PEF conversion options - Adone DNG Converter vs. DCU 5

[Beholder3]

Hi,

have you ever compared the resulting DNG files when convertig a Pentax PEF RAW file via Adobes DNG-Converter versus doing it with Silkypix' DCU 5?
I just stumbled upon the DNG conversion option in DCU and remembered you were less than happy with the way Adobes Converter handles metadata.

[Phil Harvey]

Adobe-converted DNG files have the maker notes in the wrong place.  I haven't tried converting PEF to DNG with SilkyPix software, but I would imagine that it stores the maker notes in the same place as a DNG written by the camera.

- Phil

[Beholder3]

Is there a way how I could verify that?
How do I check "where" makernotes are?

[Phil Harvey]

I like using -htmldump to view the structure.  If you see an "Adobe DNGPrivateData header" at the start of the maker notes (the underlined data block), then Adobe has moved the maker notes to the wrong location.

- Phil

[Beholder3]

Thanks. There is nothing with the word "adobe" in it whatsoever. Seems a good clean DNG. 

By the way: Looking at that dump there are a number of tags with no names other than their number, e.g. makernotes-61.
Does that mean there is a field you have not yet decoded?

[Phil Harvey]

Yes.  These will also appear in the normal output with the -u option.

- Phil

[Beholder3]

Ok. Two more questions then:
1. How comes in the html file I read a tag called "LevelInfo". Watching the same file with exiftoolGUI I see no such thing in the makernotes.

2. Do you know an easy way of comparing exactly the makernotes sections only between two files?
I am thinking about switching some things in the camera and making pictures and then trying to see what changes to what values. Doing this by just comparing data by eye on screen is not really nice. Also I wouldnt want to compare all bytes.

[Phil Harvey]

1. How comes in the html file I read a tag called "LevelInfo". Watching the same file with exiftoolGUI I see no such thing in the makernotes.

The -htmlDump output does not break down binary data blocks to individual tags.  For more details about this, try the -v3 option.

2. Do you know an easy way of comparing exactly the makernotes sections only between two files?

What I do is this:

exiftool -a -U -G1 FILE1 > t1.txt
exiftool -a -U -G1 FILE2 > t2.txt
diff t1.txt t2.txt

You will get a LOT of differences with -U, since it extracts unknown information from binary data blocks.  You might want to use -u instead if this is overwhelming.

- Phil

Edit: fixed html formatting error

[Beholder3]

Is there a way to run this command in exiftoolGUI?
When I run it under exiftooldirect the output always ends up in a windows, never written to a file.

[Phil Harvey]

You can't use shell redirection under exiftooldirect.  Instead, use "-w txt".

- Phil