kevin m
Veteran
From the article:
God, I wish that were true. Trying to dig detail out of color neg shadows proves it utterly false.
God, I wish that were true. Trying to dig detail out of color neg shadows proves it utterly false.
Film: The Real Raw
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RayPA
Ignore It (It'll go away)
I've wondered about this, because of his notorious "sense of humor." Check out this quote from his 'RAW vs JPEG' article:
"Raw files are just like raw olives: you need to cook or otherwise process them before you can use them. They also go bad fast if left in the raw state and can keep forever once processed to something like olive oil or JPGs.
Horror of horrors, I've heard that the latest Nikon software can't even read the NEFs from older cameras and that you need to load older software to read them. Just like raw eggs, unless you process it into something like an egg-albumen print or a JPG, the raw files may go bad if left unprocessed."
OK, it's "funny," but it is misinformation. In fairness, he clears it up in the next paragraph:
"It's not the file that goes bad, silly, it's the potential ability of future software to read it. Since raw data is entirely unique to each camera, and different even for different firmware revisions for the same camera, raw isn't even a format, even though the different files have the same suffix like .CRW or .NEF.
Raw files themselves don't go bad. What goes bad is that in 10 or 20 years, whatever software we're running on whatever sort of computer we'll be using may not be able to open a long-forgotten 20-year old proprietary file."
It's not a bad article. I like it better than the ...Real Raw article. He should know better, or perhaps he does (?).
sojournerphoto
Veteran
Yes indeed - look at the Zeiss Camera Lens News article on MTFs if you want to be made miserable about colour neg film, although Kodak's curves for Ektar are better. The CZ article does make good noises about slow Black and White however and includes the curve for T-max 100 - which is impressive
Mike
russianRF
Fed 5C User
*My* point is that Internet advertising hasn't worked like that in years. He needs to produce RESULTS -- AD views, not just page views, CLICK THROUGHs, not just clicks.
But as I've implied, if he is making his $0.02 for every visit I make, and then again for everyone I cause to visit his site, then great I hope he enjoys his $20-30 monthly he gets from all the haters clicking on his site. But it doesn't really make him some kind of marketing genius; trolling isn't actually that hard to do, if you have lots of time and little shame.
russianRF
Fed 5C User
Something else, RayPA. For all his doting on film, ever realize how you can compare RAW processing with film processing? Well, not really -- RAW processing you can do at easily home and can be, if needed, instantly upgraded. If your emulsion falls out of production (say, Kodak gets sick of Kodachrome), you're SOL. So for someone who's so upset that RAW doesn't provide instant gratification, his film rants are rather silly.
And while he has some kind of point about RAW software, I think it's disingenuous to argue that the most popular RAW formats will someday vanish and no one will ever be able to read them again. That's a nice feature about digital; as it progresses, it becomes easier and easier for new generations of computers to emulate older generations. I wouldn't be surprised if, 20 years from now, you could buy software designed to do nothing but open old RAW formats into the latest and greatest format. Assuming, of course, that Photoshop doesn't roll that functionality in with the price of admission. If he really cared about RAW "lock in" he'd be writing articles about the importance of Adobe's DNG, frankly.
Tuolumne
Veteran
All digital files are "raw". They are all just bits. They all need interpretation by software. The difference between photo raw and jpg, is that the jpg files have been cooked a bit more (i.e. processed by the camera more). If you use photo processing software like Picasa3, which automagically processes raw and jpg files alike, you notice no difference between them. As for the ability to go back and get ever better scans of "raw" film - sure, if you have the time. Who does? Who will? Besides, newer generations of digital processing software also let you go back and get more from your digital files (whether raw or jpg), for example GenuineFractals which lets you up-rez lower rez files to higher rez files. The entire argument is specious, but that kind of controversy is what draws readers, not the measured, balanced approach.
/T
/T
RayPA
Ignore It (It'll go away)
+1
it's hard to project, but it seems that once support for a file is added to an application it usually carries forward indefinitely with that application for as long as that application continues. I don't know if it's comparable, but I'm thinking of printer or scanner drivers and profiles that are added to applications (like Vuescan for example). I saw online where Lightroom has support for something like a 190 RAW file formats (!).
