Negatives to DNG conversion

[andnowimbroke]

What if any negatives are there to changing files to DNG rather than leaving in standard RAW format?

[Rocco]

Not many immediate negatives.. Unless you're using DXO? I believe DNG isn't compatible with DXO. Others complain of how much longer the import process takes because of the conversion. As far as differences between the two? Not a whole lot. RAW has the xmp side car files for the metadata, DNG has it embedded in the file it's self, not really a concern if you use Lightroom. DNG on average is 20% smaller than it's original RAW.

Me, I just use CR2.

[andnowimbroke]

Lightroom was kinda the reason I brought it up. On import, it gives you a few choices, and the first one is "convert to DNG". I thought it was supposed to be more compatible than cr2 files and your software didn't have to be updated to the lastest version to work unlike whatever canon uses. That's funny that dxo likes the canon better. Guess I'll stick with the canon version even if it is huge:)

[Rocco]

In theory it's more compatible. It's open source.. kind of. Adobe issued a royalty free licence for the format.. but they can also change that at any time. It's only more compatible than say.. cr2 when other software developers stop supporting whatever raw format you happen to have saved on your computer. So in ten years, if cr2 isn't supported on the latest software the theory is that DNG will still be in use. Of course, you can always convert to DNG when that happens. :)