[Canada_Rockies]

Just think, gang - if you were using any other brand out there, you would not even have the choice. Only Pentax gives this option of more than one RAW format, that I know of.

[K200D]

If you're going to work on it with adobe anyways, why go through the trouble of converting PEF to DNG?? For the sake of SD card space? That's the same argument people have when they shoot JPG instead of Raw. So why not just shoot DNG straight up?

[Mike Cash]

Just think, gang - if you were using any other brand out there, you would not even have the choice. Only Pentax gives this option of more than one RAW format, that I know of.

My friend uses a Canon and lamented to me that camera companies don't give users the option of recording in DNG.

"My K20D has that."

He also lamented the lack of an intervalometer.

"My K20D has that."

[Richard Day]

If you're going to work on it with adobe anyways, why go through the trouble of converting PEF to DNG?? For the sake of SD card space? That's the same argument people have when they shoot JPG instead of Raw. So why not just shoot DNG straight up?

Simply because not all Raw converters support DNG or apply the specific camera models colour profile. Capture One and Bibble come to mind.

I agree that if you are working Adobe only (I don't) it's a moot point, but you still need to compress the camera DNG files to save disk space, so you may as well work with PEF anyway and convert to compressed DNG, that way it's still a single step, but you will get the advantage of approx 50% more shots per card and the choice of different RC's if you choose to do so later.

Shooting PEF gives you all the options, you save space on your card and drives, you can save to compressed DNG if you wish. Remember you cannot make a PEF from a DNG, but you can the other way round. I don't like one way streets!

There is a lot more under the hood to Raw formats and Raw converter choice than is apparent from just a cursory glance (which is what most people do).

I will always choose to shoot in the makers native format until the whole industry agrees to adopt a universal format - DNG is not there yet by a long way. I see as much chance of this as that hot place freezing over!

EDIT

For an in depth overview and discussion of Raw formats and DNG, I suggest visiting this section in the OpenRaw website
http://www.openraw.org/node/1482

---

Last edited by Richard Day; 11-09-2008 at 03:44 AM. Reason: Added footnote

[Richard Day]

My friend uses a Canon and lamented to me that camera companies don't give users the option of recording in DNG.

"My K20D has that."

He also lamented the lack of an intervalometer.

"My K20D has that."

DNG option is of relatively small importance, most native formats can be converted in a simple process later. Compressed lossless Raw is more useful, i.e. PEF since K10D onwards.

No camera maker provides DNG lossless compression as a native choice, even if they only provide DNG as a format, i.e. Leica, Ricoh, Samsung, they still need to be compressed later to save disk space, please note that some Raw converters don't support compressed DNG.

Intervalometer is a much more useful feature of the K20D, plus others of course!

[laissezfaire]

I like DNG's because they are not a proprietary format (though the way Pentax has implemented compression in their converter software, it may as well be).
I also was able to find a little Windows registry thingie that allows me to see thumbnails of DNG files rather than tiles or icons.
I couldn't find one that would do the same thing with PEFs.
This convenience was what tipped me over to DNGs.

Of course you can view PEFs as icon "thumbnails" in vista. Just like any RAW format, you need to download the codec:

Software Downloads : Support & Service : PENTAX

It's so easy, even I could do it.

[pingflood]

Just a quick note. If you're using Lightroom one option is to convert imported files to DNG. That way you could shoot in PEF to save space on the memory card and then convert to DNG when importing the shots.

[GoneToTheDogs]

Is there a codec or equivalent to allow thumbnail view of either PEFs or DNGs in Windoz XP?



[quote=laissezfaire;394871]Of course you can view PEFs as icon "thumbnails" in vista. Just like any RAW format, you need to download the codec:

[jeffkrol]

Yes it is.

You may find the following information useful:



[/imgwide]

Very interesting richard but a few questions and some thoughts.
1) Where is a program that can "uncompress" the PEF RAWS?
2)Any documentation on how they are compressed?
Hopefully Pentax didn't use the "virtual lossless" type algorithms Nikon did.
One more area where they should have made it optional. I really hate when they lock a choice. To compress or not should be my choice, not theirs.... sorry personal rant.

[jeffkrol]

[QUOTE=Rottie*Lover;395364]Is there a codec or equivalent to allow thumbnail view of either PEFs or DNGs in Windoz XP?

Of course you can view PEFs as icon "thumbnails" in vista. Just like any RAW format, you need to download the codec:

As to PEF's I guess it's yes and no.....
See this thread re: Arcsoft ect.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=29768002
And this re: Windows:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1036&message=29767001

[Fredshome]

Also-
In my Reproductions class, our teacher explained that DNG (which also has a lossless compression option) are becoming standard because it's made to be standard and change very little over time. So while the Pentax raw format works perfectly today, it may not a few years from now. DNG, on the other hand, was designed to change very little over time.

There is some open source software (essentially dcraw & co) that satisfactorily processes PEF files, so this is a non-issue since that software won't disappear.

Should Pentax obscure its format in the years to come to the point that it can only be read by licensed software, then users will just switch to DNG.
However if they removed DNG support in that context, some may have to leave the brand (I know I would)... executives have been known to make stupid decisions...

And regarding DNG becoming a standard... That's hard to tell. It may become a standard in the same way that Microsoft's .DOC is a standard. A format that is widely used but that cannot be guaranteed to be fully read by anybody (it has provisions to make it so, at the request of the camera makers).

And I'd rather use PNG than TIFF as a generic large colour depth format. So there.

[Kerrowdown]

I shoot pef and use CS3, purely because for me it's the best of both worlds, smaller files and I can always convert these to dng, tiff, jpeg, etc, at later date if and when required.

You can't go back from these other guys to to pef !

[GoneToTheDogs]

Thanks, Jeff...


[quote=jeffkrol;395379]

Is there a codec or equivalent to allow thumbnail view of either PEFs or DNGs in Windoz XP?


As to PEF's I guess it's yes and no.....
See this thread re: Arcsoft ect.
Viewing RAW Thumbnails in Windows XP Explorer...: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
And this re: Windows:
Re: 64 bit codecs from Pentax?: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

[WheresWaldo]

I shoot PEF to save space on SDHC cards. Then when transfering to my storage/work media (1TB SATA) I use the Adobe DNG Converter packaged with Camera Raw. If you really want to you can also embed the PEF inside the DNG file so you have both available for archival storage.

When using the DNG Converter, make sure you turn compression on and do not use Linear DNG as it loses a small amount of data during the conversion.

[Marc Sabatella]

1) Where is a program that can "uncompress" the PEF RAWS?

Any software that can view a PEF must uncompress it internally. If you mean, ncompress and then write out a new uncompress version of the file, I can't imagine such software would exist - there would no market for it. I can just see the ads: "run our software on your files to make them bigger, with no advantage gained whatsoever!" :-)