The ImageReflex Gallery: Obsolescence and the OpenRAW movement

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July 24, 2005

Obsolescence and the OpenRAW movement

Some of you may notice that I've added the OpenRAW logo to the list of links. OpenRAW is a movement that seeks to have camera manufacturers openly document their raw image formats. Given that obsolescence is an unfortunate side-effect of any quickly advancing technology, the OpenRAW movement deserves credit for attempting to avoid the loss of information necessary to support older digital cameras. Even if you upgrade equipment, you may still want to be access older raw images one day.

Consider the advances that digital cameras have made in the last five years alone. Even consumer level cameras have seen the megapixel count rise and list of features grow while the prices have fallen. At some point, each camera manufacturer will stop supporting older digital cameras and devote its development resources to more recent cameras. When the support for older cameras ends, it is likely that the camera manufacturer will also stop updating the software needed to interpret raw images created by the camera. For most people, the lack of support for raw images probably doesn't matter because they shoot jpegs or some other established image format. However, those who even occasionally shoot raw images may find the lack of support will ultimately preclude use of the camera to capture raw images. The lack of support also means that anything shot in raw format today may not be accessible in the future.

This sort of obsolescence--what amounts to a forced upgrade at some point--has plagued the computer industry for years. I remember early flat-bed scanners that used proprietary software. When the world moved from Windows 3.1 into Windows 95, support for the old scanners ended and no Windows 95 software was written for the old scanners. The end result was that if you wanted to continue using the older scanner, you would have to set a computer aside--as if frozen in time--to continue running the older software, and if something went wrong, you were on your own. The same thing happened again when the world moved from Windows 95 to Windows 2000/XP. Support for older equipment ended.

While we may accept this sort of forced obsolescence when it comes to computers, this is a relatively new concept for photography. Cameras tend to have a relatively long useful life. For example, a Leica rangefinder camera manufactured nearly 50 years ago still works as well today as the day it was new. While most professional cameras may not have enjoyed as long a run as the Leica M-series cameras, they still tended to have a useful life significantly longer than what has been seen with digital cameras today. I question whether anyone expects to receive even ten years of service from one of the current crop of digital cameras. Given how prices have dropped and megepixels have jumped, being forced to replace a digital camera after a few years of service may not be a big deal.

Obsolescence with equipment is one thing. Obsolescence with the images themselves is an entirely different matter. I can accept that one day I will upgrade equipment. However, having recently stumbled across a box of images from a decade or so ago--including a number that were unedited--it caused me to wonder whether the images I shoot in raw format today will be accessible in a few years. I would like to think that in another decade, I will be able to pull out a CDROM of images from now and still be able to open files saved in raw format.

For more information about OpenRaw, take a look at their website, www.OpenRAW.org. For more information about camera raw (a common name for raw image formats), take a look at the Wikipedia entry for “Camera Raw” at Wikipedia.

Posted by slewis at July 24, 2005 7:40 AM

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July 24, 2005

Obsolescence and the OpenRAW movement

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