A Plea for DNG – Again

What Camera Companies Do With Raw Files
Is Against Photographer's Best Interests

It's that time of year when newly announced cameras are hitting the stores. This means that they are also crossing my desk for review. It's a fun time, with one exception. Raw files.
The camera industry, with just a handful of exceptions, continues to insist on proprietary raw files. Every single new camera as it's introduced produces a proprietary raw file which can not be read by any previous image processing software. This means that until Adobe, Phase One, DxO and others get around to writing support for the new file format for each and every new camera as it comes out, the user is forced to download, install and use the manufacturer's proprietary raw processing software.
This is madness!
This is not in the best interest of us, the customer.
This is not in the best interest of even the camera makers themselves.
It must be said that the manufacturer's proprietary raw software is mostly crap. Some are...