[PBandJ]

Belgium too, just a little more patience, not enough saved yet.

Price is 1.299 euros !! Anybody flying from the US to Europe in the near future ?

I have an American friend who lives in Belgium and come back for the holidays.. If you can wait until Jan 2014, I can inquire.

[Barry Pearson]

I guess I wont argue with they guy who writes the Wikipedia articles on DNG......

Chuckle! There is a lot of rubbish on Wikipedia! (I try not to add to the rubbish).

My full material on DNG is on my website, here. I started using and analysing DNG in 2004, a couple of weeks after it was launched. I don't do much about it nowadays, because it is better known and there are some good experts around. In camera, I always shoot DNG, not PEF or JPEG.

Information about the specification is here. It may not be fully up to date, but it covers the 1.2.0.0 version.

[wpompen]

No sign of one (mine) in Holland... :-(

[Upstairs501]

I have an American friend who lives in Belgium and come back for the holidays.. If you can wait until Jan 2014, I can inquire.

That would be great !

[normhead]

MIne's here, but it's a really crappy day, I went out and cut a tree off my power wires or I wouldn't even be on line right now. I'm not inclined to go out and do any shooting. The first thing different I noticed after set up, when I put on my A-400 I have to go into the menu to change the focal length, it doesn't just come up on the back screen. But since I only use a fe MF lenses, maybe it will just stay there, and I won't have to input something every time I put the 400 on. 6 of one, half dozen of the other.

[Class A]

Until Adobe updates LR5 to support the K-3 people are not going to get good results.

Hopefully Barry's response has clarified that this isn't true.

In general, one can use old software to process new DNG files without any implied loss in image quality.

[Winder]

Hopefully Barry's response has clarified that this isn't true.

In general, one can use old software to process new DNG files without any implied loss in image quality.

Features like the multi-area white balance are not supported by the current programs. I'm using LR4.4 and I'm getting good results, but not all the features of the camera are supported.

[Lucky-Luc]

Just got mine today, there not out in quebec yet, so this morning I drove 400km to Ottawa at Henry;s to get one.
The first charge of that batterie is slow, driving me nuts but still

[Class A]

Features like the multi-area white balance are not supported by the current programs. I'm using LR4.4 and I'm getting good results, but not all the features of the camera are supported.

What features apart from multi-area white balance are you thinking of?

With respect to multi-area white balance: It appears to me that this feature applies different white balance adjustments to different parts in the image. If that is the case, I doubt it will ever be supported by LR (ACR) unless this feature finds more wide-spread adoption among more popular cameras.

N.B., given that white balance adjustments could be done before demosaicing, in principle, the adjustments could be performed on the RAW data in camera already. In this case, there wouldn't be any need for special RAW converter support.

[rawr]

If that is the case, I doubt it will ever be supported by LR

Why? If the WB adjustment details are in the EXIF (and the new volume of EXIF data in the K-3 is huge, due to details about all the 86000 AE metering areas), they may (in theory) be able to programmatically parse it and apply the adjustments, just like they do to the 77 AE area exposure at the moment with Pentax. Other cameras with 86000+ AE metering areas and their tweaks are also successfully processed by Adobe and others with few problems (assuming everything the camera maker does is well documented).

[Winder]

What features apart from multi-area white balance are you thinking of?

With respect to multi-area white balance: It appears to me that this feature applies different white balance adjustments to different parts in the image. If that is the case, I doubt it will ever be supported by LR (ACR) unless this feature finds more wide-spread adoption among more popular cameras.

N.B., given that white balance adjustments could be done before demosaicing, in principle, the adjustments could be performed on the RAW data in camera already. In this case, there wouldn't be any need for special RAW converter support.

I don't know. I'm just now trying everything out.

DxO Pro Optic 9 doesn't recognize the K-3 DNG files, but it does my K-5. DNG is not as universal as everyone seems to think.

"The process of DNG conversion involves extracting raw image data from the source file and assembling it according to the DNG specification into the required TIFF format. This optionally involves compressing it. Metadata as defined in the DNG specification is also put into that TIFF assembly. Some of this metadata is based on the characteristics of the camera, and especially of its sensor. Other metadata may be image-dependent or camera-setting dependent. So a DNG converter must have knowledge of the camera model concerned, and be able to process the source raw image file including key metadata. Optionally a JPEG preview is obtained and added. Finally, all of this is written as a DNG file."

[Class A]

Why? If the WB adjustment details are in the EXIF (and the new volume of EXIF data in the K-3 is huge, due to details about all the 86000 AE metering areas), they may (in theory) be able to programmatically parse it and apply the adjustments, just like they do to the 77 AE area exposure at the moment with Pentax.

If the issue is just parsing a single pair of colour temperature and tint values then there is no problem. But then there is a standard place for this pair so nothing requires change.

As I wrote earlier, I'm not sure what the new multi-area WB is exactly, but if it requires applying different WB settings to various areas of the image than Adobe would have to write an algorithm for that. I highly doubt that they would do that for Pentax alone. Potentially, they could reuse an existing DNG opcode for this, but even this route would require some programming and I just don't see it happening. They don't even try to emulate the Pentax JPG profiles which would be much easier to do.

What do you think Adobe is doing with the data from the 77 exposure fields? That data is stored in a "makers notes" field (among other data), but I it isn't used for the RAW conversion process. Or do you have information to the contrary?

[rawr]

Or do you have information to the contrary?

No, just a guess in relation to those data items.

If there was data available in the DNG EXIF/metadata though, and it was able to be useful in processing a RAW, I would be surprised if software developers did not aim to take full advantage of it.

At it's simplest, many RAW tools already read the camera model and lens data from the EXIF (and even Image Tone, Scene Settings and more in the case of PDCU), and use it to help them craft an image out of the RAWs, so sucking up even more camera variables into their processing model (like more exposure values or special AWB data points) would not be totally far-fetched.

[Class A]

DxO Pro Optic 9 doesn't recognize the K-3 DNG files, but it does my K-5. DNG is not as universal as everyone seems to think.

In general there is no good reason for software to not process the K-3 DNG files. It is rather likely that if you patched the camera identification field that the DNG filed would be accepted and interpreted correctly.

DxO Pro Optic software may be a notable exception as they may need to incorporate very specific information about the sensor in order to achieve their highly optimised performance. There maybe some other software for which some camera-specific data may be relevant and hence there'd be a need know how to get to that data, but in general the storage format of the RAW data is standardised.

In general, however, Adobe does not want to write a new DNG parser for each new camera.
LR 3.6 reads K-5 II DNG files even though the K-5 II did not exist yet when LR 3 development was ceased.

[Class A]

No, just a guess in relation to those data items.

I'd be willing to bet money on the fact that Adobe does not look at the metering data of Pentax cameras.

They are minimising the need to read brand-specific information. Furthermore metering data has no impact on the development of RAW files.

At it's simplest, many RAW tools already read the camera model and lens data from the EXIF (and even Image Tone, Scene Settings and more in the case of PDCU), and use it to help them craft an image out of the RAWs, so sucking up even more camera variables into their processing model (like more exposure values or special AWB data points) would not be totally far-fetched.

You have to distinguish between Adobe and software bundled with a camera.

Bundled software will make all sorts of use of extra data.

Adobe on the other hand cannot possibly support all extras of all models. For them accessing a standardised EXIF field is worth their while. Accessing a brand-specific field is a wholly different matter as you'll have to work out how to properly interpret the data and there is no guarantee that investment required in reading and interpreting the data will pay for the next model of the same brand.