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Konica Minolta quits photo market

post #1 of 9
1/19/06 at 3:31pm
Thread Starter 
Saw a reference on Slashdot to the BBC story Konica Minolta quits photo market

Together with Nikon UK's earlier announcement that they would get rid of a lot of their film equipment, it's a sad day.
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post #2 of 9
1/19/06 at 11:43pm
So what we'll see now is Sony move into the D-SLR market, with an already locked-in target audience and continuing development from the ex-Konica people. Should be interesting.

I just hope they don't make DRM-infected cameras!
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post #3 of 9
1/20/06 at 3:59am
Quote:
I just hope they don't make DRM-infected cameras!

It is an unfortunate danger, and isn't unprecedented. At one time, Nikon locked down their RAW format, requiring photographers to use Nikon software to decode their OWN PICTURES. Thankfully, the policy didn't last long.

Given Sony's track record, I wouldn't discount the possibility that they would lock down their RAW format.

-Scott
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post #4 of 9
1/20/06 at 9:41am
Quote:
Given Sony's track record, I wouldn't discount the possibility that they would lock down their RAW format.
Like the time they prevented your from digitally extracting your own recording from their HiMD recorders, forcing you to use the analog out.

I wonder if this will make it easier or harder to find a buyer for my barely-used 8-year-old Minolta SLR?
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post #5 of 9
1/21/06 at 12:57pm
Scott Kimball,

I think it's probably more likely that Sony might make their digital SLR's support Adobe Software's Digital Negative (DNG) uncompressed image format, something that would please most Photoshop users out there.
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post #6 of 9
1/21/06 at 9:56pm
Here's the actual Press Release from the Konica Minolta site. It's a wonder they lasted as long as they did. There have been repeated rumors of Minolta going away for over 25 years, even before I worked there during the 80s and 90s. I had dinner with a former co-worker who is still there last summer and I couldn't believe the structure of the company at that time. The photo division barely even existed.

I can say this, by the time my tenure there ended a little over 10 years ago, it was a monumentally screwed up company.
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post #7 of 9
1/24/06 at 12:51pm
Quote:
I think it's probably more likely that Sony might make their digital SLR's support Adobe Software's Digital Negative (DNG) uncompressed image format, something that would please most Photoshop users out there.

Why is that more likely? AFAIK, Sony's current RAW format has been locked down way more than the controversial Nikon situation -- the entire RAW data is obfuscated, not just a few tags regarding camera settings like WB. Apparently, Sony did give written(?) permission to Adobe to work around their proprietary format w/out legal threat. But I certainly wouldn't count on Sony always playing that "nice" on the issue. Given Sony's track record on such issues, I can't see why anyone should think Sony would adopt Adobe's DNG format for their cameras.

Also, I'm not that convinced that a universal adoption of Adobe DNG is all that great for photographers in actual practice. It's not like Adobe is some sort of genuine benefactor to our cause as opposed to being a business entity in capitalistic society w/ its own goals and agendas.
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post #8 of 9
1/26/06 at 8:17am
Man-Fai Wong, you wrote:

Quote:
Also, I'm not that convinced that a universal adoption of Adobe DNG is all that great for photographers in actual practice. It's not like Adobe is some sort of genuine benefactor to our cause as opposed to being a business entity in capitalistic society w/ its own goals and agendas.


I think you forget that the DNG format is an open format (Adobe has published openly the complete specs of how it works under the GPL Public License model), so even programs like GIMP (the graphics program used by Linux users) can read, manipulate and save in the DNG format. Besides, Photoshop is essentially the de facto program for high-end image processing on PC's and Mac's, so native DNG support will be welcomed by the vast majority of the people who do such high-end imaging work.
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post #9 of 9
1/26/06 at 9:53pm
Actually, it is not an open format. Adobe owns it. You may wish for it to become a de facto standard or some such, but that doesn't really make it truly open. If all the camera makers switched to true native support of DNG, then they will be at the mercy of Adobe. And why would any of the big players want that, especially at this stage in the development??

Besides, what kind of native support do you really expect for DNG? As I understand it, given how the DNG spec is written, camera makers can still just essentially embed their proprietary RAW format as a proprietary (sub)document into the DNG file w/out providing anymore real support than you get now when you open up RAW files w/ Photoshop.
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