I agree that internal raw is very convenient but practically speaking, many who shoot raw are already using external monitors for other reasons, so requiring one to encode the raw signal doesn't seem too onerous to me. Plus recording externally has other benefits, including larger and cheaper storage options.

Red did start a lawsuit against Nikon but they settled. So no more risks for Nkon.

Sure, if you use an external monitor having internal raw is less valuable, but I personally far prefer to shoot without one as I do video alone. The screen adds weight, more cables (potential failure points), one more device with a battery/batteries/chargers, more complexity, makes gimbal balancing more difficult/limits the max weight of usable lenses,...

Camera companies could work around that.

Blackmagic RAW, as is most RAW, is also more just 12bit video. It is already debayered and not linear. Which means the only real benefit over regular video is the 12bit gradation.

H.265 12bit 4:4:4 is well supported by PCs these days, so there is no reason why camera manufactureres could not add this instead of internal RAW, with basically the same capabilities

I think Red may try to sue anyone who does in-camera Raw, but debayered really isn't Raw, so I guess should be okay. I never thought their approach, IIRC just JPEG2000-ing the R, G and B images separately, was innovative tho... but patenting it worked out for them...

Nikon fought Red using a novel argument, that Red demonstrated the technology publicly before patenting it, meaning the patent isn't applicable. Apparently the argument was persuasive because Red relented rather than risking their patent being invalidated in court and opening the gate for others to do internal raw without risk of a legal challenge.

https://www.dpreview.com/news/9301564383/nikon-denies-red-s-lawsuit-concerning-compressed-raw-patents

I think raw video is largely unnecessary in light of 4:2:2 with 10-bit log profiles. For sure there are some use cases where it provides a benefit, but I think in the vast majority of cases, the 10x+higher file sizes don’t make sense unless you’re only doing short clips and even then are mostly unnecessary.

I seriously wonder what percentage of footage shot on a Z9 or R5 with internal raw capability is actually shot in raw. I suspect it’s a very low percentage…

it really is shocking that you even manage to turn a Panasonic article into a Nikon promotion. really, you couldn't think of any uses for global shutter but suddenly any camera without internal RAW video has no value? it certainly didn't sound that way from you for any of nikon's releases in the past few years, but suddenly it's an essential part of your supposed workflow? talk about hyperbole and delusion. must I find you sucking up to Nikon on every single DPR post?

need I remind you that Nikon charges $200 to allow external RAW video on the Z6/II (and you have to pay to ship your camera to Nikon)?

@Marcus, You'll have to ask Panasonic that. Cameras have traditionally have very slow USB interfaces, at least when operating as a target. For example I just tested my Panasonic S5 and got only 18.6 MB/s transferring a single large video to my system. I know from tests done on the S5 IIx that the USB interface operates much faster in host mode - one user on Reddit was able to sustain a 200 MB/s ProRes stream. But BM 3:1 6K raw is 325 MB/s @ 30 fps so you're looking at nearly double that for the 5.7K 60 fps this camera supports. I'm not saying the camera can't sustain that over its USB but it is a consideration that must be tested.

I think the issue is there’s really no standard for speed rating USB devices. Sure there are bus speeds. Sony A1 has a 10Gigabit USB-C port. But not all devices can sustain multi gigabit write speeds required and most devices have max burst rate speeds, but sustained write speeds on USB devices are harder to find and nail down.

It probably becomes a customer support nightmare. “How come my RAW recording stopped after 43 seconds?” “Well because your USB device burped and the buffer filled.”

I never said NLOG was “close to” 12-bits RAW. You’re making stuff up (as usual). I agree the formats are quite different. You probably have as much dynamic range in 10-bit log as you do with 12-bit linear, but the noise reduction, lens corrections, and debayering isn’t done in camera so you have to handle that in post (which can be good from a flexibility perspective and bad because, well you have to handle it yourself)…

Like I said, for short clips I think it can be useful, but for anything more substantial I think most would be better off with 10-bit log at vastly smaller file sizes.

You also said (your statement in its entirety): “At this point I fail to see the value of any camera that doesn't offer Raw video in camera like the Z8 and Z9.

This really is a total game changer.”

And then you said: “even if only 1% of owners use raw video capability it doesn't harm the 99% who don't.”

1%…. Yeah. Some game changer…. Lol…

@photography-lover
Can you show me where N-RAW is better and makes a practical difference?

Both 10bit N-LOG and 12-bit NRAW have the same latitude and ability for WB adjustments (which are both still broken in Davinci Resolve for Nikon)

Also due to the nature of a log curve shadows are encoded at nearly the same bit depth between formats. Leaving highlight gradation. And I am very sure that NRAW has some advantages here, as well as for compression artefacts. But I have not seen a project yet that really benefited from those things.

So what do you use N-RAW for?

Linear profiles like NRAW have way more “highlight gradation resolution” but it’s wholly unnecessary and totally wasted. 12-bit linear uses 2048 codes per channel to encode the brightest 1 stop of light and 2048 codes to encode all of the rest of the dynamic range. 90% of those top codes are “wasted” in invisible shades. A few years back DPR did a great article on why log profiles are so practically useful. A very enlightening article if it hasn’t hit you yet why log profiles are so beneficial.

(DPR, I searched for this article in the technology articles and I missed it…. Do you know which article I’m talking about?)

Okay. Then I guess it’s not really raw either….
Interesting topic: what kind of “processing” is allowed before they aren’t allowed to call it RAW anymore. lol.

@MikeRan
We are fine with non-linear RAWs even in photography. Nikon has done it forever, Sonys compressed RAWs are 11-bit non-linear RAWs. Adobes lossy compressed DNGs are actually 8bit non-linear RAWs. "Small" and "medium" RAWs usually come debayered, similar to phone RAWs. Even uncompressed Panasonic and Canon RAWs come with baked-in noise reduction.

The same goes for video RAW. None are lossless compressed, even the most high end 16 bit ARRI-RAW has baked-in noise reduction and sharpening and the modern lite/b-/c-/prores-raws all have various compression, linearization and processing steps involved.

At this point RAW basically just means, enough metadata available so that you can relinearize it for WB adjustments and do proper colour space transforms

It's funny because if Sony doesn't have a certain feature, then some Sony promoters get very pragmatic and rhapsodize how the feature really isn't that necessary; it's overkill, no one notices any difference, few benefit, etc.

But if Sony has a feature then all of a sudden it becomes the best thing to ever happen to photography and it's a must have and any camera without it is doomed.

"1%…. Yeah. Some game changer…. Lol…"
I will remember that when the A9 III is released and the global shutter makes a real difference to a few percent of photographers/photos. Mike was right when he said a while ago that fast stacked sensors solved most of the problems that global shutter would solve (but without the trade offs in DR and high ISO).

Yep I still agree with my original statement. It’s kinda like you canon faithful said no one needs IBIS…. You are as guilty as anyone…. I’ll take 8K H265 10-bit log footage at a fraction of the bitrate of any 4K RAW video footage every day of the week…. And you can talk about your terabytes of 8K RAW footage all you like.. keep it. I don’t want it…

Game changer? Hah!!!

By the way I challenge you to find a single feature available in other cameras and not Sony that I downplayed and then said it was a great capability after Sony announced it…. Go ahead…. I’ll wait…

It’s the Canon and Nikon guys that downplayed mirrorless.. downplayed the stacked sensor…. Downplayed IBIS…. You have it so backwards…. THAT’S what’s funny.

Mike, I'm not just talking about you but in general the Sony crowd. I'm not going to hunt through all of your old comments and I will take you at your word.

As for IBIS, I still maintain that to me it's not that necessary. Honestly I never had a problem with DSLRs not having IBIS. The long lenses always had IS anyway.

I will admit that I underestimated mirrorless, although again, to me DSLRs still were/are great and have wonderful value today.

For the stacked sensor, I was impressed by the A9 once I rented one and tried it out. I admitted that as I found the high burst rate and blackout free EVF to be something special. I was not as vocal a proponent as you for stacked sensors but I will admit that you were right on that as well.

PL. Yes. I do…
I do the impossible. I record 2 hour long stage shows with my A1 at 8K (and do pan and zoom in post) and my camera doesn’t overheat and I don’t need 18TB of card space because 10-bit slog3 is plenty good enough. lol.

Oh and the A1 body is smaller than the R5, which means it’s impossible for it to do 8K for long periods without overheating, except it’s not.

TRU so if you admit I don’t do what you say Sony guys do, and you admit you do exactly what you bash the Sony guys for…. It begs the question….

Why do you bring this up all the time in response to my comments??? Seriously…
You are the guilty one…. And you don’t even see it until I bring the examples???

Perhaps you should rethink your MO on DPR….. it’s not a good look.

@Thoughts, Over the past 10 years IBIS has done more to improve effective noise performance than improvements to the sensor itself.

But cAnOn HaS OiS iN aLl Of ThEiR lEnSeS!!!!

"I'm not just talking about you but in general the Sony crowd."
1. Who in the 'Sony crowd'?
2. What is the relevance of taking a pop at such users in comments on Panasonic adding raw video to a camera?

Bob: I didn't bring up Sony in this conversation. I was just pointing out something obvious about the Sony promoters on this forum in general. And everyone knows this is true.

When Canon/Nikon releases a new camera/lens, some Sony promoters try to find any tiny shortcoming or trade off and amplify it to make it seem like an unworthy release. When Sony releases something they are very forgiving about rationalizing away the flaws. And don't pretend this doesn't happen.

When Sony releases a new camera/lens, some canon/Nikon promoters try to find any tiny shortcoming or trade off and amplify it to make it seem like an unworthy release. When Canon/Nikon releases something they are very forgiving about rationalizing away the flaws. And don't pretend this doesn't happen.

Also your pointing out something obvious about the Sony promoters and trying to insinuate that’s this is somehow different than the canon/Nikon promoters is hilarious because there are many more Canon/Nikon promoters, yourself included that downplayed mirrorless, IBIS, stacked sensors, even eye focus…. You are more guilty than most of the Sony promoters you are calling out..

And you completely lack self awareness about it (until someone else hits you over the head with it, with specific examples as I did above)…. It’s quite sad actually…

Only ones who need RAW video are big production studios that make either commercials, or stuff for TV that has a lot of CG in it.

There is no practical reason you would need RAW as a hobby consumer.
Unless you like to pretend a good image sells the story, even though its been what, 120 years of cinema and you still somehow do not understand that the story is more important then how it looks?

It's beyond me why Sony fb always try to turn every topic into a brand war...

You brought Nikon into the Panasonic article completely unnecessarily.. it was 100% a shameless plug for your favorite camera brand…

This is an article about a Panasonic raw upgrade. You wrote unsolicited, “I fail to see the value of any camera that doesn't offer Raw video in camera like the Z8 and Z9.”

You just couldn’t say good job Panasonic. You had to say “Like Nikon…”
And you blame Sony users for brand wars??? It’s you. You are the king of the brand warriors…. And you have no clue.. another completely unaware of self…