man & nature # 78 ~ bitch, bitch, bitch
Wednesday, November 26, 2008 at 12:56PM 
I absolutely refuse to titled this, Into The Light • click to embiggenOne of the silver linings (?) to be found in our current state of the economy is the fact that it is a buyer's market. And, as we have all been told, the only way out of this mess is to buy, buy, buy.
And, without a doubt, there's irony aplenty to be found in that buy, buy, buy solution in as much as that's pretty much (in one heinous form or another) what got us into this predicament in the first place. But hey, that's the way the house of cards crumbles.
In any event, it seems that, due to a state of near-panic on the part of sellers of stuff, there is a wealth of bargains out there for those who still have access to money (actual money, not credit "money"). And much to my chagrin there are a lot of bargains to be found in the photo gear market. Not that I'm buying, mind you, it's just that I'm bitching about it.
bitch 1. This year I purchased, not one, but two dslrs and, damn it, I could now purchase those same two cameras for significantly less than I did just a short time ago - a combined total of $600 less. And, NO, it's not because newer, "better", or "updated" models are being introduced. Rather, it just seems that there is too much inventory on the shelf and the market's running scared (hmmm, that sounds familiar). And here's the thing, it's probably going to get much better (for the buyer) as the Xmas season goes on - not to mention the post-Xmas season if sales are really down.
bitch 2. I am interested in the new Olympus E-30 and the Panasonic Lumix-G1. The G1 more as a curiosity than for actual purchase but the E-30, depending upon a number of variables, could cause me to dump the E-3 and replace it with a E-30. BUT ... damn it, either of those cameras, unless they support the DNG file format, would currently require an upgrade to PS CS4.
Damn it and double damn it. And, as long as I'm damning, damn Adobe. Adobe has seen fit to end their ARC support for CS3 - no more updates for new cameras. Screw them.
Let me state this loud and clear - I will NOT be blackmailed into upgrading an entire program for the want of a simple and easy software update that could easily be made backwards compatible.
bitch 3. Relative to bitch # 2, how f**king hard can it be for camera makers to include the option to save to the DNG format? Enough already with the proprietary RAW formats. I mean, what the hell are they protecting? It certainly can't be their proprietary RAW conversion software, because no one who I am aware of uses camera maker proprietary RAW conversion software. So, what exactly is the point?
Bitch. bitch, bitch.
Reader Comments (7)
In the face to all those who says that we have to buy I am on the line expressed by Joe Reifer: do not buy! (to be honest he is a bit less radical) !
The reason is that I think that the prices of the cameras (and a lot of other things) are not justified, there is no relation between the real production cost and the market price, prices have to come down (even at the cost of less features, which could be welcome, and fewer payed people in the forums and blogs and other marketing places).
As for Adobe: here the only solution that I see, is to compensate via the workflow and use a thirty part converter (not adobe). In this moment I am experimenting with a program called rawtherapee (based on dcraw), it is quite primitive (and at the limits of usability), but it is open source and free (based on donations). I do not know if I could adapt myself to it, however it is the first (among open source software) that has a LAB interface. Till Adobe owns a monopoly there is nothing else to do.
The funny thing with Adobe is that pirates seems to have a better life in upgrading than those who bought it.
Hence a recommendation. If you have to; buy instead a car (GM in your case Alfa in mine) to pollute a little bit more so to favor the growth of environment related jobs. LOL. Helping economy and nature at the same time!
Well.........you and the family have a Happy Thanksgiving anyway and get back to bitchin on Friday, after all it is Black Friday.
Mark, you don't need to keep getting new versions of PS when you buy new DSLRs.
The free Adobe Digital Negative Converter program gets updated regularly for new cameras, so just use it to convert your raw files into DNG format, then process these DNG's in your current PS/ACR combo.
The DNG converter supports most popular DSLRs. You'll have to download it as a bundle with the latest ACR, but keep the program & discard the ACR that comes with it.
Download links on the RHS of this page
http://www.adobe.com/products/dng/index.html
HTH
Even better, if you use Image Ingester to copy your files off your card, it can be configued to automatically run Adobe DNG converter so you don't have to worry about it at all. Presto, instant RAW support all the way back to ACR 2.4 and Photoshop CS.
You are so right about Adobe Photoshop. Adobe's update have the feel of a recurring tax that one need to pay.
Is it worth it? Here are two links on CS4's new features to help you decide.
Camera Raw
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cs4/cameraraw.htm
Photoshop
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/cs4/vid/CS4Video.htm
Recently I bought a Panasonic G1 in at Lozeau's in Montreal for about $608USD. Despite it's many flaws, I can't put it down. I can carry it all day in a Crumpler 3 bag and hardly notice it.
The OVF is both a blessing and a curse, and the live histogram and live exposure compensation makes taking picture so easy. Plus, there is the possibility that a Leica M lens adapter is in the works. All those Voigtlander and Leica single focal lens!
Oops! hould have said EVF instead of OVF. Bid difference.
The last time I read the DNG spec, I got the distinct impression that a whole lot of people thought it was doing a lot more than it really did.
DNG is a bag. It defines where things go into the bag. Much like TIFF, it doesn't actually stipulate what the things that get put into the bag are.
So it helps out Adobe, who waste much time trying to reverse engineer the Camera manufacturers own bags. It is a step towards a universal format, perhaps - but it isn't some well defined thing like JPEG.
The camera manufacturers could always play nicely with DNG, but there is also a big section of the bag defined as 'Proprietary, potentially encrypted stuff goes here' where you could put anything and everything.
So I could easily be DNG compliant and still screw the future compatibility if I wanted - given that that's all the camera companies have done in the past, giving them a shiny new bag isn't likely to change their habits. Adobe will have an easier job in making you need to upgrade all the time, but the consumer is getting sold a dud in this format.