K7 arrived

Just got my new K7. Its a little bit of an upgrade from the K10D.
Still going through settings and new features before I do some serious comparisons.

One thing I noticed is that the Mac OS X cannot view the new PEF files yet. So I was going to save as DNG. (nice that the K7 compresses the DNG files so they are almost the same as corresponding PEF files. Thus larger file size is no longer an issue for not saving as DNG).

One questions I never really found an answer for, is whether there are disadvantages of processing DNG v.s. the actual raw files? I'm certainly not about to store the original RAW file internally with the DNG, so is there any low level pre processing of the RAW, such as with SilkyPix's de-mosaic stuff, that might not be possible with DNG?

I guess I am not that seriously picky about a minute loss of quality in 99.5% of the photos I take... but there have been a few I really needed to tweak such that using SilkyPix's de-mosaic features actually helped to get a decent image.

Would such information be lost in the DNG format? Just thinking if the DNG format is generic, something must get lost in translation.

The DNG format is an open format as far as I know so for software like silkypix it shouldn't make a difference.

If the filesize is about the same I would opt for DNG as well.

They're still slightly larger than PEF (when the scene is the same), but I agree the size is no longer a problem. You can get even smaller files by shooting PEF then converting afterwards to DNG with DNG Converter. These are more compressed (loslessly) than the camera's DNGs.

DNG is the actual RAW file, just like PEF, just in a different format. It's just a question of compatibility. If the program can read the format, it should perform all the same functions as it would with the other format.

Silypix Developer Studo seems to have no problem with DNG, in my experience so far, including with the Demosaic function.

Argh! Just replied but message not saved. This happened to me twice now...

Anyway, in short, thanks for the vote of confidence that it works the same for ya.
I'll trust that and with the much smaller size difference, I may switch over to DNG.

Thanks

Hi,
Can you clarify something for me. I am looking to upgrade to the K7 soon from K10d.

The K7 still saves raw in DNG format right, this is important to me and was the major factor in choosing Pentax over the lesser brands like Nikon and Canon whne i bought my K10d. It saves alot of time and faffing with converters and the like when your raw files can be opened straight into PS.

cheers.

Yes.

It's actually little faff to convert from PEF to DNG if you do it at the same time as copying from memory card to computer with Adobe DNG Converter. It does it all in one go with a couple of clicks. (As well, this results in a smaller version of DNG than the camera creates). So it wouldn't have to give up Pentax even if it didn't shoot DNG.