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Nikon Coolpix P6000

August 8, 2008 in Hardware, Photography, Rant | No comments

Nikon have released a new “serious” compact camera, the Coolpix P6000. This camera – at least on paper – competes directly with the Canon G9. This seems like excellent news.

But then I read this:

COOLPIX Picture Control NRW (RAW) files can only be processed in-camera. NRW (RAW) files are compatible for use in-camera, with ViewNX (Windows version only) or with WIC based applications. Capture NX, Capture NX2 and NEF files are not compatible with NRW (RAW) images.

WIC is Windows Imaging Component, a Microsoft API for Microsoft Windows. In other words: converting RAW files to something else can happen only in camera or on MS Windows.

So what does that mean? Not only does Nikon introduce yet another completely useless RAW format (how hard is it to realize that DNG is the present wave and certainly the future?) they clearly think that Mac users are not to be customers of their fine camera.

It strikes me that Nikon seem to be unable to understand a fundamental fact: as a photographer I want full control over my image files. That is one reason I shoot RAW. I do not want encrypted data in the file. I do not want strange and proprietary formats that reduce my software choices and leave me high and dry in a few years when the special software no longer runs on whatever computer I will have.

I do want an open, fully documented format – such as DNG. Simple as that.

So Nikon, you are quite welcome to spend lots of money on advertising this wonderful new camera, but I will not buy it. Too bad, it seems like a really nice camera that would be very tempting otherwise.

Update: At least Adobe know their stuff and Adobe Camera Raw can now read the raw files from the P6000. Nikon still don’t seem to get it … read the review by Thom Hogan for the entire depressing story.

Using Lightroom with Expression Media to Add Metadata to RAW Files

November 3, 2007 in Software, Technique | 1 comment

In the past, I have used Capture One Pro (C1) to edit the RAW files (which I exclusively shoot) and then output JPEG files. I would then employ iView Media Pro to add metadata to both the RAW the JPEG files. I exported the metadata to a XMP sidecar file for each RAW file and archived the RAW with the sidecar XMP.

It turns out that this workflow is far from ideal: both the RAW and the JPEG files’ metadata needs to be kept in sync. If I go back to create another JPEG from a RAW that has already be processed, I have to manually copy the metadata from the RAW to the new JPEG because C1 3.x looses most of the metadata during processing.

When Adobe Lightroom (LR) came out, I started using it and eventually replaced C1 with it because (among other reasons) it supports XMP metadata very well. I can now add metadata to a RAW file and it will be preserved no matter what I do with the file in Lightroom (or Photoshop, for that matter).

But here the problems started: Read the rest of this entry »