Nikon D3/D300 RAW

LONG before the equivelent update from Adobe/Lightroom is available.

adobe camera raw and lightroom already support RAW files from the D300 and D3. I received my cameras (one of each) the first week they were available, and adobe had already updated their applications to support RAW files. still nothing from apple because they just had to handle RAW at the OS level and not in a PRO photo application.

In the meantime the D3 is shipping with a FULL version of Nikon's proprietary Capture NX software which opens the RAW files generated by this phenomenal camera.

not if you're on Leopard. nikon has a warning out that NX 1.3 (the version that supports D3 and D300 RAW) will corrupt photos (if you can even get them to open) on Leopard.

could your comment have been any more wrong?

cashilini wrote:
not if you're on Leopard. nikon has a warning out that NX 1.3 (the version that supports D3 and D300 RAW) will corrupt photos (if you can even get them to open) on Leopard.

In correct, Nikon has posted this as worst case, the fact is that if you have a fresh install of 1.3 and not an upgrade then you wont see this problem, i have edited 1000's of RAW files over the last few days with V1.3 on OSX 10.5.1 without a problem.

The warning also states "may be corrupted when saved" NOT will be.

check out dpreview and nikonians forums if you don't believe me.

i lost 5-10 images before i saw the warning.

From Nikonians:

"....issues can arise in the following situations:
Exporting TIFFs of up-ressed files
Deleting crop steps from the Edit List.

If you see black squares appear on your image, DO NOT SAVE YOUR FILE. Revert to an earlier version, or close and reopen it. Saving a file with black squares will lead to file corruption."

I've been using NX 1.3 regularly for the last few weeks, and I've seen these black squares only once (yesterday), and in fact the file corrupted when I saved it. I wasn't exporting a tiff, and I hadn't cropped the file. Personally, I'm suspicious that it's one of the the Nik Color Efex filters, but I haven't narrowed it down. I only ever work on duplicates, so no big deal, but FYI it can happen.

Yes, it's not a problem for me either . . . but only because NX 1.3 WON'T EVEN RUN ON LEOPARD! Install disk does not work. Tried fresh, full install of 1.3 from Nikon website, and it seems to have installed fine, but whenever I try to import any D300 images from a CF card the program promptly crashes--EVERY time! Everything else on my system seems to be working fine.

I think it's fair to say that there is CLEARLY A PROBLEM with NX and Leopard compatibility--as Nikon states. Just because a handful of people seem to be getting "lucky" with NX behaving well under Leopard, that does not negate the myriad of posts and information clearly reporting serious compatibility issues.

So, my best advice: Capture NX/Leopard users BEWARE. If you can actually get the software to run for you, do not trust it completely . . . keep a close eye eye out for corruption or other issues that may compromise what may be an essential image or project for you.

Lastly, while it is useful for one to honestly report his/her experiences on this or any bug issue (i.e. "seems to be working fine for me, no issues found" or "I'm having this problem and seeing this behavior...") I do not find it useful to make a blanket, clearly unjustifiable statement that a bug report in "incorrect" and you "won't see this problem." Even the Nikon engineers themselves could not, and will not, make such a statement. In fact, as so many other posters have kindly pointed out, Nikon has made one statement regarding the unhappy marriage of NX and Leopard so far--and that is:

"WARNING
*This software is not compatible with Mac OS X version 10.5 (Leopard)."*

How did you go about installing NX on Leopard? From what I see there is a download of 1.2 and an upgrade to 1.3. My D300 came with a serial number for NX but not a disc. Did you have a 1.3 disc?

I am wrapping up a trial of Aperture and 5 days into a trial of LR. I really like Aperture and might be willing to live with dealing with RAW in NX until Aperture updates if I can get NX to work. It seems as though quite a few people use either Aperture or LR to do bulk processing and then drop to NX for dealing with Nikon tuning RAW as some claim it is better at NEF than either Aperture or LR.

I might be able to get a temp workflow that I can live with. (but IMO I still think we've been waiting on Apple/Aperture too long for at this point already)

Message was edited by: tpak

Monphoto wrote:
According to my contact at Nikon Professional Services, Apple has already been provided with the information they need to update Aperture to open the Nikon D3 RAW files.

Unfortunately NIkon's SDK (as with Canon's SDK etc.) does not give you any real information about decoding the RAW file yourself - it's just a front-end to their own conversion algorithm - you pass it a RAW file and some parameters and get a converted image back.

In other words it doesn't help for software such as Aperture, ACR, Bibble, Capture One etc. which want to do the actual RAW conversion themselves.

Ian

The 1.3 "upgrade" will install the whole package.

Do be careful to only work on duplicate files, though. I have had one image corrupt using it. If you see black squares, DO NOT SAVE the file.

As you say, I use Aperture for organizing, and the bulk of processing, and then drop a lot of my hero images to NX for that extra 10 percent, and to use the Nik filters.

Here's hoping Apple gets the new camera releases out the door soon, but traditionally it takes them 4-6 weeks.

Ian Wood wrote:

Monphoto wrote:
According to my contact at Nikon Professional Services, Apple has already been provided with the information they need to update Aperture to open the Nikon D3 RAW files.

Unfortunately NIkon's SDK (as with Canon's SDK etc.) does not give you any real information about decoding the RAW file yourself - it's just a front-end to their own conversion algorithm - you pass it a RAW file and some parameters and get a converted image back.

In other words it doesn't help for software such as Aperture, ACR, Bibble, Capture One etc. which want to do the actual RAW conversion themselves.

Yes. It has always been the camera companies (Canon, Nikon, etc) trying to keep proprietary information from the software companies (Apple, Adobe, etc). All of the software companies have to resort to reverse-engineering because the camera companies would rather maintain control of your process.

There are always posts here that say "Why don't the software companies get together with the camera companies and work it out?" Well, the software companies have been banging on the door for years, and all the camera companies ever hand out is that black box that gives you no control.

This is a huge reason you never get Raw support for a camera before it comes out, and why you often can't get raw support for a few weeks until after the camera comes out. The advice everywhere is: Complain to the camera companies. But don't be surprised if the answer you get from them is "But you should be using our software."

????

Adobe LR and ACR fully supported D3 and D300 NEF well before the cameras hit the street.

So then, what was the issue at Apple?

The competition beat them on this by a long shot.

Just because Adobe is done first, does not mean it looks good. I went with Aperture a year ago partially due to a test I ran between the 2 programs on the same image. The Adobe image look like plastic and the Aperture image looked real or film-like. I would rather Apple take extra time to do it right. If you are depending on Aperture for your workflow, then don't buy a new camera until Apple supports your camera!

I'm very happy to wait for Apple to support RAW for my D3's. I know they will do an excellent job and by choosing to take a little longer and do it right, they are being professional about it. I do NOT see the delay as any indication on Apple's part of not taking Aperture/Photography seriously (despite the iPhone, etc, sucking up lots of resources...) If anything, with 1st class support of the D3/D300, I think they will increase their installed base of Aperture users, and pull even more people into the fold. Give these guys a break. It takes time to do things right.

Unfortunately I cannot get CaptureNX to run for more than 2 seconds without it crashing in Leopard. For anyone running CaptureNX+Leopard successfully, any thoughts on what you might have done/not done to get it to work properly?

In the meantime, I just tried shooting RAW+JPEG with my D3 and importing into Aperture. Only the RAW showed up (blank of course). I had to select "New Version From Master JPEG" to get it to display the JPEGs. Is this the way it is supposed to work, or should the JPEGs be showing up automatically? Also, now all the JPEG's are the 2nd item in a stack. Any idea on how to automatically make ALL of the JPEG's the Stack Picks so I can close the stacks and only see the JPEGs?

please apple update Aperture to 1.5.7 to add support for Nikon's new pro cameras. i personally think this is b/s this should be a quick little update but also interesting why Nikon change their file format

btw, the CaptureNX does not work on OS X 10.5 Nikon warns you that you can import the RAW file in but once you save --> FILE CORRUPTED! beware on conversion

i tried all RAW formats 12 & 14 bit plus the 3 compressed/uncommpressed combos

only solution: shoot jpeg or tiff for now...thanks apple

mattmanucd wrote:
please apple update Aperture to 1.5.7 to add support for Nikon's new pro cameras. i personally think ... should be a quick little update but also interesting why Nikon change their file format

updating Aperture won't do a lick of good
OS update would be needed for additional camera support

do you know about coding? thinking that it is super easy to code stuff like that??

what do you mean changed file format?
all cameras have different formats even from the same makers.
Nikon's raws are .nef but a d300 .nef is different from a d200's or a d3 or whatever


relax it will come
DAVE

I shot a wedding today using the D300. Had no idea how Aperture dependent I was until now! PLEASE get us the RAW converter soon!