OpenRAW

When I emailed Juergen earlier off list I mentioned the fellow who lost his life in the 9/11 attack and thought it might have sounded a little bid over the top...but now after reading his commentary it seems right on target. It would appear that the onnly way to maintain any archivability of those images will be the Adobe DNG format since apparently Canon believes that they can ignore a five year old camera and the cutomers that purchased it....and coincidentally, any of the photojournalists and historians that used that tool to capture historic events of our time. It's almost as if the guys at Canon are decendants of the darkroom guys who melted most of Robert Capa's work on the D-Day beaches on June 4th, 1944....we need to let them and the people at Nikon know that in no uncertain terms we want historical images to be available for all in the future...and that the only way to do this (since softeare and hardware will keep changing) is to document and publish all information about thier raw standards...or at least those that they no longer support. Perhaps we can get some news organizations onboard with us about this.......it will affect them perhaps more than even us. Imagaine if in the future, AP cannot make images of some 9/11 like event because Canon or Nikon stops supporting the camera that made them...and frankly, since camera manufacturers come and go, the only thing that will remain for us will be open documentation so that we can go back to the source and work with the original file. Perhaps a future slogan might be "Nikon..if the picture matters, the camera matters...but not if we cannot make a buck on it."

The licenses for most software are designed to take away freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee the freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. The General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (The GNU Library General Public License covers some other Free Software Foundation software instead.) People can apply it to their programs, too.

Speaking of free software refers to freedom, not price. The General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that programmers have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if it is desired), that programmers receive source code or can get it if desired, that programmers can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that programmers know these things can be done. Mac OS X is an excellent example of the GNU license that is available for a fee.

Having Nikon et al converting the Capture software into a General Public License or Library General Public License, IMHO, would satisfy their ability to generate well deserved and earned revenue from the software platform and keep it in the public domain for as long as someone licensed wanted to maintain it current with modern systems.

I don’t know how to convince Nikon to go into that direction (I have no Nikon inner circle connections), however I would join/support those willing to try.

Thank you Juergen Specht for providing this forum.

CDG

Juergen,
Very well spoken as always. Personally, I never thought of Nikon's or anyone else's Nef as an archievable format. Perhaps, Tiff, Jpeg or paper, but not Nef. I look upon the Nef as an intermediary step to the final product. Of course there is not a chance in hell that any photograph of mine will end up in the MoMa . if yours do, I predict the graphic designer in year 3000 who is making the print will decide that by contemporary standards, a naked man clutching a dead, plucked chicken (your D2X sample) is beyond the pale and put feathers on the chicken. :>)

Best,
Henry

I know they weren't professional formats, but could RAW be another 110 or disk creation? I don't understand their attitude. Would it be unreasonable to suggest boycotting their products until they agree to make it an open format?

Thank goodness Garry Winogrand didn't shoot raw.

We dispute one of the statements made on the OpenRAW web site, specifically the allegation that Canon has "dropped support" for EOS D30 RAW files. In point of fact, Canon has never dropped support for EOS D30 RAW files. They are currently supported in ZoomBrowser EX 5.1 (Windows) and ImageBrowser 5.1 (Mac OS) via the RAW Image Task component of those programs, as well as EOS Viewer Utility (Windows/Mac).

Digital Photo Professional (DPP) has been adding support for different models of EOS Digital SLRs with each new version. DPP 1.0 supported EOS-1D Mark II, EOS-1D and EOS-1Ds only; DPP 1.1 added EOS 20D, 10D and 300D/Digital Rebel; DPP 1.5 added EOS-1Ds Mark II; and DPP 1.6 added EOS 350D/Digital Rebel XT and D60. We have not ruled out adding support for the EOS D30 in a future version of DPP.

Best Regards,

Chuck Westfall
Director/Media & Customer Relationship
Camera Marketing Group/Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Chuck:
it would be so much easier on everybody concerned if Canon would just publish the formats.

Chuck,

Specifics of the D30 aside, the point is that 40 years in the future, all those versions of the software will no longer be available. Furthermore, even if one had the old software on disk, whatever operating system we use in 40 years probably won't be able to run the old programs. It's even possible that Canon the corporation will no longer exist.

Thus, we need open and documented raw formats in order to ensure that photographs survive forever, even if the software or corporations do not.

I won't be drawn into this debate, since it involves decisions that are clearly beyond my control.

However, Mr. Specht has made an inaccurate claim, and it should be corrected or removed. Failure to do so would be a disservice to the readers of this site, not to mention Canon.

Best Regards,

Chuck Westfall
Director/Media & Customer Relationship
Camera Marketing Group/Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Hello, Chuck,

Remember me from the Compuserve Photography Forum? Congratulations on your promotion. You do a great job for Canon and deserve it!

Although you claim Mr. Specht has made an inaccurate claim, at least he supported it with a link to Rob Galbraith's site which says, in part, "going forward, the D30 will be the only Canon digital SLR not supported in Digital Photo Professional, says Westfall."

In this thread, you state, "We have not ruled out adding support for the EOS D30 in a future version of DPP."

So, I guess the ground rules have changed, and that is good!

Here's the link to the Rob Galbraith page:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-6465-7664

Cheers,

Richard L. Hess
Owner
Vignettes Media
http://www.richardhess.com/tape/

Dear Chuck Westfall,

thanks for your post here and for your correction of my statement concerning Canon's support for editing D30 RAW files.
My apologies for the misunderstanding, I corrected my statement above, but you might know that the misunderstanding
originated from your statement on Rob Galbraiths web site and was already discussed in the Canon 1Dscussion list before we launched this site.
You may wish to contact Rob as well with some clarifying information.

Here is the link again:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-6465-7664

It's good to hear that Canon is not dropping support for the D30 from existing software products, and even better
that you're considering adding support for it to future versions of DPP. A lot of Canon DSLR users, not just D30 users,
will be excited to hear this.

A few questions come to mind:

[1] Will Canon continue to support the D30 in future versions, if there are any, of ZoomBrowser EX, ImageBrowser, and EOS Viewer Utility ?

[2] Do you have any sort of timetable for making a decision about support for the D30 in the next version of DPP (1.7 ?) ?

[3] If Canon chooses NOT to support the D30 in the next version of DPP, is the company willing to release documentation of its RAW file format so that 3rd party software companies
can then supply D30 customers with the highest quality RAW editing capabilities?

Regarding that last question: Though Canon and OpenRAW may currently disagree on a number of RAW file format documentation issues, I think we do agree that customer needs come first. In that light, if Canon decides it can no longer meet some of those needs, it seems only right that it should assist 3rd parties in doing so. All they need is documentation, and we have veteran software industry technical writers who'd be happy
to assist in the knowledge transfer.

Thanks again for your post, and for helping bring us into this remarkable era of imaging. I look forward to future discussions on these vital issues.

Juergen Specht

Hi Chuck

> I won't be drawn into this debate, since it involves
> decisions that are clearly beyond my control.

Hmmm.

> Director/Media & Customer Relationship
> Camera Marketing Group/Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Given your position at Canon, I would imagine
that the people who DO control such decisions
would at least listen to your presentation of
the issues.

So, yes, these decisions are beyond your control.
But they are not beyond your ability to influence.

I believe that the interests of Canon and photographers
are the same. Forget for the moment that open doccing is
just the RIGHT thing to do on moral grounds. Let's talk
$$$. I believe that Canon will be MORE
profitable over time if it openly documents its RAW file
formats, and will be LESS profitable if it does not.

One: Platform vs. Proprietary
-----------------------------
The classic example in the computer field is Windows
vs. Macintosh. One is a platform: anyone can build/assemble
hardware and create a Windows system. The other is
not a platform: only Apple can build/assemble Macintoshes.
Thus, though many think of the
Mac OS as superior to Windows XP (I don't, but many do),
Windows snuffs Apple in the marketplace, with a 95% market
share.

Two: Photographers See Openly-Docced RAW as Essential
-----------------------------------------------------
Openly docced RAW file formats are something your customers
want. Your very best customers, the professionals who've
moved in droves to Canon from Nikon in the last few years,
want it the most. Listening to customers is how businesses
thrive. Closing one's ears leads to disaster. Photographers
needs WILL be met. Hey, it's how you've overtaken and
passed Nikon, by meeting photographers' needs better than
they have.

Three: Good Will
-----------------
Openly docced RAW files are the RIGHT THING to do for
the transmission of human culture and experience over
time. What would it mean for us to be able to see pictures
of our great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents
and their families and their world in all the clarity and
beauty that today's cameras provide ?? What will it mean
for our descendants to be able to view OUR lives in that way ???
We are all human, and respond deeply to the opportunity to
transcend the short span of our finite existence. Companies
that can offer people a chance to achieve that transcendance
will achieve levels of customer good will that are difficult to
fully fathom and impossible to purchase for any price;
companies that thwart that desire will gain the opposite.

All three of those $$$-related elements will lead a Canon that openly
docs its RAW files to higher profitability. A failure
to doc will lead to lesser profitability, because SOMEONE
will rise to the occasion and meet photographers' needs.

Personally, I'm betting on Canon to come to this realization
before Nikon does. Both the $$$ part and the right-thing-to-do
part. And I'm betting on you as the guy who'll help make that
happen.

Cheers and thanks for posting...

Stanley Krute

Dear Mr. Specht:

Thank you for correcting the erroneous statement about Canon's software support for EOS D30 RAW images.

Decisions on future support of Canon RAW image processing with Canon software have always been and will continue to be made by Canon Inc. in Japan. I am not in a position to provide commitments or timetables on their plans unless or until they decide to announce them publicly. However, Canon's continuing support of EOS D30 RAW images indicates that customer satisfaction remains our top priority.

Dear Mr. Krute:

Thank you for your remarks. I appreciate your concerns, and you can rest assured that they will be relayed to Canon Inc. However, as previously stated, I have no intention to debate the issues in a public forum. My concern here was to set the record straight on the erroneous statement made by Mr. Specht, which has now been corrected.

Best Regards,

Chuck Westfall
Director/Media & Customer Relationship
Camera Marketing Group/Canon U.S.A., Inc.

Hi Chuck

Thanks for your response. I appreciate your words, and you can rest assured that they will be relayed to ...

Nah, I just can't talk that way.

But I do understand the position you're in, and the perceived need to avoid public debate or substantial discussion of these issues outside of standard corporate communications channels.

At some point someone back at Canon HQ will respond to the sorts of questions Juergen posed, and that'll be a good thing.

Cheers,

Stan

(last known as Mr. Krute 20 yrs. ago when he was a school teacher)

In 60 years....
I must wonder what the chances are that anyone can read the CDr my historically important images are burned to. Open raw or not. Of course I "could" spend thousands of dollars migrating my files to the latest technology every time something better comes out. Assuming I or whomever handles my estate can afford to perform such a task. If not, all may be lost.

Tiff is a widely published standard. No guarantees it will be publicly viable in 60 years. Can you say VHS/Beta?

Could be a good chance though, in 60 years, that someone will be able to create a digital file/print of my old negs.....

Remind me again why I moved to digital capture?

Openly docced RAW files are the RIGHT THING to do ...

I'm new to the DSLR media, so I am finding this forum very helpful. To show how new I am, I had no idea there was a problem with RAW format. I did have an earlier digital which would shoot RAW, but never used it. Since receiving the Canon Rebel DSLR, I am working more with RAW format and would hate to lose any work that I have! I will certainly add my voice to those asking for an open documentation policy.
I hope you don't mind a newcomer. I'm strictly an amateur at the moment, but would like to start selling some images, as many friends and family members have urged me to do. I hope that all of you can help me to learn more as I go along.
Thanks for some good discussion and learning experiences!

Course in 60 years there is no guarantee that you will be able to read a CD or DVD or the old hard drive. Or indeed that any existing format will be readable.

Some due diligence is perhaps necessary no matter what.

I guess you miss the point here. Digital data can be 1:1 copied without any loss. So the carrier is not important, only that the data survives.

In my time with computers I copied data already from 8'' floppy disks to 5 1/4 floppy disks to 3 1/2 floppy disks to harddrives, CDs and DVDs and the data is fresh and lossless than ever. Just the carrier is gone.

Try this with analog data, its not possible to copy them 1:1 (lossless).

Juergen

Having just joined the digital revolution, with a canon 350D, after nearly 50 years of 35mm film, I am beginning to realise why I have steadfastly avoided the conversion. I have been happy to scan my slides and negs but keeping the primary source as optical would still allow them to be used in 60 years from now. I still scan 60 year old and even 120 year old optical media but now feel that without an open digital RAW format the digital format as we now have it will go the way of Philips Data Optical (PDO), who even remembers this 15 year old technology. What Canon and Nikon would both benefit from is some common ground, like 35mm or 5x4 in the pro photography film world. An open standard would allow them to focus on what they are both very good at, optics, rather than the fleeting world of computing. Not that they cannot do both, but without standards many serious photographers may well abandon them for someone willing to be open.

Regards
Bob

Juergen, you are right. But who owns the standards for the carriers? Who originated them?

CDs and DVDs, Photo CD, .... Companies own the specifications, or standards, or patents on them, etc.

http://www.licensing.philips.com/licensees/conditions/cd/

http://www.allformp3.com/dvd-faqs/61.htm

There is a bizarre fantasy among some here and elsewhere that there is some magical concept of "open standard" that we must all aspire to, and that will solve our problems. Perhaps a fantasy about ISO, which had a draft of a Raw format in 1998, ratified it in 2001 & charges for copies of the standard, and MAY review it in 2006!

The more open the standard, the slower it will be to evolve. And even open standards originated with companies that were prepared to invest in them for (presumably) their own commercial purposes. You are not likely to get world-class experts evolving high-quality standards for totally altruistic reasons!

We know that we need a "common raw format", because proliferation of Raw formats will prove intolerable. If we think of a "common raw format" as another carrier, (of sensor data and metadata), we should expect it to conform to this pattern. It WILL originate with a company, or perhaps consortium, which has commercial objectives in mind. The trick is to analyse those objectives, and judge whether they are aligned with the interests of photographers & user of photographs, (us!), or opposed to our interests.

OpenRAW needs to identify its criteria for judging an acceptable "common raw format". It HAS to accept that it will originate with organisations with commercial interests. Ideally it needs a list of criteria suitable for point-by-point evaluation of any proposed format.

(And PLEASE acknowledge the contribution that Leica made with the Digital-Modul-R back, and the new Hasselblad products! Saying in your FAQ "At this time (May 18th, 2005) no available cameras write DNG format files" does nothing for OpenRAW's credibility).

I wasn't so much missing the point but pointing out that keeping anything safe into the future will require more than just a good file type.

But I agree that would help.

I fully back Juergen's views.
The thing is, if "marketing research" (whatever that means) carried out by every manufacturer says RAW formats must be proprietary, there is no rational way you can turn these companies around. This is a matter of money- and belief-led business to which any "technical" choice, however valid, is merely subdued.

I guess the best we can reasonably ask, which happens to also be the bare minimum they should commit to, is that every manufacturer publishes their formats, or provide a (free) way to losslessly convert all the files, at the very time they either drop these formats, move out of the business, or disappear altogether.

I, for one, will keep shooting JPEG or TIFF pictures until the right camera comes out that saves RAW in a freely published format - meaning that I will not buy a camera for its RAW capabilities until then. Market pressure is the only thing that can move any corporation.