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We asked camera companies why their RAW formats are all different and confusing

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361 points Tomte | 2 comments | 04 Apr 25 11:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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yjftsjthsd-h ◴[07 Apr 25 04:20 UTC] No.43607646[source]▶
This isn't really my area, so I'm probably wrong... I'd always assumed that RAW files were, well, raw data straight off the sensor (or as close as possible)? In which case, you could standardize the container format, but I wouldn't think it was possible to have a standard format for the actual image data. Would appreciate if anyone could correct me (a quick skim of wikipedia didn't clear it up)
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buildbot ◴[07 Apr 25 04:29 UTC] No.43607699[source]▶
Typically they are not to my knowledge! Though I am also not an expert. Most camera makers apply a fixed sensor profile, and possibly a dark frame to remove noise before writing out the values to whatever file. Some of them may apply lens optimizations to correct distortion or vignetting as well.
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1. mubou ◴[07 Apr 25 04:47 UTC] No.43607801[source]▶
On top of that, I hear the RAW format on some smartphones is saved after the phone does its fake-HDR and computational photography bullshit, so it's even further from "raw" with those cameras.
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2. kalleboo ◴[08 Apr 25 04:29 UTC] No.43618360[source]▶
This is true for Apple's "ProRAW" that you get if you choose RAW in the iOS camera app. Third party camera apps like Photon can shoot actual RAW raw though, the hardware and OS APIs do support it.