Thread: fCamera and RAW
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Posts: 515 | Thanked: 259 times | Joined on Jan 2010
#1
Hi guys,
I don't think I saw this in any of the other threads so I'm starting a new issue. If this is somewhere else, please merge or delete.

I am not yet convinced that fCamera is really shooting RAW. First I want to start off saying DNG != RAW. DNG is a container, it can contain RAW or a TIFF or anything else. Now why do I say this? I say this because when I pop it into Lightroom the first thing I did was go for chrominance noise which is my biggest beef with camera phones(the blue red and sometimes green speckles you see in the final image). It did nothing. It was like the photo was a JPG or a TIFF. Now, does this mean that the files aren't RAW? No, not really. I see this behavior with newer cameras that Adobe hasn't had a chance to profile yet, the noise sliders for chominance and luminance do absolutely nothing. So we're left with a few options:

a) DNG created by fCam isn't RAW
b) DNG file is RAW and Adobe will profile it. It's highly unlikely but if they do, then this will give us the best image quality from the phone.
c) DNG file is RAW but Adobe won't profile it. As this is likely the case, what is the advantage of RAW? Why not shoot JPG or TIFF? RAW gives you latitude to push the file if your white balance or exposure is off and that's great but honestly I'd say unless they can get the color noise and detail noise issues resolved there is really no reason to shoot RAW on the N900.

Now, I don't know if this is an fCam thing or if this is an Adobe thing but these are just my $0.02. I really like this app and it has great potential. I'm curious what others think.