In these cases you may need some knowhow, but it's certainly not beyond the capabilities of someone who's comfortable with digital photography and working on a computer to the extant that a digital photographer does so. These situations are where virtual machines and more involved emulation is required. The hardware that it was written for isn't so old that it is easily emulated on current hardware, but the OS it was written for isn't new enough that a current OS can necessarily, easily run the software. The middleground (let's keep with the previous estimates and say 15-5 years old) is the stickiest part. Emulators for old software are actually very easy to find and fairly easy to use. Software that is really old (let's say 15 years or older) was written for hardware so old (and slow relative to current hardware) that it is easily emulated. Software that's fairly recent (let's say 5 years old or younger) can usually run on a current OS so that's not really something to worry about. But beyond that you really have to look at how one runs old software today. I understand that not everyone is up to setting up a virtual machine and emulating another possibly older OS, but it's not as scary an endevour as one might think. But I also don't really worry about being able to run old software. There will always be a demand for a converter at the very least. Secondly I certainly am not concerned that the format won't be supported by future software given the enormous volume of cameras that produce the NEF file format out there. For one thing, I'm not losing sleep over the possibility that Nikon, Fuji and whoever else uses NEF (Kodak?) will all of a sudden cease to exist as companies and/or suddenly drop the format simultaneously. I agree that DNG is not the solution, but I still don't agree that there is a problem. since it does seem to save you space, it doesn't sound like too bad an idea, as long as you don't use Capture in your workflow. Obsolescence simply isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be. If I wanted to I could still play all of my old beta casettes, 8-tracks, 5 1/4 floppies, DOS executables, T80 programs, etc. I'm sure some people will take issue with that opinion, but I really don't see how MY files on MY computer are going to go obsolete. This obsolesense thing is just marketing BS as far as I'm concerned. If you are a user of multiple manufacturer's cameras, or you work in an office that processes files from different manufacterer's cameras, then having all files converted to DNG makes sense because you only need one processing flow. The only argument that makes sense for a format like DNG is the multi-platform argument. It's not as if one day YOUR software will stop working. YOU control which software you use, YOU control what machine you operate on, YOU own the rights to run the software that converts YOUR files. That's why I just don't get all of this concern about obsolete file formats. And in that emulated OS you'll be able to run your old software, which will be able to open, manipulate, and convert your old NEFs. Even if all of these things come to pass, in 5-10 years you'll be using a much faster computer capable of emulating your old operating system (Windows XP for example). And let's assume that if there is such a person or persons they decide not to post the software to the web. Let's also assume that of the millions of people out there who shoot with Nikon gear, there isn't one computer savy person who decided to write their own utility for converting NEFs to another useable "up to date" format. And let's say that in the same time frame, Nikon has gone belly up, and no independent software vendor is producing a package that can interpret your NEFs. Now perhaps in 5-10 years you'll be working on a new operating system that can't run your old software. Your files are safe so long as you back them up and since you own the software that can convert them to TIFFs you really don't have to worry about them going obsolete. For one thing, it's not like Nikon is going anywhere, and even if they did, you still have your software (e.g. As a concept I guess that there's merit to this sentiment, but in reality I doubt that's the case. I commonly see people with concerns that NEF or other proprietary RAW formats are going to go obsolete. I wouldn't worry about NEF going obsolete.
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