Nef vs dng

[LT220]

Hi
I recently bought a D3s and have photoshop cs2. When it came to processing my RAW files camera raw did not recognise them. I then downloaded adobes converter NEF to DNG but the DNG files seem to be much smaller in terms of MB than the NEF I'm concerned I'm loosing quality, anybody have an advice or experience of this ?
Cheers
Leigh

[Doug Pardee]

I can't speak to the D3s specifically, but in general, Nikon's NEF files haven't been compressed. DNG uses a loss-less compression, and many Nikon users choose to convert their NEFs to DNG specifically for the size savings.

[LT220]

Thanks Doug that is reassuring

[DanielLane]

I shoot Nikon and convert to .dng files. One is for space. Thousands of photos add up to quite a lot of storage needed. A little smaller file adds up after a while.

My other thought in converting is that I will always have Adobe products to deal with older images. Who knows if someday I no longer shoot Nikon and don't have access to the Nikon software any more. I would have no easy way to open up my older images. I have been using photoshop since version 1 many many years ago. I'm pretty positive I will always have at least one or five versions of their software around, so will always be able to work on the archives.

Image quality is fantastic. You will not be able to see any differences between the NEF and the DNG. Full dynamic range is there and no added noise or distortion.

[kirbinster]

Some Nikon bodies can shoot raw in either loss-less compression or lossy compression - depends on the model. Also some shoot12bit raw while others can shoot 14bit raw. All these things impact size.