«

() wrote in
news: oups.com:

> Bert Hyman wrote:
>
>> A copy of Photoshop (for Windows) goes for about $600. Do you
>> think the average consumer of a P&S camera who wants to print 4x6
>> glossies wants to buy that and then post-process every image?
>>
>> The overwhelming majority of digital camera users wouldn't know
>> what to do with a RAW image if you gave it to them, and if you
>> tried to explain it, they'd tell you to get lost.
>
> Well why not make all cars automatic transmission? After all, most
> car drivers would tell you that automatics are much easier to
> drive.

There are some cars made with manual transmissions, just as there are
some cameras made with raw file capability.

Those who want them will seek them out.

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN |

(rafe b) wrote in
news: t:

>
> "Bert Hyman" <> wrote in message
> news:Xns986D5C3E2C789VeebleFetzer@127.0.0.1...
>> () wrote in
>> news: ups.com:
>>
>>> I honestly don't understand why every digital camera doesn't
>>> offer RAW, after all every digital camera captures in its own RAW
>>> format and its up to Adobe et al. to convert it into a useable
>>> image.
>>
>> A copy of Photoshop (for Windows) goes for about $600. Do you
>> think the average consumer of a P&S camera who wants to print 4x6
>> glossies wants to buy that and then post-process every image?
>
>
> That's a fallacious argument. There are plenty of
> free and/or inexpensive tools these days that do
> a good job of converting numerous RAW formats.

Fine; ignore the cost.

Do you think the average consumer of a P&S camera who wants to print
4x6 glossies wants to post-process every image?

Those who want raw file formats can find cameras that provide them.

The idea that every camera should output some raw format is silly.

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN |

wrote:
> My fantastic Canon S 50 has finally given up the ghost after about 3
> years of much use and abuse. Looking at the specs for the current
> model, S 80 I notice that it doesn't do RAW format. A bit more digging
> and I find that if I want to stay with RAW I'll have to go to a SLR
> digital camera.
>
> 2 questions:
>
> Are there any compacts (non SLR's) that do RAW?
>
> Why are the manufacturers dropping their support for RAW from all but
> SLR's?
>
> Mark

Another compact camera with RAW support to consider is the Ricoh GR
Digital. It generates RAW files in the Adobe DNG format but it takes
the camera 10 seconds to store each RAW file to the SD card.

I also like to shoot in RAW format and like you I am dissapointed by
the lack of RAW support (e.g. the Canon G7 which can easily be fixed by
a firmware upgrade if Canon decides to do us the favour) by the latest
compact digital cameras. I think that the main reasons for this are the
following:

1. Traditional SLR camera manufacturers with a big line of SLR-type
lenses like Canon and Nikon want to make the serious
amateurs/enthusiasts to buy one of their entry level SLRs rather than a
compact camera. In order to do that they stopped producing prosumer
compact cameras and/or limit the features of their top compact models
e.g. by removing RAW support. The reason they want people to buy their
SLRs is because when someone buys an SLR he locks himself to their
system and they make most of their profit by selling lenses which are
highly overpriced. An SLR user, even if he buys his SLR with a kit
lens, he will most certainly buy at least one more better lens at some
point in the future. And perhaps an external flash as well. And when he
decides to upgrade he will prefer to buy an SLR from the same brand in
order to be able to use his lenses rather than move to another brand.
SLRs make better business sense for these companies. And to that I
would like to add my personal opinion that the SLR technology with the
current line of 35mm lenses does not really make sense for digital
photography.

2. Although allowing a camera to record images in RAW format is trivial
since the data coming out of the sensor is already in this format,
saving a RAW file to a memory card can be a problem if the camera does
not have a fast enough write speed. I am not aware of any compact
camera today in the market with RAW support that can save these files
faster than say 4-5 seconds while in most cases the writing time takes
about 10 seconds. This makes the RAW format not a good choice and even
enthusiasts get frustrated after a while with these long delays.
Improving the write speed means faster data transfers from the sensor
to the camera and faster hardware for the card unit which results in
higher manufacturing costs. Therefore it makes sense for a camera
manufacturer to drop RAW support all together rather than risk a higher
price or embarassing reviews and user comments regarding slow
performance issues.

On Tue, 31 Oct 2006 13:48:17 GMT, Richard Kettlewell
<> wrote:

> writes:
>> Daniel Silevitch wrote:
>
>>>> This is getting desparate, I don't think there are any compacts
>>>> that do RAW!!! What a gap, begging to be filled in the digital
>>>> market.
>>>
>>> Staying with Panasonic, their LX1 and LX2 are pretty compact, and
>>> do RAW.
>>
>> Many thanks for that Daniel. Might be a choice between one of them
>> and the Olympus 350.
>
>I had a look at the LX2 and the 350 in a local Jessops recently. They
>have a raw mode, but (as I was warned here might be the case...) they
>were both very slow to record images in this format.

The RAW record speed of the sp350 depends on what type card you have
in the camera and the settings. With a type H (high speed) card and no
duplicate jpeg converted from the RAW data it takes about 6-7 seconds
to save the RAW file. If you want a high resolution jpeg from the RAW
data the processing and record time is about 10-12 seconds.

For burst mode and action shots, use jpg. The number of shots you can
record depends on the resolution setting. For example using the 1024
by 768 (for email) resolution setting I just took over a 100 images
before I got bored and let the camera write to the card. At 2048
by1536 (good enough for a reasonable 8 by 10 print) resolution I get
about 27 shots before the camera writes to the card.

While the camera has it quirk-for the $225 I paid for it online, I
think I got an excellent deal .

jpc

"Bert Hyman" <> wrote in message
news:Xns986D728A75AFEVeebleFetzer@127.0.0.1...
> (rafe b) wrote in
> news: t:

> Fine; ignore the cost.
>
> Do you think the average consumer of a P&S camera who wants to print
> 4x6 glossies wants to post-process every image?

No, so RAW should be an option, and let JPG be the default.

> Those who want raw file formats can find cameras that provide them.
> The idea that every camera should output some raw format is silly.


The idea of leaving out RAW format is even sillier, since
it's the de-facto native format of the camera.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

In article <>, Raphael Bustin
says...

> That's a fairly charitable (and dubious) view IMO -- given
> the complexity of the existing menu trees. It's easy enough
> to set JPG as the default -- in which case "clueless" newbies
> could happily remain ignorant of RAW mode.
>
> I'm afraid Roger and Dave L. are on the mark in their
> assesment of the matter. If you buy that assesment,
> loss of RAW mode isn't quite such a huge deal due to
> the inherent noise of these sensors.

But you don't use RAW because of noise reasons. The main justification
for the RAW file format is that you can postpone some decisions to after
the shot: white balance, sharpening, contrast, saturation etc. I started
using RAW because the automatic white balance of my camera was driving
me crazy. I don't want to leave that decision to the camera.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330, E400 and E500 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/

In article <>, timeOday
says...

> I wonder how much the benefit really is.

The problem is that the automatic white balance of many cameras simply
sucks and some cameras do a terrible job of generating JPEGs.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 7070, 8080, E300, E330, E400 and E500 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E330 resource - http://myolympus.org/E330/

Bill Funk <> writes:
> On 31 Oct 2006 07:18:48 -0800, wrote:

>> How did we ever get to the situation where a file format (jpeg)
>> that was designed as a file format to display images on a monitor
>> became the "standard" format for digital cameras that people may
>> want to print?
>
> Maybe because it works well enough for that application. Excellence
> comes at a price; not everyone is willing to pay the price when
> 'good enough' is good enough.

Moreover I would wonder how many digicam images do get printed and how
many are only displayed online; and what direction the trend is. I do
make the occasional print but almost every picture I've taken has
never hit paper; the web is a better photo album.

--
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

On 30 Oct 2006 19:47:59 -0800, wrote:

> Dpreview offers RAW as a selection criteria, I think there are still
> some. My Fuji S9500 has raw, but it is maybe a little bigger than a
> compact! And yes, the raw files look a bit scary until processed..

The much smaller Fuji S5200 also has RAW (and my earlier S5100 has
it too). The even smaller E900, which approaches the size of
Canon's S50 probably also does RAW. A big drawback is the poor
support for Fuji's .RAF files. As far as I've been able to tell,
Fuji's supplied software offers little more than the ability to
convert RAF files to TIFF. So instead of dealing with 2.5mb JPG
files, one captures 11mb RAF files that will be converted to 30mb
TIFF files. That pretty much means that backing up an extended days
shooting will probably require more than a single CD.

On 31 Oct 2006 04:48:02 -0800, wrote:

> Thanks for that Ken. It certainly meets my definition of a compact! I
> had a look on Olympus's website and am a bit confused:
>
> Recording Modes DCF Exif 2.21, JPEG, PIM3
> Adjustment Resolutions RAW 3264 x 2448
> SHQ 3264 x 2448
> <<<SNIP>>>

Adjustment Resolutions are simply the different resolutions that
you can select. RAW has only one, the highest resolution. SHQ
(Super High Quality) is one of the several JPG resolutions that can
be chosen. Looking at an old Oly PDF manual that I downloaded,
typical choices might be RAW, TIFF, SHQ, HQ, SQ1 and SQ2, where both
SHQ and HQ have the same 3264x2448 resolution, differing only in the
amount of JPG compression that is applied. SQ1 and SQ2 are user
definable JPG settings, where you're able to choose not only from
the two compression ratios, but also from a wider range of
resolutions. SQ1 can be set to any of three resolutions ranging
from 2592x1944 to 2048x1536 and SQ2 to any of four resolutions
ranging from 1600x1200 to 640x480. So SHQ and HQ will always be the
same res. and compression on a given Olympus camera. But SQ1 and
SQ2 will vary, depending on what the user has selected for them.

DCF stands for the Design rule for Camera File system, which is a
guideline for implementing JPG files. EXIF you're probably familiar
with, and I have no idea what PIM3 represents. Might it have
anything to do with a video format?