RAW of PEF?

In the Dutch "Digifoto Magazine" I read that RAW pictures, made by the K10D, show a better quality than pictures made in the PEF-modus. In the article they don't tell why this should be the case, nor they give any more information.
Does anyone know whether this is right? Has anyone compared pics in RAW- and in PEF modus?

They are one and the same. Unless the comparison is between DNG and PEF formats, both of which are RAW.

If the comparison is between JPG and RAW (PEF or DNG) then that is widely accepted as true. JPG's are so heavily compressed that some detail is ALWAYS lost. Pro's prefer RAW. Minor mistakes in exposure or white balance are more easily corrected if the file is in RAW format.

PEF files use lossless compression so you get more pics per gigabyte on your SD card. Adobe DNG format is saved in an uncompressed form.

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Peter E Smith

Body: Pentax K5, K5-II, K20D + BG's, MZ-6, Super-A
Prime: Pentax A28, FA31/43/77 Ltd, M50/1.7, FA50 Macro, DA*55, D-FA100mm Macro, Sigma EX180 Macro.
Zoom: Pentax DA12-24, DA*16-50, DA*50-135, Sigma 70-200mm EX DG OS HSM, 150-500 DG OS HSM.
Flash: Pentax AF240FT(2), AF500FTZ(2), AF540FGZ(2), AF160FC Ringflash.
Software: Adobe Lightroom 4, Photoshop CS4, Photomatix Pro, Noise Ninja, iWatermark, Picasa 3.

My flickr Photostream

"Knowledge is knowing that a Tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to use it in a fruit salad."

myrdinn I have the magazine in front of me - it says that Adobe RAW (.dng) is better than PEF on the K10D and that jpegs are less sharp than the competition. Not owning a K10D I can't comment on that.
Nevertheless with a score of 9.3 it does significantly better than the EOS 30D (an , the D80 (a 9) and the Sony alpha100 (8.5) to which it is compared. Makes a very nice change! (and should cheer Petekd up a bit )

Both DNG and PEF should provide the same data. I suspect that Adobe software (if that is what is being used) interprets the data differently depending on what type it is.

If they used Silkypix they'd probably find they got better results than anything produced by Adobe.

G

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Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.

As DNG and PEF files are both RAW (ie they contain information as it was shot without any processing applied in-camera) then you'll find that the same camera using the same settings taking the same picture will produce identical images in both formats - the differences are really down to file size.

PEF files employ a lossless compression (as mentioned above) meaning you can squeeze more of them onto a memory card of any given size.

DNG files have no compression and produce larger file sizes, however, because the clever little pixies inside your K10D don't have to compress each file as it's taken, the DNG format can actually be written to the card quicker.

The upshot of this is that for continuous shooting in RAW you should stick to DNG format, for pretty much every other occasion you'll find that PEFs are preferable because you'll save on storage space.

By the way - newbie here, hello everybody!

In the article they don't say what software they used. Maybe indeed Adobe works better with DNG than with PEF. I haven't tried it.

Anyway I agree that Silkypix gives better results than the Adobe stuff. Even Pentax Photolab, which is a limited version of Silkypix, produces pics with more details.

I seem to remember reading that RAW processing in the supplied Pentax software (albeit silkypix driven) delivered similar results to that done in-camera, showing a tendency to softened edges etc and that Abode produced crisper detail - could be due to automated 25% sharpening (?) cant say as I've yet use a K10D

What's this article/mag you are looking at Myrdinn?

Cheers Gywn

That has cheered me up

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Wedding & Portrait photographer

YEs, it has to do with the profile you read the data with in Adobe's software, you can get a huge variety of results that way. Exactly what you want, as long as you know how to use it.

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Regards,
Dan

http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danielfranco

Keep your voice down, Pete!

G

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Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.

Sorry George

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Wedding & Portrait photographer

I seem to remember reading that RAW processing in the supplied Pentax software (albeit silkypix driven) delivered similar results to that done in-camera, showing a tendency to softened edges etc and that Abode produced crisper detail - could be due to automated 25% sharpening (?) cant say as I've yet use a K10D

What's this article/mag you are looking at Myrdinn?[/quote]

I have the impression that the RAW Photolab pics show more details and are sharper than the RAW pics developed with Adobe Camera Raw 3.7. Of course in Photolab you must do some sharpening.

The magazine is brand new (and a bit disappointing): Digifoto Pro Magazine. Website: digifotopro.nl

I use ACR to process my .dng files from my Samsung GX10 and I am quite happy with the results that I get. I used silkypix briefly to process the files from another camera that I owned but found it very slow. The main advantage was in the handling of noise which is now less of an issue for me. The .dng's from my GX10 are a reasonable size at 16MB (*istD pef's are 17MB) and I think they include all of the information from the sensor.

The magazine that myrdinn and others talk about is of interest to me because the GX10 also scores 9.3 and I took the photos that accompany the review.

Carl

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Used Pentax for the last 25 years. (Me Super, SFXn, Z1, MZS and istD-still got them all) and won a Samsung GX10 in a comp earlier this year

Silkypix does need a powerful machine. However, in use it is pretty quick because you can deal with pictures in batches, then do something else while it's processing them.

G

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Keywords: Charming, polite, and generally agreeable.

Recently aquired the K10D. The RAW or RAW+ setting gives a default format of PEF.
Photoshop Elements 4 would not accept PEF. They have a download to fix this on the Adobe website. SWo far I have not seen any difference between DNG and PEF other than DNG being Adobes own.

Still learning