http://www.dpreview.com/news/0808/08080702nikonp6000.asp

Despite great hopes (expressed also by our host), readers of this forum are obviously not in the target market of this camera. Is the new Nikon restricted 'amateur' raw format (NRW) the sign of things to come? I hope not!

I hope they don't sell a single camera. That will teach them!

I don't understand what they are trying to accomplish with this raw format--except maybe turning off serious photographers who may have been interested. Oh well F-em anyway. Soon enough there will be a uFT camera from Pan/Olympus that will eat this camera for breakfast.

I guess, masking their NR so people cannot look at the real output and complain about the noise. Sony 13.5Mp micro sensor...

PS. I see WIC (Windows Imaging Component) support will be provided, I guess with a suitable codec. It's anybody's guess what functionality this will provide. I would not be surprised if it will allow just viewing the files and changing WB and Picture Styles (ala NX Viewer).


PS2 and slightly OT: There are quite a few knlowledgable engineering type people here in the forum. Could someone give us a rundown in layman's terms regarding what WIC is all about, whether it is potentially a good thing (coming from the evil empire) and what the potential implications are with regards to raw converters?

I suspect it won't take long for Dave Coffin (the author of dcraw) to hack the format, allowing 3rd party raw converters to be able to open and process the files.

On the other hand, it does seem a rather silly decision. Is there something wrong with the NEF format, that makes it unsuitable for this camera? It just seems irresponsible to introduce another raw format, and makes me start to think DNG is not such a bad idea after all.

I'd suggest nobody attempts to hack the format (it might be encrypted for all we know) and leave it to die a quite death. Thom Hogan assumes there will be NRW to DNG conversion available at some point but I can't see why Adobe should be bothered.

Unless there's something more here (hint : MS) than meets the eye.

Probably a nice compact overall, but not the one I was (vaguely) hoping for indeed...

Interesting how Nikon can get so many things right with their DSLRs and yet seem to be completely at a loss as far as understanding what the market expects in terms of high end compact digital cameras. Or would it be that they are trying to keep one more differentiator with their rumoured upcoming APS compact?

Cheers,
Bernard

It is hard to see how complicating raw formats could be a positive development. The new camera could simply produce DNG files, as other manufacturers have done, but it seems clear that Nikon — like Canon — prefers to promulgate the mystique of the proprietary raw. Still, after seeing the dpreview announcement this morning, I went to the Nikon site:

http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Pr...LPIX-P6000.html

There it says:



So perhaps these files are simply a variant of the .NEF files, and won't be so hard to assimilate into normal workflows in Lightroom and CS3 after all.

Perhaps it used to say that; it now says .NRW instead of .NEF

Nikon needs to fire the marketing geniuses who okayed this idea. A new raw format? Only works on Vista? Which MS apparently can't give away:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/07/1854242

Anybody remember the APS ( Advantix!!!) format that Kodak tried to shove down peoples throat back in the film days? The only customers who bought into the idea were the ones who didn't know any better.

Sheesh. And the D700 is such a great camera. It is almost like Nikon has an evil twin running around.

According to the Nikon PR, Capture NX won't process the new NRW files. This suggests that NRW is quite different from NEF. If they were similar, it would be relatively easier to have Capture NX support for it.

AlthoughI believe you are right, I suspect that NX not supporting the format has nothing to do with the effort involved and everything to do with a conscious decision by Nikon not to do it. The reasons might have to do either with them wanting to hide what's going on behind the curtains with their raw processing (IP issues) or with some agreement with MS or both.

Wow!
For shooting into their own foot, these guys are pretty darn good snipers!

Good news is that Adobe today announced that the P6000 RAW format is supported in the ACR 4.6 release candidate.