.DNG

Is .DNG a better format to archive RAW files than the camera-specific files?

Which is more likely to be readable by software 25-30 years from now? Neither? Both? One or the other?

Any opinions? ...

DNG is here to stay. I don't think Adobe will abandon it any time in the foreseeable future. That would really hurt their credibility. As long as Adobe remains a player in the imaging business the format will be supported.

I'm not converting any of my Canon raw files to DNG. I don't see any advantages in doing so. There are far more raw converters for the Canon files than DNG, and I can alway do crw -> dng if I come across one that doesn't support crw.

I am not loosing sleep over the possiblility that I'll see the day that Canon raw files won't be supported. The problem with DNG is that the biggest generators of raw files, Canon and Nikon, are unlikely to have native support for it. The result is that there are far more Canon and Nikon raw files than dng files and that will be the case as long as Canon and Nikon cameras do not have dng outputs. Third party software will generally have the best support for the most common format, so I expect the Canon format to always be better supported than dng. I think the smart people at Canon and Nikon knows this and are unlikely to offer dng outputs in the foreseeable future for this and other reasons.

The bottom line is that I can alway do crw -> dng and not the other way. I see no reason to limit my choices.