Question about DNG

[JimHess43]

I haven't convinced myself that DNG is a viable conversion choice for my Nikon D90 NEF files. But this is not intended to be a debate on that issue. PLEASE! Don't make it that, because my mind is made up and until something changes my workflow will remain the same. But I have a question about bit depth. I created DNG copies of some of my files and compared them using Bridge CS 5. Bridge indicates that my original files are 16 bit, but I know the camera takes 12 bit files. Bridge also indicates that DNG files are 10 bit. Is that really true? And, if so, is data being lost in the conversion?

 

[Hal P Anderson]

Jim,

I see the same funny bit-depth numbers with my NEF and DNG images. I know that DNG's have exactly the same raw data in them, just wrapped differently from the original raw files. No, there's no data lost in converting to DNG (unless of course you opt for lossy compression).

Hal

 

[clee01l]

I don't know about Bridge as i have never used it but DNG and NEF file formats are extensions of the TIFF standard TIFF files will either be 8 bit or 16 bit. Bridge should see both NEF and DNG as 16 bit. When you take the 12 or 14 bit NEF file and Demosaic it and output the file in RGB order, your 12 bit colors should be padded with zeroes to the full word (16 bit) boundary. If converted to DNG, it still should be 16 bits per color.

 

[JimHess43]

I don't use Bridge very often myself. This question came up on another forum, and I was just curious. Maybe it's a bug in Bridge (?).

 

[Jack Henry]

Is it possible that Bridge is 'working' in 16 bit? I record orchestras and choirs so I do a lot of audio editing. I record all audio at 24 bit/96 kHz (CD quality is 16bit/44.1kHz) One of the editing programs I use displays the audio information as 32 bit because that is the bit depth it uses. It does this to allow for more accurate maths when doing any conversion/modification to the file as it allows for a higher degree of accuracy in the calculations.

Just a thought.

Regards
John