Adobe DNG format; anyone using it?

[akmc_in_au]

The DNG format has barely rated a mention in the forums to date.

Deke McClelland recommended its use in the Total Training Photoshop CS2 course. I've been somewhat reluctant to make the switch since the original image file is obviously the "rawest of the raw" data.

The primary selling point (that camera manufacturers may someday stop supporting their existing RAW formats) is unconvincing to me, at least for Canon or Nikon since there would probably be hundreds of millions of RAW images already in existence.

The argument that it saves disk space is slightly more persuasive, though with Canon RAW formats it doesn't save a massive amount. With the 300D it's around a meg per file (.crw files ranging from around 6 to 8 meg each); with the 40D and its .cr2 format it seems to vary between about 1 and 2 meg (.cr2 files being anywhere from 10 to 15 meg).

(As an aside, I remember that my very first hard disk drive had a 20 Meg capacity... )

In theory at least, this saving is done without any loss of data.

So are there converts to .dng out there?

(Hmmm... just for the fun of it I might try my hand at using the poll option...)

[cmit]

I have Pentax K10D which offers two RAW formats - PEF (Pentax Raw) and DNG - and shoot exclusively with DNG. The resultant DNG RAW file is larger than PEF but since I use Lightroom it saves having to convrt to DNG later.

Whether DNG is any better than other RAW formats I do not know but I like the idea of a 'standard' RAW format which is the idea of DNG and think, therefore, it makes sense to support it.

I my case it is made easier because the K10D can produce DNG files.

[marxz]

when I import in to Lightroom I have it archive everything as DNG but I as anything I'm doing PP on comes back from photoshop in to lightroom saved in photoshop format (which is as much of a defacto standard as any)so DNG it's just a backup and archive thing for me.