about DNG and not just to have cameras/lenses that they want (like if people are buying Leica or Ricoh/Pentax to have DNG  )... and again the same note - DNG proponents started first here (and there) so you please come up with you methodology to prove something... note that nobody disputes that you and some other people (you do not have any statistics how many) want DNG, however neither you, nor Reichman, no others so far were able to influence no manufacturers except niche ones... that is the market answer to the amount and seriousness of that market demand... which says - nobody cares really except niche players.

I think your arguments are nonsensical but I'd like to find out if you have any facts or figures to back up your belief. Otherwise I'd find your arguments both nonsensical and without any facts.

I think your arguments are the same and you are trying to turn the table and for some numbers w/o providing them first to support your claims... again I did not hear any good explanation about what Panasonic had to do w/ optics correction...

You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. I have to assume you perhaps shoot raw and you don't care for DNG as an option. Great. Don't use it. There's as yet zero support from your camp that it would be unduly expensive to provide an option for DNG to those who do want it.

DNG is not a solution - solution is when manufacturer discloses both format (and most of raw formats are pretty much documented by crowdsourcing, by individuals and companies, resulting in Coffin's work and its refactoring like libraw) and the content... DNG does not force them to disclose the content fully hence it is not a solution... DNG ties the hands when something new is to be released (see Panasonic)... DNG is still controlled by Adobe (and remember - Google makes hardware, MS makes hardware... there is good chance that Adobe will start making hardware too... and which hardware Adobe might start to make ?) - no changes or additions to DNG standards so far can be done w/ Adobe's OK regardless of where DNG standard was submitted... free != safe.

Again, this is all politics. If enough customers make a stink for what they want, the more likely we'll get it. The more people such as yourself defend the practices of the big camera companies, the less good done for the photo and imaging industry.

big camera companies do not want their hands tied by necessity to wait for approval from others and by disclosing changes in advance to their competition... push shall be not for DNG, but for documenting their own format _and_ data inside post factum - that is a more reasonable goal...

Now if you have actual facts and figures that using Canon as an example, that company would undergo an unfair expense to implement DNG versus actual numbers of users who, when told the options would or wouldn’t use it, we're all ears.

only after you will come up with facts and figures about the same DNG...

OK, so where in those two stat's does this explicitly and accurately account for these differences due solely to DNG?

again - you shall come up w/ some numbers about DNG first...

I suspect vastly more images are captured as JPEGs world wide and within all digital capture devices than any other format. That therefore equates to my suggesting that people who purchases cameras don't care about the option to capture raw? Silly thought pattern.

please do not put your words into my mouth... and then in camera JPGs are just that - same raw images converted by in camera raw converter... not really a different thing from raw images converted by off camera OEM raw converter...

[torger]

do you see that photographers should own their cameras and then why don't you ask the manufacturer to disclose you the firmware code the for example ?   

These type of arguments is about "fair use", and where one should draw the line, where should the user be let in to the system.

I think the image file format is very reasonable, and I see a big difference between firmware and image file format. The image file is the thing you store for posterity. It is also where you store your own unique copyrighted work. The firmware has nothing to do with that.

Sure manufacturers can always get away with "well you can just convert it to a big TIFF file (or DNG) in later stage in the process using tool ABC we provide on platform XY under license Z", but is it really so unreasonable to demand that the camera output is an open format? I don't think so.

[digitaldog]

only after you do this for the number of people who can't do w/o DNG - DNG proponent

OK. More than 5 people on LuLa forums would like a DNG option on their cameras. I can get you a specific list if you must.

OK, your turn. Let's see your figures for why the percentage of cameras sold equates into the desire or lack thereof for DNG.

[deejjjaaaa]

OK. More than 5 people on LuLa forums would like a DNG option on their cameras. I can get you a specific list if you must.

and I do not dispute that ... and so what ? Does the main shareholder here stop using P1 backs ? hahaha... he will not... hence P1 does not really care... he is a non factor in such decision in P1, unless he will put something where his mouth is and returns all P1 equipment and stops all P1 reviews here, etc here and prominently put a sign - P1 backs are not welcome anymore - please buy Leica or whatever... now that will be something, may be...

[torger]

Consumer cameras are primarily designed for JPEGs. Most MFDBs *only* shoot raw. Many MFDB manufacturers also brag about having open architectures. I think it is reasonable to put higher expectations on them on being in the forefront of supporting open formats. And well, they do. Sinar, Leica, Pentax. But there are some still missing...

[digitaldog]

and I do not dispute that ... and so what ?

Three times in your last post to me, you refused to answer a question asked of you only to demand an answer from me. I assumed that for this game to work, I have to answer your question first so I did.

So I guess getting you to supply the answers originally asked of you below will go unanswered?

I told you I thought your arguments were nonsensical and was just wondering if your belief system was based on anything anyone else could examine. It appears not.