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cfx
1 hour ago, foo said:

This histogram is made from the JPEG.

Yes, which makes it much less useful than it should be, if you're trying to really maximize the data recorded which is the main reason to be using it in the first place for most people, I presume.

There is/was something called UniWB that addressed this. I was having trouble remembering details of this (other than that Iliah Borg was somehow involved) and strangely coincidentally, today, there is an article published about it:

https://www.dslrbodies.com/cameras/nikon-and-dslr-camera-faq/what-is-uniwb.html

Another description:

https://www.malch.com/nikon/UniWB.html

At the end:

Quote

Hopefully, UniWB will have a short life. It is essentially a "kludge" that tricks the camera into displaying a close approximation of a true RAW histogram. As more and more users discover the utility of the feature, it is likely that some camera manufactures will provide a true RAW histogram as part of the standard firmware/equipment. Camera owners are simply waiting and watching to see if Canon or Nikon move first and take the prize 😉

The date on the article seems to be 2014. AFAIK we're still waiting for that RAW histogram, and I imagine we'll be waiting forever.

Edited by cfx

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foo
42 minutes ago, cfx said:

AFAIK we're still waiting for that RAW histogram, and I imagine we'll be waiting forever.

Well again, it's not possible to have a "true" RAW histogram that makes sense because the limits of the dynamic range and everything inbetween is a function of how you process the photo and what colour space those colours are represented in. 

The first article states,

Quote

One reason why the camera makers are reluctant about UniWB is that the JPEG (and thus the embedded preview image that shows up on the LCD of the camera) will come out with a heavy green tint.

That's the kind of colours you get when you view a Pro Photo RGB as device pixels in sRGB space. It doesn't mean your picture is green; if it showed a histogram for that it would say that the green bars would be taller than red and blue. When you're dealing with 12/14-bit colours, having tall green bars doesn't tell you much, and trying to take a photo that maximizes the range of green isn't helpful either. What does matter is the limits of the dynamic range, how far left and right the graph goes. The most important thing the camera can show you is if you're losing highlights or shadows in the live preview overlay, if it supports that.

With 8-bits per channel (shooting JPEG only), an accurate histogram is vital because it tells you exactly what is getting written out (0-255 for each colour component), and have very little room to make adjustments in post processing. If the histogram is 256 pixels wide it will show you the plot of every single pixel value. That histogram at capture time must be good. With 14 bit colour you have 16,384 possible values per colour component, so as long as it's not completely dark (lost shadow detail) or completely bright (lost highlight detail, extremely high numbers), you have a lot of range to adjust your photo.

Uh, so to sum up there's no correct way to graph RAW pixels that's more meaningful to represent colour than an sRGB plot, but you can show if you've lost highlights or shadows based on the distribution from left to right (too dark vs. too light), and how short/tall they are overall (too grey vs. very colourful). Like with a modern camera, if the sRGB plot is "bad" your RAW plot (in whatever colour space and rendering method you choose) will be just as bad.

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BeyondTime
1 hour ago, foo said:

No, it is what the RAW looks like when processed by the proper algorithms.  The camera's built in darkroom is the same darkroom that Nikon Capture implements. I shoot everything RAW+JPEG so I can sort through my images faster, since the D810 NEFs take a while to render. If I see a JPEG I like, I process the corresponding RAW in Nikon Capture to adjust to my tastes. 

None of that really changes my original point. Unless Nikon changed something on later models you aren't seeing the exposure recorded in the RAW file when you preview on the LCD, you are seeing an exposure corrected image pretty much worthless for evaluating the state of the RAW exposure.

Here is an image unadjusted raw exposure with 1 stop underexposure in camera.

_1JR3552.jpg.1cd1b7c036fadf0b07861e42eb28bc26.jpg

 

This is what the camera preview looks like in terms of exposure. I didn't mess with contrast or any of the other adjustments the camera's darkroom makes. From what I can tell exposure correction was a little over 1 stop.

_1JR3552-p.jpg.ed49f4d17667011a8754922ca4d01d0a.jpg

 

This is an unadjusted raw image with 2 stops underexposure in camera.

_1JR3554.JPG.e4695db3c4c95fb88ee9eaac52af152d.JPG

 

This is about what the camera preview shows for that image. Again I didn't mess with any setting on the image except exposure, and it's just over 1 stop.

_1JR3554-p.jpg.fac6c2ea23617802418a72c76e43ddcd.jpg

You can't judge RAW exposure from the LCD preview.


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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foo
22 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

You can't judge RAW exposure from the LCD preview.

You can't judge ACR RAW processing from the LCD preview. That's what you used to make those images, right? Here are side-by-side examples of the RAW+JPEG's jpeg, Nikon Capture conversion using camera-compatible processing, and ACR conversion. The first set is underexposed by one stop.

DSC_5722.jpgDSC_5722nx.jpgDSC_5722-acr.jpg

DSC_5723.jpgDSC_5723nx.jpgDSC_5723-acr.jpg

There is a small difference between the JPEG and Nikon Capture versions but unless you overlay them it's hard to tell. The camera shows the JPEG, the image on the left. The ACR ones are darker. 

This me awkardly showing the above Nikon Capture picture on my iPhone and the back of the camera,

DSC_0871.jpg

It looks brighter but so is the image my phone is showing. I wanted to get better exposure, but holding the phone in one hand and my Z 6 in another was scary enough (ーー') You can see the exposure looks the same between these side-by-side images. If your LCD looks overexposed, turn the brightness down.

On a related note, I bought some wigs from Cotin Doll for Miku but I'm waiting for better weather to get good photos of them.

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BeyondTime
1 hour ago, foo said:

You can't judge ACR RAW processing from the LCD preview

I didn't say anything about judging RAW post processing. I am saying you can't judge the exposure contained in the RAW file from the preview. I deliberately underexposed by 1 & 2 stops and I got RAW files under exposed by 1 & 2 stops as expected. The camera's darkroom attempts to correct that exposure when the preview is generated, so it is useless for judging how well exposed your RAW file is. If I loaded those images into Nikon Capture they would still be just as underexposed.

This is important because the more underexposed the less data in the RAW file, and you can see that in the size of the RAW file.

For example:

-2 stops 43.9 MB

-1 stop 46 MB

+/- 0 stops 47.5 MB

+1 stop 49.3 MB

+2 stops 50.9 MB

This is the basis for the entire concept of exposing to the right, but if you try to judge that exposure using the preview image you may end up with a RAW file with significantly less data in it, and no RAW post processor can put that data back.

As far as the LCD, it's brightness is adjusted just fine.

 

1 hour ago, foo said:

I wanted to get better exposure, but holding the phone in one hand and my Z 6 in another was scary enough (ーー')

Seriously, don't risk your gear over this disagreement. XD

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The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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foo
1 minute ago, BeyondTime said:

I got RAW files under exposed by 1 & 2 stops as expected. The camera's darkroom attempts to correct that exposure when the preview is generated, so it is useless for judging how well exposed your RAW file is.

It doesn't compensate or correct exposure. It uses Nikon's algorithms to generate the image.

Make sure Active D-Lighting is OFF on your camera body. If you're using ACR, the preview image shown by the camera will be up to half a stop brighter than what ACR makes because ACR doesn't support Active D-Lighting, it will just see an underexposed image. This will be much worse if Active D-Lighting is set to auto and you're taking a photo of a dark scene.

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BeyondTime
1 minute ago, foo said:

Make sure Active D-Lighting is OFF on your camera body.

I turned it off when I got the camera. I got the camera along with a book on the D800 that went through all the settings in more depth than the manual did.


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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cfx

This discussion is waaay over my head now, and I probably don't know what I'm talking about anyway, but a couple of things:

4 hours ago, foo said:

Well again, it's not possible to have a "true" RAW histogram that makes sense because the limits of the dynamic range and everything inbetween is a function of how you process the photo and what colour space those colours are represented in. 

My understanding was the point was to have a RAW histogram in the sense of it accurately reflecting the dynamic range of the camera's sensor so you could record the maximum dynamic range possible; i.e. that empty space to the left/right would be accurate so "expose to the right" could be accurately used.

Practically speaking, this was more important when sensor dynamic range was poorer, and megapixels were lower. I first read about UniWB being used on the D700, where I assume this idea is more relevant than it is on the D800, D810, or D850.

30 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I am saying you can't judge the exposure contained in the RAW file from the preview.

!!! I know I just read something about this in trying to research the issues I'm having. Is it the case that that preview has its exposure adjusted because it's intended for focus and checking composition, and if it's dark it's not useful for that? I know I read something about this, about a setting to change its behavior to instead show exposure...but that may have been some other camera(s) than the ones we have. Or maybe I dreamed it. :classic_laugh:

I've read so many articles in the past weeks I can't remember but I know this rings a bell with something I saw.

Personally I find the screen just kind of useless in general; I'm not sure that it's inaccurate in some way, or more likely my brain just doesn't interpret a tiny image on a screen the same way as one on a larger monitor or printed.

 

Thom Hogan has stated repeatedly that ACR now has a built-in brightness offset on Nikon RAW files that is equivalent to setting the camera to some specific exposure compensation value, and his viewpoint seems to be that they shouldn't be doing this.

Edited by cfx

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BeyondTime
2 hours ago, cfx said:

I know I read something about this, about a setting to change its behavior to instead show exposure...but that may have been some other camera(s) than the ones we have. Or maybe I dreamed it.

Beyond the D880 rumors and stuff on the D6, I have read nothing on mirrorless or other modern cameras at this point. I don't recall reading that on the D800, but when I setup the camera I think if it had been an option I would have chosen it. I did set the Picture Control to Normal, and shut off Active D Lighting. At it's core the problem is exactly what @foo pointed out earlier; the RAW file isn't an image, it's a data file filled with bits captured by the sensor. No matter what you do in the settings, the LCD is going to show you a rendered preview of that file.

This discusses the subject, but I think I've seen better resources online in the past.

https://www.datacolor.com/accurate-cameras-preview-image/?lang=fr

Most of what I have read on the subject of the LCD preview is about exposing to the right for the purposes of making sure you capture the most data you can get from the sensor. This something of a controversial subject in and of itself, because attempting to deliberately overexpose can ruin the image, and the benefits of exposing to the right generally aren't relevant to printing at the camera's native resolution.

Iirc with the D800 the native resolution is something like 17 x 24 in a printed image, and you wouldn't really need to expose to the right unless you are trying to print a 6 foot wide image and need the additional data to properly upscale and sharpen your image as you go.

This is a much more in depth look at exposing to the right.

https://photographylife.com/exposing-to-the-right-explained

I generally use an incident meter when possible and just aim for a proper exposure, because in the end almost all of what I do is aimed at the web, and it's getting down-scaled anyways.
 

2 hours ago, cfx said:

Thom Hogan has stated repeatedly that ACR now has a built-in brightness offset on Nikon RAW files that is equivalent to setting the camera to some specific exposure compensation value, and his viewpoint seems to be that they shouldn't be doing this.

I think I would tend to agree, but that's more of a reflex reaction on my part. I would have to read about what they are doing and understand the why of it.


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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cfx

Thanks, I'll check out those links.

21 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I think I would tend to agree, but that's more of a reflex reaction on my part. I would have to read about what they are doing and understand the why of it.

I wanted to add one point to this part of the discussion, because sometimes people jump to the "Adobe sucks/is evil/etc." conclusion. In the case of Nikon (and as far as I remember, only Nikon), their RAW file format, like their lens mount, is completely proprietary to the point that RAW converter makers, and other lens makers, have to reverse-engineer everything. Nikon does not supply any kind of specs to third parties in the way that Canon and others do.

So while Adobe, with this exposure offset, may be intentionally doing their own thing, it's also true that they really can't give the exact same results as Nikon's own software even if they wanted to.

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BeyondTime
1 hour ago, cfx said:

So while Adobe, with this exposure offset, may be intentionally doing their own thing, it's also true that they really can't give the exact same results as Nikon's own software even if they wanted to.

I think Adobe's DNG format was originally put forward as a universal format for RAW files, but as far as I know none of the major camera makers have adopted it.


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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cfx
10 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I think Adobe's DNG format was originally put forward as a universal format for RAW files, but as far as I know none of the major camera makers have adopted it.

There may be something more, but all I'm aware that is really used for now is a way to edit newer camera RAW files in previous versions of Photoshop by using the free Adobe DNG converter to convert camera-specific RAW to DNG, since at some point newer versions of ACR can't be used in older versions of PS. I'm sure other programs support it, and I think maybe Windows can display DNGs without any add-on now, but I've never checked.

Aside from competing camera companies probably not wanting to use a 3rd-party standard, unless it's extensible it would be limiting. Nikon's RAW format has various extra data in it that is all those camera settings; it's how the Nikon converters mimic the in-camera processing based on your camera's settings, though of course you can also overrride them. Nikon keeps adding to the RAW format which is why ACR has to keep changing with newer cameras. AFAIK ACR doesn't use that extra data in any way (I may be wrong).

[I end up needng a new camera, this is what I'll be doing, using the Adobe DNG converter + PS CS6. I think it's annoying as a required extra step, but it's workable at least. Beats, for me, having to have an Adobe subscription. As I'm not a pro and won't be taking pictures in mass volumes, it'll probably work ok.]

Edited by cfx

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2 minutes ago, cfx said:

Nikon's RAW format has various extra data in it that is all those camera settings; it's how the Nikon converters mimic the in-camera processing based on your camera's settings, though of course you can also overrride them.

This is a bit far afield for me, but I believe DNG supports storing other files inside of the DNG file.

I was told the thing about Adobe putting it forward as a standard for RAW file formats by a photography teacher. He was a good teacher, but my knowledge is ultimately only as good as his. He was a professional photographer, had been at it for 30 years or so, and I think he did know his stuff.

 

 


The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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foo

DNG is just a TIFF container with a focus on metadata. This might sound dismissive but TIFF is very, very powerful. DNG focuses it on photography (heh).

From a camera manufacturer's perspective, it's asking them to write out another form of TIFF that few will use. When the engineers are designing the camera hardware they want to write the data in the most efficient and straightforward way possible for them. Standards support is a backseat concern.

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17 minutes ago, foo said:

DNG is just a TIFF container with a focus on metadata.

That I did not know. Back when I owned the D700, I used to use the TIFF output option and edit those, in an old version of PS I had at the time that didn't understand RAW.

AFAIK the D800 doesn't have the option to output TIFF, but looking online it appears it's back in the D850.

I guess an in-camera created TIFF would match the Nikon rendering, while one created from RAW by the Adobe DNG converter would be the usual ACR conversion (which I expected anyway, not knowing it was TIFF).

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1 minute ago, cfx said:

I guess an in-camera created TIFF would match the Nikon rendering, while one created from RAW by the Adobe DNG converter would be the usual ACR conversion (which I expected anyway, not knowing it was TIFF).

Hmm; I think you need to change an assumption. When a camera supports TIFF and they write out a TIFF file using RGB colour, processed by the roughly same algorithms they'd use for JPEGs. So TIFF output is just a high resolution (bit-depth wise) form of the JPEG file, and isn't lossy-compressed because then what's the point. Since it's 16-bits per channel (or more than 8 anyway) it gives you a lot more freedom to modify the image than a JPEG, but the data has been "cooked" somewhat so that things that read generic TIFF files can show a proper looking image (things like gamma curve and colour space end up getting baked in, and aren't undoable). 

TIFF can support many chunks of data in a single file, including several images in a single file. The channel layout of those images can be anything — RGB, CMYK, BGRA, etc. When you convert a RAW file to DNG, it just copies the pixel bytes from the original file into a sub-image of TIFF with the correct description of the pixels (like 12-bit, Bayer-layout RGB). And it converts the Exif metadata into a 'standard' format, so you (hopefully) wouldn't have to look for manufacturer-specific metadata tag IDs to find out uncommon information that camera companies record differently, such as how the remote flashes were configured at the time of exposure.

The final version of the TIFF standard was in 1992. It's kind of like it got so flexible there's no point adding more. Cameras use TIFF/EP, which is a subset of the giant TIFF standard with definitions useful for cameras. A few RAW file formats including NEF are based on TIFF/EP (this doesn't necessarily mean they're TIFF or TIFF/EP compatible files, they just have similar structure). DNG is another extension of TIFF/EP.

So the options camera manufacturers have are (a) write whatever we want to write, (b) we're going to invest in this file format and use it for a lot of things, so how about basing it around TIFF/EP so we can easily make and modify existing TIFF software to work with our stuff? (c) let'd do (b) but without using TIFF, (d) lets make our hardware write out perfect DNG files that pass all of the standard's tests instead of using our own RAW format because golly, that sounds like fun work to add to the project schedule. We're shipping in two months, right?

woes of a software developer.

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11 minutes ago, foo said:

Hmm; I think you need to change an assumption. When a camera supports TIFF and they write out a TIFF file using RGB colour, processed by the roughly same algorithms they'd use for JPEGs. So TIFF output is just a high resolution (bit-depth wise) form of the JPEG file, and isn't lossy-compressed because then what's the point. Since it's 16-bits per channel (or more than 8 anyway) it gives you a lot more freedom to modify the image than a JPEG, but the data has been "cooked" somewhat so that things that read generic TIFF files can show a proper looking image (things like gamma curve and colour space end up getting baked in, and aren't undoable).

I think that's the same thing I was trying to say. A camera-output TIFF would look like an in-camera JPEG, while a RAW-->Adobe DNG Converter-->DNG would look like (if the TIFF was directly viewable) an ACR-created JPEG from the RAW file.

But that confuses me even more, because if the DNG is just a TIFF anyway, what does ACR in Photoshop do with it, and why is it needed in this case?

I also thought that both the TIFF, and a DNG, contained everything, in terms of the sensor-captured data, that the RAW file did and thus wasn't a shorcoming in any way, which sounds to be wrong as well.

My head hurts.

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12 minutes ago, cfx said:

But that confuses me even more, because if the DNG is just a TIFF anyway, what does ACR in Photoshop do with it, and why is it needed in this case?

I should sleep... but imagine that instead of TIFF, it was Zip. A zip archive has a bunch of files. A TIFF image has a bunch of images (usually 1). Each file in a zip archive can be any kind of file. Similarly, an image in a TIFF file can be represented by any form of bytes. What's consistent and makes them images is the concept that they have width, height, a number of channels (red channel, blue channel, alpha channel, cyan channel, space channel 5, etc), a way of laying out the channels (like maybe if the image was 3 pixels wide it could be RGB RGB RGB or RRR GGG BBB) and other things like a data compression scheme.

In fact a TIFF file can contain image data in JPEG form (JPEG is two things: a compression algorithm and a file format. The compression algorithm came first and images were stored in a bunch of different ways including inside TIFFs until the "JFIF" .jpg format became standard). 

So imagine you have a Zip file with a single .jpg it. You can convert this zip archive to a TIFF file by making a TIFF and just injecting the compressed JPEG image stream into it. Now you have a TIFF file! It can be read by anything that reads TIFFs. And that also decompresses JPEG data.

If you didn't make that TIFF, you'd be passing around a zip file and asking software to treat it as an image that contains JPEG data. Software could do that if they really wanted to. And if Canon made their RAW file format Zip archives, a lot of software would go out of their way to make that work. Maybe Sony decides to use RAR for their RAW files. Then lots of software will want to support reading images from Zip and RAR. That's basically what all the RAW formats are like.

Or you could ask everyone to play nicely and write out TIFF (or DNG) files. The data bytes that represent the image will still be different and will need special processing to understand them, but DNG is flexible enough to support any kind of camera image data, and ideally software can just support DNG and read everything without having to support all these special file formats including Zip and RAR.

30 minutes ago, cfx said:


I also thought that both the TIFF, and a DNG, contained everything, in terms of the sensor-captured data, that the RAW file did and thus wasn't a shorcoming in any way, which sounds to be wrong as well.

So DNG isn't a shortcoming, it just has baggage because you have to implement it properly or there's no point. If Nikon wants to make a variant of TIFF/EP that abides by their own rules (NEF), they can. That's less work than supporting DNG because you don't have to follow and adhere to DNG's rules.

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Ok, thanks, I'll read it again when I'm awake.

13 minutes ago, foo said:

space channel 5

@onion9@

[I would like a Ulala, and a Pudding, DD...]

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BeyondTime
15 hours ago, foo said:

From a camera manufacturer's perspective, it's asking them to write out another form of TIFF that few will use. When the engineers are designing the camera hardware they want to write the data in the most efficient and straightforward way possible for them. Standards support is a backseat concern.

Just my own opinion here, but I think Adobe's reasoning that imaging needs a common format readable by future generations is pretty sound. Pictures and video are a part of our historical record, and using proprietary formats is a bad idea imo. One of the things that I've always been sad about is the disappearance of Minolta, but of course in the film days a camera maker going under doesn't invalidate your negatives. If that happened to one of the major brands today it could over time leave a whole lot of digital negatives inaccessible.

14 hours ago, cfx said:

AFAIK the D800 doesn't have the option to output TIFF, but looking online it appears it's back in the D850.

The D800 does support TIFF

 

18 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

but as far as I know none of the major camera makers have adopted it.

I was wrong, as I was looking up information it turns out Pentax offers DNG as an output option.

 

14 hours ago, foo said:

The final version of the TIFF standard was in 1992. It's kind of like it got so flexible there's no point adding more.

From what I read on Wikipedia Adobe has petitioned ISO to update the standard to include DNG, and that is supposed to be in progress. Not sure if that's specifically the standard you are referring to here though.

 

20 hours ago, cfx said:

Nikon does not supply any kind of specs to third parties in the way that Canon and others do.

From what I read Nikon, Canon, and Sony all encrypt part of their RAW format and don't share how to decrypt it with anyone. This is basically to block third parties from accessing parts of the file.

Edited by BeyondTime

The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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2 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

One of the things that I've always been sad about is the disappearance of Minolta

Your general sentiment about lost formats is correct, but Minolta didn't truly disappear; their camera division went to Konica and was then bought by Sony; the now-discontinued Sony DSLRs used the same lens mount as the Minolta Maxxum autofocus cameras. (I may have some details wrong.)

4 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

I was wrong, as I was looking up information Pentax offers DNG as an output option.

These days, Pentax doesn't really qualify as a major camera maker lol.

37 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

From what I read Nikon, Canon, and Sony all encrypt part of their RAW format and don't share how to decrypt it with anyone. This is basically to block third parties from accessing parts of the file.

Possibly; I'm not informed on this. What I'm sure of is only Nikon doesn't share lens mount specs, flash protocols, etc. In the film days when Nikon truly made full systems of accessories this made a lot more sense than it does today.

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40 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

Just my own opinion here, but I think Adobe's reasoning that imaging needs a common format readable by future generations is pretty sound.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. I just don't think manufacturers are motivated, especially the bigger ones.

41 minutes ago, BeyondTime said:

One of the things that I've always been sad about is the disappearance of Minolta, but of course in the film days a camera maker going under doesn't invalidate your negatives.

My brother had a Maxxum 7D ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ And ya they transformed into Sony's camera division.

But the file format and understanding the contents of the possible variations in the file format are two different things. Like something may be able to read TIFFs but unable to decompress JPEG, so it won't be able to read TIFFs that contain JPEG compressed data. Similarly, if the DNG has RAW data that's arranged in a unique way from some rare camera, it's certainly better than not being in DNG because you'll still be able to read the metadata, but you may not be able to render the image.

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3 minutes ago, foo said:

Similarly, if the DNG has RAW data that's arranged in a unique way from some rare camera, it's certainly better than not being in DNG because you'll still be able to read the metadata, but you may not be able to render the image.

I was thinking about this. So DNG can act as a container for data that is still proprietary, but obviously a given DNG doesn't have to be that way, and what Adobe is doing with the format doesn't seem to be that.

Back to what I mentioned seems to be their primary use for the format now--I have PS CS6, which supports the D800 since the camera is old enough. But if I had a D850, I wouldn't be able to process its RAW files in my version of PS, because a version of ACR that is recent enough to read and understand the files from that camera doesn't work with my old PS. But by using a version of the Adobe DNG converter that understands the D850, I can create a DNG file that my PS CS6 understands. In other words, Adobe is rewriting the RAW data into some standardized format, and/or providing other information within the DNG on how to read data that isn't standardized.

I suppose the DNG converter could also be doing something in-between; changing the D850 files into a still Nikon-specific form, but one that is more generic in the sense it isn't changing with new cameras. I don't know and don't understand enough; I only know the procedure I outlined works, or is supposed to, because it's what Adobe tells you to do with new cameras and old versions of PS.

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BeyondTime
54 minutes ago, cfx said:

but Minolta didn't truly disappear

 

30 minutes ago, foo said:

My brother had a Maxxum 7D ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ And ya they transformed into Sony's camera division.

You can't buy Minolta branded cameras anymore. I'd probably feel less sad about it if Sony sold cameras under the Minolta brand. It's more of a sentimentality thing than a practical thing. Canon & Nikon made better cameras than Minolta even back then, which isn't to say Minolta's weren't good though.

I knew they were Konica - Minolta now because we use their copiers at work.

When I was a teenager I really wanted an X-700, but my family was poor, so that was never going to happen. Need to get one for my collection on eBay.

 

Edited by BeyondTime

The difference between Dollfie Dreams and Heroin? Heroin is illegal, Dollfie Dreams probably should be.

“Empty wallets, full hearts.” That’s probably an apt description for the effects of DD addiction

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foo
5 minutes ago, cfx said:

But by using a version of the Adobe DNG converter that understands the D850, I can create a DNG file that my PS CS6 understands.

Probably not actually. Even Nikon needs to release a new version of Nikon Capture to support newer cameras. The reason is that the RAW data is just a dump of numbers, and you don't know enough about how those numbers were made. For example, if the camera has an anti-aliasing filter over the sensor or not (D800 vs. D800E processing). That affects how you're going to interpret the pixels to create an image out of it. A newer camera might also have a different natural gamma curve to the numbers (I'm BSing a bit here but work with me). Like a red pixel that was 50% bright on the D800, the same number is now 25% bright on the D850. So assuming that the D850 produces numbers consistently with the D800 isn't going to work. It's really RAW data off the sensor, to know what it means you have to know why the camera is making those numbers.

That's where DNG falls short. Yes, it's a nice consistent container that can hold all types of RAW data, but by nature of being RAW you have to know why those numbers were made to make sense of them.

13 minutes ago, cfx said:


In other words, Adobe is rewriting the RAW data into some standardized format, and/or providing other information within the DNG on how to read data that isn't standardized.

It is useful that it standardizes information, but it's more about making information accessible. Like even if it indicates that the sensor has an AA filter on it or not, I'm sure there's more details needed that it just can't give CS6 enough to go on to decode it properly. If it were able to do that then the DNG converter would incorporate most of ACR itself.

 

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