Open RAW File Format

May 24th, 2005

The digital camera industry is very young; less than 10 years old. Because of this each camera maker has developed their own RAW formats. And, as their ability to improve the way in which information from the camera’s sensor is recorded improves, these manufacturers have changed their formats continuously, usually with each new camera model.

How many RAW formats are there? Believe it or not, as of mid-2005 there are more than 100 different RAW formats in existence.

This alone is cause for concern. Companies come and go, and even those that persist often orphan old formats. There are in fact RAW formats in existence for which no manufacturer’s software is currently available. And that’s after less than 10 years.

The above is from an article from OpenRAW and The Luminous Landscape. It advocates the development of an open standard for the RAW file format so that photographers don’t have to worry about being unable to access their own photos in the future. Probably a good idea.