Nikon encrypting white balance in new NEF files...

Who cares? Really. ACR has never been accurate using "As Shot" with any camera. Certainly not any camera I've ever used, including 1D, 1Ds, 1D Mk II, Kodak, or Nikon. In fact, you can even dial in a specific Kelvin on any of these cameras, and ACR comes up with a totally different number. (or is ACR's 4800k equivilent to Canons' 5200k? Who has the correct Kelvin scale?) Why do you think there are so many threads on sharing settings to achieve proper WB?

Are we suppose to all jump up and support that great champion of photographers, Adobe? The same company promoting RF, and now backpeddling to include APA and ASMP members in some pseudo-directory........totally forgetting everyone else, including the British and asian and european organizations, not to mention the majority of fashion photographers. Sounds like a class action suit to me. (I only mention that because it was said to me by 2 high end shooters over dinner who are 'livid' with Adobe) No, Adobe, you're on your own on this one. You've done everything to limit legal usage of your product, and maybe rightly so,.....but "companies" who live in glass houses should be the last ones throwing stones. Nikon doesn't want to hand you their hard earned digital key,...well, get over it. In the end, whether you figure it out or not won't matter.

I just finished 8 days of shooting for a large oil company with 2 D2x's and WT-2A's....and it went seamlessly. They are the best digital SLR's, image wise and otherwise, I have used to date. RSE worked fine, (after a rocky start) and easily batched. The 'character' and tonality of the files was, in my eyes, flawless. The people at Adobe, and their representatives, need to stop looking for scapegoats to distract photographers from the real issues plaguing the industry, of which they now have a hand in. And those issues have nothing to do with Nikon. So add D2x raw support,....or don't.

Everybody needs to "wet their beak",...just a little. And I've found a way around Adobes new expanding ventures to take advantage of this brave new world and wet mine. On the flip side, I won't be buying Nikon Capture anytime soon after testing it. While it makes nice files, I've never seen any program suck ram, and then refuse to release it, like that one.

In the meantime, Adobe needs to just stop whining with all this negative 'spin'. It's akin to Bill Gates crying that he doesn't have enough money, and there's no one left to screw in the world. Too bad, so sad.


Regards
Mastrianni

[RobertEdwards]

[ QUOTE ]
Much more interesting is that you will need NC for tethered shooting of, say, product shots; it's the only way to shoot a Nikon D remote from a computer.

[/ QUOTE ]
Bibble shoots tethered to Nikon DSLRs, decrypts the D2x white balance, retains more highlight detail, is light years faster in converting, has a better workflow, and has better support to boot!

-- Robert.

[DavidHarpe]

I use "AS-SHOT" 90% of the time with my 1DMkII RAW files in ACR. It's usually very very good...particularly when using AWB.

The thing I noticed when I first opened the 1DMkII box is how Canon provides EVERYTHING you need to get shooting, including all of the software applications. They don't sell the software separately - it's free. They are acknowledging that the software is an important part of the overall production workflow, and they provide it as part of the package. I like that philosophy.

Contrast that with Nikon, where you have to buy almost everything separately including the key Nikon Capture application. It's a nickle-and-dime-you-to-death philosophy that is just annoying. But it is obviously a philosophy they believe in strongly because they are now implementing software "protections" to make Nikon Capture a requirement in the future.

[ QUOTE ]
I use "AS-SHOT" 90% of the time with my 1DMkII RAW files in ACR. It's usually very very good...particularly when using AWB

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, you must either have a magical camera, or a magical copy of ACR. Otherwise I wouldn't have umpteen XMP files to apply to different cameras. Especially erroneous, colorwise, is anything violet/purple. And we wouldn't see scripts like that of Tom Fors to "tweak" ACR's white balance to truly reflect accuracy.

Yes, I agree, Nikon should provide all software, but it's a moot point. I've been shooting Canon since the inception of the 1D, (which cost $5500, BTW), and always found their software marginal at best, and hence, never used it. (although DPP is much better) But if you can afford a $5000 camera, you can afford $90 for software. So, Nikons "philosophy", as you call it, is nothing more than a very mild annoyance on principle. Now, when I bought the original D1, (at $5000) and had to pay $400 extra for the software, that was a major irritation. Either way, I won't be buying or using Capture until they fix the memory problem.

But, wait a minute,....I thought this was a discussion on the obviously transparent onslaught of negative PR coming from Adobe in reference to Nikon not providing encryption information. Or is it, in fact, a thinly veiled "Canon vs. Nikon" thread? If I knew that, I would have just kept my mouth shut and let the brand conscious mavens have at each other.

Enjoy your Canon.

Regards
Mastrianni

[AndrewRodney]

-->Who cares? Really. ACR has never been accurate using "As Shot" with any camera.

A bit OT but that's probably true (we need to define "accurate"). A RAW data file is like a color neg and worse, at this state it's a Grayscale data file that has data about the scene which needs to be mapped for viewing to an output device (your display). This is scene referred data, it needs to be rendered to output referred. As such, a RAW default setting may or may not be anywhere close to what you the artist wish to have represented from the scene. So it's silly to look at a default setting and expect you'll get something you love just as a default filter pack on a color enlarger isn't an indication of the color quality and potential of a color neg.

Thomas Knoll said he doesn't need the white balance info and neither does the user (you have total control over this). It would be NICE if ACR had such info but it's no guarantee that you'll stumble on a default setting you like. This is why what Nikon has done is so silly and mainly a move that's looking political and marketing motivated. Its Nikon dropping their draws and saying to Adobe, "My Willie's bigger than yours" which Adobe doesn't seem to want to get into (for good reason, their Willie's much, much bigger and they know how to use it!).

ACR makes it easy enough to find a "default" setting for a group of images and allows one to apply them to other images. The new auto check boxes in ACR 3 work quite well but again, they may or may not be just a starting point based on the scene, the camera and the intent of the photographer.

[brucefraser]

-->Well, you must either have a magical camera, or a magical copy of ACR. Otherwise I wouldn't have umpteen XMP files to apply to different cameras. Especially erroneous, colorwise, is anything violet/purple. And we wouldn't see scripts like that of Tom Fors to "tweak" ACR's white balance to truly reflect accuracy.


Two things.

1.) Tom Fors' excellent script has nothing whatsoever to do with white balance. It tweaks the white balance for the individual image using the same method a human would, but its goal is to produce tweaks that redefine the camera's RGB primaries.

2.) The reason it's needed in the first place is that DSLR's have a large amount of unit-to-unit variation. That's why you need settings for each camera body.

[Pete_Walsh]

Isn't it the same situation with Canon RAW files? I read somewhere a while back Canon hide their white balance info, forcing converters to make their best guess.

I can't see it's an issue though - converters are doing a pretty good job at making their best guess, and you tweak the white balance in the converter to whatever you want anyway.