Raw Convertors

ray wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:31:38 +1000, The pixel Bandit wrote:

Eric Stevens wrote:
On 30 Jul 2009 02:26:06 GMT, ray wrote:
Just out of curiosity, have you tried ufraw?

I think I tried it on the raw files from the D70 but abandoned it. I
haven't tried it on the D300.



Eric Stevens

It's not real brilliant on the FF Nikons. My new D3 just arrived an hour
ago and I tried its files on PSP. Same sort of thing as with the D700.
No highlight preservation... Which confirms my thoughts that software
plays a serious part in producing the results Nikon are getting.

So the answer is that *neither* of them have tried
UFRAW, and have no idea how well it works.

Incidentally (ray is well aware of this) the conversion
engine used by UFRAW is the /dcraw/ code by Dave Coffin.
(It is true that more commercial raw converters use the
exact same /dcraw/ code than not! Hence most claimes of
differences are not valid.)

Thanks for the information - that would tend to make Nikon a no-go for
me, then, since I'm totally Linux.

Which of course is perfectly compatible with Nikon and
all other manufacturers.

The usual claimed differences between various raw
converters have more to do with the default values
rather than with how well the converter can work when
configured to accomplish what any given user wants.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

In message , David J
Taylor
writes
Chris H wrote:
In message , ray
writes
Thanks for the information - that would tend to make Nikon a no-go
for me, then, since I'm totally Linux.

Strange decision... You base your photographic gear on a computer OS?

Yes, I thought that as well, Chris. I choose my applications first,
and then they more or less dictate the OS.

For photography I choose the cameras/lenses first and the support
computer second.

I would have expected, though, that the WINE support in Linux might
have allowed most raw converters to run.....

Or have a dual boot machine
--
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\/\/\/\/\ Chris Hills Staffs England /\/\/\/\/
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:37:02 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:


The usual claimed differences between various raw
converters have more to do with the default values
rather than with how well the converter can work when
configured to accomplish what any given user wants.


Bingo!

Chris H wrote:
In message , ray
writes
Thanks for the information - that would tend to make Nikon a no-go for
me, then, since I'm totally Linux.

Strange decision... You base your photographic gear on a computer OS?


You've gotten the wrong idea Chris...
Owning Full Frame Nikon cameras means developing the RAW
images from them in Capture 2NX or suffering a degrading of
the potential in them. This has been my findings after buying
several RAW development programs that work very well on the
smaller sensor Nikons and other brands of camera.

I don't know why but I suspect that much of the information
needed to demosaic a full Frame Nikon RAW file is unreadable
by most programs. This does not happen with crop sensor Nikons.

The most significant examples I have but won't post publicly
are wedding photos. A big shift to red, noise that isn't there
when processed with either of the capture programs and a
miss-match of colour bleeding, all begin to occur with ISO of
32,000 or higher. None of this happens with Capture 2 NX. It
is constant between my D700 and the new D3 files.

The only reason someone would choose to use Linux for
processing RAW files - and be limited to using Gimp to edit
them is choice.

I'd think - although I've been too busy to do any tests, that
a D90, a D3000 or and CCD and crop sensor Nikon camera would
work quite OK for Linus users.

It's just the Full frame Nikons using high ISO and RAW capture
where the Nikon software is light years ahead of rivals.
Capture-one from Phase-one isn't far behind incidentally but
it too, lacks the fine grained tuning Nikon software has. It's
the God awful interface Nikon provide that ****es me off so
much. What ever happened to Bill Gate's dream of Windows
having a common interface?

--

I'm coming back as a Pelican...
Watch out because I'm staying the worlds biggest ass-hole!

me wrote:
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:37:02 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:


The usual claimed differences between various raw
converters have more to do with the default values
rather than with how well the converter can work when
configured to accomplish what any given user wants.


Bingo!

That would depend on the RAW converter being able to
understand *ALL* the instruction in a given RAW file for
demosaicing the image.

--

I'm coming back as a Pelican...
Watch out because I'm staying the worlds biggest ass-hole!

With the present tendency of camera manufacturers to embed color fringing
correction and also I believe pincushion and barrel distortion correction
into their proprietary RAW conversion software, it seems to me that we are
pretty well limited to the camera makers software. What do you think the
chances are that an independent graphics software company will be able to
keep up with the never ending influx of new camera models and new lens? And
if they do try, then they may face all of the problems that cad companies
face trying to keep up with Autodesk and its changes which are made
primarily to make life difficult for its competitors.


"me" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:37:02 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:


The usual claimed differences between various raw
converters have more to do with the default values
rather than with how well the converter can work when
configured to accomplish what any given user wants.


Bingo!

YDOD wrote:
With the present tendency of camera manufacturers to embed color
fringing correction and also I believe pincushion and barrel distortion
correction into their proprietary RAW conversion software, it seems to
me that we are pretty well limited to the camera makers software. What
do you think the chances are that an independent graphics software
company will be able to keep up with the never ending influx of new
camera models and new lens? And if they do try, then they may face all
of the problems that cad companies face trying to keep up with Autodesk
and its changes which are made primarily to make life difficult for its
competitors.

I think that about sums up the whole industry.
Where I have a few issues is in people expecting Linux type
openness from profit making companies.

I spent about $200 on Capture 2NX over and above the many
thousands I spent on Nikon cameras. It should have come free
with the camera.

I found Canon's DPP (that did come free) to be a better RAW
developer (for 5D files) than Adobe's ACR yet, a lot of
photographers believe and expect these 3rd party RAW
processors to be as good as the ones put out by the camera
maker. Why is that?

Capture has a facility after demosaicing to edit in your
favourite editor, DPP has a "edit in photoshop" choice after
development. I can declare any program to be the default
editor with all the camera maker's supplied demosaic algorithms.

Why do do people still insist Adobe and their ACR or some
other unrelated software developer should be able to have
access to trade secrets just so they can open and demosaic
commercially guarded image files?

The fact Kodachrome absolutely had to be processed in Kodak's
own 14 step, patented formula chemicals - and by Kodak, didn't
stop people using it, why should it be any different now?


--

I'm coming back as a Pelican...
Watch out because I'm staying the worlds biggest ass-hole!

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:43:51 +0100, Chris H wrote:

In message , ray
writes
Thanks for the information - that would tend to make Nikon a no-go for
me, then, since I'm totally Linux.

Strange decision... You base your photographic gear on a computer OS?

Well, if the computer software cannot adequately translate the data, it
would be pretty useless, wouldn't it?

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:07:09 +0100, Chris H wrote:

In message , David J
Taylor
writes
Chris H wrote:
In message , ray
writes
Thanks for the information - that would tend to make Nikon a no-go
for me, then, since I'm totally Linux.

Strange decision... You base your photographic gear on a computer OS?

Yes, I thought that as well, Chris. I choose my applications first, and
then they more or less dictate the OS.

For photography I choose the cameras/lenses first and the support
computer second.

That would depend a little on which is more important to you.


I would have expected, though, that the WINE support in Linux might have
allowed most raw converters to run.....

Or have a dual boot machine

I don't 'dual boot' - though I do, on ocassion run another Linux
distribution in a virtual machine. I don't have a legal copy of MS and
don't intend to buy one - and I eschew WINE.

On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:40:08 -0600, YDOD wrote:

With the present tendency of camera manufacturers to embed color
fringing correction and also I believe pincushion and barrel distortion
correction into their proprietary RAW conversion software, it seems to
me that we are pretty well limited to the camera makers software. What
do you think the chances are that an independent graphics software
company will be able to keep up with the never ending influx of new
camera models and new lens? And if they do try, then they may face all
of the problems that cad companies face trying to keep up with Autodesk
and its changes which are made primarily to make life difficult for its
competitors.


I fear you may be correct. Ironic, isn't it? Makers shoot themselves in
the foot by not releasing the information to allow proper decoders to be
made, so certain folks wind up not buying their products. BTW - don't
give me the 'proprietary information' garbage - everyone in the industry
already knows it.



"me" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:37:02 -0800, (Floyd L.
Davidson) wrote:


The usual claimed differences between various raw converters have more
to do with the default values rather than with how well the converter
can work when configured to accomplish what any given user wants.


Bingo!