[microlight]

PEF here, for no better reason that DNG thumbnails take an age to display in Windows Explorer, whilst with PEFs they are pretty much instant.

[reeftool]

If you use Adobe products like Lightroom and Photoshop, using DNG is a step saver because the software will convert it to DNG anyhow. If you are not using Adobe software, it doesn't matter. There is a downside to DNG in that Windows won't natively display your thumbnails or shots. You have to download a codec from Adobe. From what I understand, there isn't a current codec for Windows 10 yet either but there will probably be one soon. Yes, the codec is a little slow in Windows 7.

Pentax did a joint licensing deal with Microsoft several years ago. There were few people freaking out with forum threads at the time with conspiracy theories but it basically insured that Pentax's PEF would be readable in Windows and Pentax is licensed to use the FAT file format with SD cards.

[Kerrowdown]

DNG as it has become industry standard (rightly or wrongly), even some Pentax cameras no longer support PEF.

[sTi]

Just to clarify some misconceptions from earlier in this thread: The sRGB vs. AdobeRGB setting has no effect whatsoever on Raw files, this setting only affects the color space of JPGs. Raw files do not yet have a color space assigned to them, this is done later in the Raw converter software.

[Oakland Rob]

PEF can have an advantage in using XMP sidecars for certain metadata. That can be an impediment as well. But there are now some applications (on Mac and iOS at least) that can pass editing and parametric info back and forth via sidecars, which is much quicker than passing a DNG back and forth. It's also easier in some ways to edit the exif and metadata directly in sidecars than in the DNG file, but for most people that won't ever be an issue.

[max_pyne]

Just to clarify some misconceptions from earlier in this thread: The sRGB vs. AdobeRGB setting has no effect whatsoever on Raw files, this setting only affects the color space of JPGs. Raw files do not yet have a color space assigned to them, this is done later in the Raw converter software.

of course, just answered the question. ☺

[sTi]

of course, just answered the question. ☺

Sorry, I didn't mean to throw a bad light on your (perfectly correct) answer to that question

[emalvick]

PEF can have an advantage in using XMP sidecars for certain metadata. That can be an impediment as well. But there are now some applications (on Mac and iOS at least) that can pass editing and parametric info back and forth via sidecars, which is much quicker than passing a DNG back and forth. It's also easier in some ways to edit the exif and metadata directly in sidecars than in the DNG file, but for most people that won't ever be an issue.

Another benefit to having the XMP sidecars is that if you have a workflow for backing things up (which we all should), it is a lot easier to back-up the changing XMP's than the whole RAW file (which you end up having to do with DNG). i.e. incremental backups are smaller when most of your edits are confined to the XMP file.

That being said, I use DNG files because I had software that wouldn't read the PEF files, and I had a bad habit of moving PEF files without taking the XMP's with them. It's a bit of a catch-22. But, if I was a much more careful person, I'd choose the PEF option these days to simplify my incremental backups.