If one were any kind of pro, one would likely be able to afford more storage space on a whim. For those who are not pros and maybe can't afford more storage space on a whim - then DNG allows them to save some serious space.. Not only in the conversion to DNG itself (generally), but also ridding of the locked-in ~3-10+ MB full-size useless jpg previews that are contained in most native raws. That can add up quickly. (For those wondering, it's ~3MB for Canon S100 raws (12-bit,12mp) -- and ~10+MB for Pentax K-3 raws (14bit,24mp).)
I guess it depends on your perspective for how much is "Serious space" and how much is a "whim" worth.
I converted a raw to DNG with no fast-load data and no preview. The file went from 40megs to 30 megs, or 25%.
With a full size preview, it went from 40 meg to 34 meg, or 15%.
A HGST (probably best disk drive maker at present) Desktar 3TB drive costs $70. A 2TB version is $50. Let's hand wave and say the 3TB is what you need for the original files and 2TB for your smaller files. That's $20.
With my 36mpx D800 images the 3TB will hold 75,000 images. More modest cameras much more, but that comes out to 3750 images per dollar saved.
To be fair, you should have at least 2-3 backups, so let's divide by almost 4 and call it 1000 images per dollar of disk space you pay extra to keep the raw instead of using DNG.
Try taking all your camera gear and adding it up, and divide by the number of images you kept from it. Bet the number is orders of magnitude more.
One is likely to very quickly notice if major issues are happening with DNG conversions. And in the worst possible case scenario for this current bug, even if something was indeed wrong with the DNG itself, then all you would have to do is simply change/correct the color cast.. Even if you had to take it to PS to do so.
Since apparently Adobe has not (yet) introduced a known bug in the conversion itself, we are both speculating, but I see no reason whatsoever to assume a bug introduced will be "major" enough you will notice immediately. What if it did the math wrong and you lost 2 stops of dynamic range in the shadows. Would you notice? Or just think the shadows were pretty deep that day? A year later some scientifically inclined photographer does some experimentation, finds the issue, Adobe mulls it over for a while and releases a fix.
Maybe the answer is you do not care -- that if it did not jump out at you as a problem at initial post processing, it's not worth worrying about.
Maybe this sort of scenario will never happen.
We could go back over Adobe's history of introducing bugs, from serious to minor -- but it's software. Software ALWAYS has bugs. Anyone who has done it seriously for a long time knows many (maybe most, certainly the most dangerous) data corrupting bugs are those which are subtle and not noticed quickly.
I do see the rationale of "it it wasn't bad enough to notice, it is not bad enough to care about". I do not agree with it, since if I later found out I would be really upset, but you may be a more calm person.
Sometimes I think people try too hard to convince themselves of reasons not to convert to DNG.
First of all I started this thread not to convince people not to convert, but to save your raws even if you do. But inevitably this subject comes up and I have one response:
I do not need to convince myself NOT to convert, because no one has convinced me of a reason TO convert.
To my way of thinking, the most important reason for using DNG is futureproofing.
And I'm sorry, but that is demonstrably bunk. It implies that at some time in the future you will lose the ability to process your raw files (but not DNG). Now that may happen.
It also implies all software will support all current DNG formats for now and forever, which in terms of technology there's very little historical precedent. Heck, my version 1 XQD cards won't work in my Version 2 reader even, from the same company, and that happened in about 3 years. And just where do I buy a Betamax VCR?
But most importantly it also implies it will happen unexpectedly and with no way to deal with it at the time, and that just plain will not happen. If tomorrow Adobe announced they were dropping support for D70 conversions (my oldest raw), I can select them all, and do a mass DNG conversion over night. Done. No loss of edits, no issues, no real work (on my part, and who cares if my computer works hard one night).
And when it does start happening, the internet will ring with people lamenting the end of the world with dropping support -- unless you live in a cave with no news or internet, you will get a head's up. And if you do live in such a cave, you won't be installing the updates anyway, so your software will still work.
Please do not take this the wrong way -- I am not saying people are making a mistake to use DNG. It's a valid decision, and there are some good reasons. I just happen to think that "future proof" is Adobe propaganda and not one of those reasons.
But this is all about preservation of your work. It's a lot like backups. I back up; some people do not. To me it is illustrative of them not caring enough about their images to bother (I find it hard to believe anyone could actually say "I never knew I should back up" in today's age). That's their choice, their value judgement.
Whether you decide to keep your raw images as a hedge against future problems is similarly your choice, and a value judgement. I just thought it was one worthy of a bit of exploration.
