History of RAW photography?

In article <0001HW.C3A1AF3F0260EBEAB01AD9AF.DeleteThis@News.Individual.Net>,
usemywebsite.DeleteThis@gmail.com says...
> Hi
>
> I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
> book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
> technology that I'm interested in.
>
> Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along but
> for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
> option was not realised.
>
> What were the first RAW cameras?
>
> I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
> explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything on
> the history of RAW photography.
>
> Do you know of one?

First time I heard of RAW was when Canon came out with the G2 (in
2002?), a 4MP compact which offered this format. It's possible however
that RAW was already available on pro DSLRs before that.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 50X0, 8080, E3X0, E4X0, E5X0 and E3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

"patrick j" <usemywebsite.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0001HW.C3A1AF3F0260EBEAB01AD9AF@News.Individual.Net...
> Hi
>
> I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
> book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
> technology that I'm interested in.
>
> Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along
> but
> for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
> option was not realised.
>
> What were the first RAW cameras?
>
> I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
> explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything
> on
> the history of RAW photography.
>
> Do you know of one?
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> Patrick - Brighton, UK
> If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
>

I suspect RAW went away for a while after the processors in cameras got fast
enough to do conversion to other file formats in camera. My first consumer
level digital camera was the Kodak DC120 in 1997. Its only option was "KDC",
a format that could only be rendered into something usable on the computer.
After 1 session with the TWAIN software that Kodak provided, I got
ThumbsPlus (from Cerious Software).

Summary: that 10 year old camera did RAW because it wasn't smart enough to
do anything else.

Astigmatic Owl
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

I'd agree, since one of my fathers early consumer Kodak cameras from the
90's , a DC25? used a Kodak peculiar form of data encoding. You could see
the photo file using an non Kodak application, but the photo looked sort of
like a 3D photo without the colored glasses.

"Summary: that 10 year old camera did RAW because it wasn't smart enough to
do anything else."

"Astigmatic Owl" <bobhillski DeleteThis @att.net> wrote in message
news:N8Wej.365134$kj1.331911@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> "patrick j" <usemywebsite DeleteThis @gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:0001HW.C3A1AF3F0260EBEAB01AD9AF@News.Individual.Net...
> > Hi
> >
> > I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
> > book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
> > technology that I'm interested in.
> >
> > Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along
> > but
> > for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
> > option was not realised.
> >
> > What were the first RAW cameras?
> >
> > I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
> > explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything
> > on
> > the history of RAW photography.
> >
> > Do you know of one?
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > --
> > Patrick - Brighton, UK
> > If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
> >
>
> I suspect RAW went away for a while after the processors in cameras got
fast
> enough to do conversion to other file formats in camera. My first consumer
> level digital camera was the Kodak DC120 in 1997. Its only option was
"KDC",
> a format that could only be rendered into something usable on the
computer.
> After 1 session with the TWAIN software that Kodak provided, I got
> ThumbsPlus (from Cerious Software).
>
> Summary: that 10 year old camera did RAW because it wasn't smart enough to
> do anything else.
>
> Astigmatic Owl
>
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

On Jan 3, 12:39 am, "Astigmatic Owl" <bobhill....DeleteThis@att.net> wrote:
> "patrick j" <usemywebs....DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:0001HW.C3A1AF3F0260EBEAB01AD9AF@News.Individual.Net...
>
> > I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
> > book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
> > technology that I'm interested in.
>
> > Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along
> > but
> > for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
> > option was not realised.
>
> > What were the first RAW cameras?
>
> > I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
> > explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything
> > on
> > the history of RAW photography.
>
> I suspect RAW went away for a while after the processors in cameras got fast
> enough to do conversion to other file formats in camera. My first consumer
> level digital camera was the Kodak DC120 in 1997. Its only option was "KDC",
> a format that could only be rendered into something usable on the computer..
> After 1 session with the TWAIN software that Kodak provided, I got
> ThumbsPlus (from Cerious Software).

Only one of the options for the Kodak DC-120 was a raw CCD saved in
the .KDC envelope there were three other levels of JPEG compressed
image that could be saved in camera. It also had non-square pixels and
interpolated them to get just into the megapixel camera cut. Even so
at the time it was a good digicam. I still have one.

My page on the DC-120 in camera compression settings is still online
at
http://www.nezumi.demon.co.uk/photo/dc120/quality.htm

Most consumer cameras quickly standardised on some form of JPG JFIF or
Exif encapsulation by default. Most scientific cameras always retained
a (usually propreitory) raw format or TIFF if you were lucky.
>
> Summary: that 10 year old camera did RAW because it wasn't smart enough to
> do anything else.

Yes. It could do and did JPEG encoding internally. That it
encapsulated everything in a dodgy .KDC file was typical of Kodaks
myopic marketting department wanting something proprietory. The same
lot that killed genuine PhotoCD (an excellent quality innovation) by
launching the vastly inferior low resolution PictureCD with the same
acronym.

Regards,
Martin Brown
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

On Jan 2, 4:14 pm, patrick j <usemywebs... RemoveThis @gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
> I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
> book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
> technology that I'm interested in.
>
> Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along but
> for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
> option was not realised.
>
> What were the first RAW cameras?
>
> I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
> explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything on
> the history of RAW photography.
>
> Do you know of one?
>
> Thank you.
>
> --
> Patrick - Brighton, UK
> If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>


Kodak's Photodesk was always a form of RAW output with their DSLRs
dating back to the first in the early '90s. This software would
convert the image to a TIF file, JPEG later. I do suspect the poster
who said RAW has always been there with digital imaging is correct.
Though I remeber discussions about TIF vs TGA files in the mid '80s
when I first got into digital imaging. JPEG came in the early '90s for
the same reason it is needed now, saving disk space, of course a big
harddrive was 120mb then and a big file was 16mb. In 1986 when I
received my first image processing system 6mb was a big file (on 40mb
HDs) and you could go to lunch while certain processes that now take
seconds took place on our 286 computer. Oh yes RAM cost $1.5K per mb.

Tom
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

patrick j wrote:
> Hi
>
> I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
> book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
> technology that I'm interested in.
>
> Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along but
> for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
> option was not realised.
>
> What were the first RAW cameras?
>
> I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
> explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything on
> the history of RAW photography.
>
> Do you know of one?

Short answer, as has already been suggested by others, is that ALL
digital cameras "do" RAW, since all RAW is, is the raw data straight
from the sensor. The real difference lies in what OTHER formats they
convert that data to internally - most of the early digitals I dealt
with provided both TIFF and JPEG output, usually stored in internal
memory and transferred to the computer via serial cable.

The choice of formats, I suspect, was more a matter of software
compatibility for the end user - put it into a common format that can be
easily read by most people's photo editing software. As others have
noted though, some of the earliest cameras didn't do this, simply
because they weren't capable of it.
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

In rec.photo.digital.slr-systems Matt Ion <soundy106.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:
> patrick j wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
>> book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
>> technology that I'm interested in.
>>
>> Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all along but
>> for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
>> option was not realised.
>>
>> What were the first RAW cameras?
>>
>> I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
>> explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find anything on
>> the history of RAW photography.
>>
>> Do you know of one?

> Short answer, as has already been suggested by others, is that ALL
> digital cameras "do" RAW, since all RAW is, is the raw data straight
> from the sensor. The real difference lies in what OTHER formats they
> convert that data to internally - most of the early digitals I dealt
> with provided both TIFF and JPEG output, usually stored in internal
> memory and transferred to the computer via serial cable.

> The choice of formats, I suspect, was more a matter of software
> compatibility for the end user - put it into a common format that can be
> easily read by most people's photo editing software. As others have
> noted though, some of the earliest cameras didn't do this, simply
> because they weren't capable of it.

Exactly. And note that before the advent of mass market digicams, for
many years, and in some cases decades, people in labs had been playing
around with digital camera images acquired in a variety of ways, such
as applying ADC conversion to the output of analogue electronic
cameras such as early TV cameras, workshop constructed digital cameras
using dynamic RAM memory chips, and so on. So I would say as afirst
guess that "RAW" photography went through four general major stages
of camera technology before the cameras became sophisticated enough to
do anything other than RAW.

1. ADC conversion of the output stream of analogue electronic cameras.

2. Cameras with internal digital sensors made from dynamic RAM chips.

3. Very expensive professional, industrial, and research prototype
cameras with internal digital sensor chips specifically designed for
photography.

4. Early mass market digicams which weren't smart enough to do
anything more complicated than outputting RAW images.

(I've omitted from consideration images which were created by
non-cameras, such as scanners, although those produced exactly the
same kind of "RAW" images which were processed in the same ways.)

All of the people using these cameras were dealing with RAW images
because there was nothing else. But because there was nothing else
they weren't called RAW images. It would only have started being
called RAW when cameras had been developed which were sophisticated
enough to be able to output compressed image formats, and of course
when standardised compressed formats such as jpg had themselves been
developed.

For example, according to Wikipedia the JPEG committee was formed in
1986 and issued its first standard in 1992, so if as I suspect the
term RAW was developed in contradistinction to compressed jpg output,
then nothing before 1992 could have been called RAW, but on the other
hand couldn't in fact have been anything else.

--
Chris Malcolm cam.TakeThisOut@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

Astigmatic Owl wrote:
>
> "patrick j" <usemywebsite.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:0001HW.C3A1AF3F0260EBEAB01AD9AF@News.Individual.Net...
>> Hi
>>
>> I'd be grateful for assistance in my search for information, or even a
>> book, about the history of RAW photography. It is the development of the
>> technology that I'm interested in.
>>
>> Did someone, if you like, "invent it"? I suspect it was there all
>> along but
>> for some reason when digital cameras first arrived the RAW photography
>> option was not realised.
>>
>> What were the first RAW cameras?
>>
>> I've been searching for a book on this but while there are good ones
>> explaining how to make the most of RAW photography I can't find
>> anything on
>> the history of RAW photography.
>>
>> Do you know of one?
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> --
>> Patrick - Brighton, UK
>> If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
>>
>
> I suspect RAW went away for a while after the processors in cameras got
> fast enough to do conversion to other file formats in camera. My first
> consumer level digital camera was the Kodak DC120 in 1997. Its only
> option was "KDC", a format that could only be rendered into something
> usable on the computer. After 1 session with the TWAIN software that
> Kodak provided, I got ThumbsPlus (from Cerious Software).
>
> Summary: that 10 year old camera did RAW because it wasn't smart enough
> to do anything else.
>
> Astigmatic Owl
You mean I may have also been among the first to use RAW ....
I bought a Kodak DC40 when they first came out ... was the same price as
the Nikon D70 body I bought in 2005.
Salesman said I would never have to buy film again, what he failed to
mention was that the resolution was atrocious. I ended up using the
camera for siteworks on small building projects.
I still have it packed up in the roof ... don't know what to do with a
R6000,00 ( $800,00) redundant camera.
Bernard.
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

Thank you to all that have replied in this thread.

It has been most interesting for me.


--
Patrick - Brighton, UK
If you wish email me from my web-site: <http://www.patrickjames.me.uk>
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

patrick j wrote:
> Thank you to all that have replied in this thread.
>
> It has been most interesting for me.

Makes a nice change from some of the usual noise, doesn't it?

Glad we could all be of assistance!
 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography? 

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 >> Stay informed about: History of RAW photography?