How would you react to Canon RAW "encryption"?

[Tony_Bonanno]

Having been a Canon user for over 35 years, currently shoot professionally with 1dSMKII and 1DMKII, and shooting EVERYTHING in RAW, I'd be VERY UNHAPPY if Canon was pulling what Nikon appears to be doing. I have to admit, I'm not sure I completely understand all the ramifications of Nikon's "encryption", but any effort to discourage 3rd software (and RAW converters in particular) seems really stupid.

I suspect, regardless of what this really turns out to be about, Nikon has made a huge blunder with their "encryption" scheme. I bet the publicity will cost them dearly. I know if I was a Nikon user and was thinking about switching to another system, this "news" would definitely send me to another manufacturer's camp.

[Will_Perlis]

"... any effort to discourage 3rd software (and RAW converters in particular) seems really stupid."

And trying to justify it as protection for Nikon users is especially silly.

Someone must have been reading pharmaceutical company PR about the dangers of evil foreign chemicals. Does anyone think a bad RAW converter might not show its side-effects until a few years later, when a portrait subject's liver turns yellow and falls out? Are their customers so stupid they can't tell if their own pictures satisfy them or their clients?

Trying to create a captive customer base for their software when those customers aren't captive at all when it comes to camera manufacturer choices is totally self-defeating. Switching is a pain, not an impossibility, and it's easier for the more successful shooters. And the more successful shooters are the models for the rest.

[DavidHarpe]

Nikon and Canon approach the marketing of product and accessories differently. Canon pro bodies are more expensive, but you get everything you need "in the box" - software, charger, AC adapter, etc. When you buy a camera battery, the door is built into the battery.

Nikon went a different direction. With Nikon products you get the camera body and the basic components and you pay extra for everything else. AC adapter, 2nd charger, software, all cost extra. When you buy a battery, you have to buy the lid separately.

Nikon's design philosophy reflects this marketing strategy. Previously it was impossible to clean the sensor without an AC adaptor (I think that has changed now), presumably to encourage purchase of the ridiculosly expensive accessory. When you buy a battery, you have to buy the battery compartment lid separately. Nikon View software is included with the camera, but Nikon Capture is extra.

All of the other accessories are more or less necessities. You have to have spare batteries and you don't want to be swapping lids all the time. Most people will probably want an AC adapter at some point as well. As a result, those sales numbers probably look good. But Capture is truly optional. Until now, you could get full functionality by using Adobe Photoshop or another 3rd party solution.

So my guess is that Nikon is not pleased with the sales figures on Nikon Capture. By making certain fuctions work only with Nikon Capture, more people will buy the software. Expect more functions to be Capture-specific in the future.

Canon on the other hand doesn't need to boost the numbers on DPP. They made their money on the software when you bought the camera. They don't have to worry about piracy because they give the software away...no licensing costs for activation schemes. So Canon's bottom line will not be improved at all if more people use DPP...in fact, it will actually COST more because support costs will increase as more users sign up.

As a result, I think it's pretty unlikely that Canon will do anything to force people to use DPP in the future. Their business model is not oriented around software sales....they sell the bundle.

Dave

[KirkDarling]

[ QUOTE ]
In general I think it is to a camera manufacturer's advantage to keep conversion code open for third parties to create software for, it gives photographers options. We may eventually find we don't like certain conversion options, but at least we can make that decision on our own. The fact that other companies develop software for different cameras supports those cameras!

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see anything in that paragraph that points out an advantage to the camera manufacturers. If the current Canon and Nikon cameras didn't even provide a RAW file at all--if they all just put out a big TIFF--the people who buy them now would still buy them.

Where I have worked, no new effort is ever approved without pointing out a bottom-line financial benefit: Increased profit or decreased cost. Neither Canon nor Nikon needs Adobe or anyone else to support their RAW formats.

I don't think the camera manufacturers see RAW the same way photographers do. Photographers see RAW as the analogy to a negative--something they can archive and re-enlarge time after time. I believe the manufacturers see RAW as a transient--purely temporary stage--like unprocessed filem, not as anything that should be archived at all. As such, they have an obligation to provide a means to process it, but they don't have an obligation to support processing a RAW format in perpetuity any more than Kodak saw an obligation to provide Kodachrome II processing in perpetuity. I beieve they see the developed TIFF or JPEG as the actual archival "negative."

[Malcolm_Leader]

I'd break the encryption and continue on.
This sort of thing isn't really that difficult to do.....

[Rune_Moberg]

The beauty of e.g. Dave Coffin's raw converter is that you can take his source code, burn it alongside your raw files on a DVD, and fifty years down the road chances are good that someone will be able to compile that piece of C code and read the files.

You do not need to worry about Nikon and Canon sticking around for all that time (and maintain their old conversion software) and if an image format replaces TIFF or Jpegs for some reason, then it would be easy for someone to modify Dave's code to output something different.

In short, documenting the format makes it more suitable for archiving purposes. Sticking Nikon or Canon Win32 binaries onto a DVD is a no-starter. Win32 binaries could very well end up being executable fifty years from now, but even as a software developer who (for now) prefers Windows, I hope that's not the case.

Nikon's stance is simply unacceptable. They should document their formats and release the docs to the public domain. Their SDK should be released as source code, not precompiled libraries. They should encourage everyone to read their format, instead of deciding which platforms are suitable. (can makers of handheld storage devices use Nikon's SDK? I very much doubt it)

--
Rune

[Peter_Galbavy]

[ QUOTE ]
Where I have worked, no new effort is ever approved without pointing out a bottom-line financial benefit: Increased profit or decreased cost. Neither Canon nor Nikon needs Adobe or anyone else to support their RAW formats.


[/ QUOTE ]

You forgot increased or decreased market share. RAW is important because originally the cameras did not have the processing power to convert the image as well as could be done externally, and now the consumers (us) have got used to having the level of additional control over image production.