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M 240 RAW Files


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INow with DNG files being the Leica raw should I still be converting or not? Thanks.

What do you expect to gain from a conversion from DNG to DNG?

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File size doesn't matter these days storage is cheap, workflow speed is more important to me over file size. Also apparently if you convert it to DNG on import Lightroom is faster with applying edits?

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There's some confusion in the discussion I think. The M (Typ 240 ).can optionally apply lossless compression I'm not aware that those files present any problems for other raw converters currently?

On import the Adobe applications will (no longer optionally) apply further lossless compression. Whether or not other applications can open and work with those will be for someone else to comment on.

 

Importing with Lightroom or ACR will optionally make two copies for you, one exactly as from camera and one with their lossless compression. Unless something has changed since I last looked. I'm not on my imaging computer currently.

 

File sizes do matter if you shoot a lot. I have 11,000 frames from my M (typ 240) and now with the S2 I have 1800 frames from the first couple of shoots. Those are 75MB each if no compression is used. Maybe 34-43 if the lossless compression option in camera is selected.

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Do you know what the differences might be? and whether it is really worth going through this extra step?

 

Well, it does get confusing unless you read the DNG Specifications and Adobe's white papers on DNG use. Basically, it's contained in the DNG who created it, and LR/ACR treats foreign DNG files differently. Leica uses it as a container for it's RAW data, but Adobe is more than willing to put proprietary information in the DNG, if it believes Adobe created it. This makes it unreadable by third party software. This is separate from compressing the data, which uses standard routines.

 

I don't believe it's worth the extra step, because it means your are tied to LR/ACR for editing these files forever.

 

The extra performance is because LR does not need to access it's database for modifications to the image, those changes are contained in the DNG.

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Which other applications ?

 

 

I will start with Capture one & Aperture. Those are the two I tried. Adobe says the third party developers should follow the updated standard, and the third party developers say, you should never alter a RAW file. So as I left my Ressearch on the subject, the DNG standard was at an standstill as far as acceptance.

 

You can read the spec and adobe's white papers on the subject yourself. C1 and Apple had docs on it too. Adobe is very open about the subject, including it's detractors.

 

There was quite a discussion on this forum about it, if you care to search for it.

 

P.S. You have to understand that a DNG is really a TIFF variant. The biggest difference is it's purpose.

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I will start with Capture one & Aperture. Those are the two I tried. Adobe says the third party developers should follow the updated standard, and the third party developers say, you should never alter a RAW file.

 

Interesting.

I don't understand what the technical problem really is but I think that if an application claims support for a file format, then it must be updated whenever the file format is updated.

The sentence "you should never alter a RAW file" does not compute in my brain :)

 

By the way, Apple Aperture is officially dead.

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The sentence "you should never alter a RAW file" does not compute in my brain

 

A raw file contains the picture and the associated data exactly as captured by the camera without any transformation.

 

An altered raw file is - by definition - not the picture and the associated data as captured by the camera. It might be more useful to you, but it is not raw any more.

 

Reminds me a bit of the tag line of the Crunchy Frog sketch.

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Interesting.

 

I don't understand what the technical problem really is but I think that if an application claims support for a file format, then it must be updated whenever the file format is updated.

 

The sentence "you should never alter a RAW file" does not compute in my brain :)

 

 

 

By the way, Apple Aperture is officially dead.

 

 

Too bad the real world does not work like that. Sorry to hear about your brain ;)

 

Aperture is not dead, it's just been merged with iPhoto and renamed. Expect it to be more of a core application in the future. That's kind of the way Apple does stuff.

 

Basically, a RAW file is output of your camera, you never want to alter it, because every change you make either reduces it's quality or adds the potential for corruption. You should always make a copy before you make a change to the file or store the changes elsewhere. That is one of the purposes of the database in LR or C1. The old sidecar file also did this.

 

If Leica created a universally accepted RAW like Canon or Nikon, this would be a non issue, because adobe respects those formats. But Leica didn't, which introduces these issues.

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