Equipment Nikon Z8 mirrorless Camera. Mid 2015 MacBook Pro running Monterey 12.7.6. Downloading RAW files from SD card or CFTexpress Type B cards to photos from a Lexar Card Reader. Unable to view files in Photos.
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.7
There are three RAW file formats for a Z 8:
But, as léonie, says, you're out of luck using any of them in Monterey. And I'm not holding my breath waiting for future support of High Efficiency compression.
I use High Efficiency*, which is not supported even in new OSs. But I don't expect the Photos app to be very useful for RAW files anyway. Photos doesn't seem to offer anything special for RAW files.
I have my Z 8 save jpgs on the SD card and NEF files on the CFexpress card, and I import the jpgs to Photos. I use those jpgs to curate my pictures, rejecting most of them. Many of the jpgs are lovely on their own, But for the ones that seem like they could benefit from RAW information I edit them with either Nikon's NX studio (free!) or Adobe's Lightroom classic (subscription--bah!) I get the best results I can for these selected images with these RAW editors, and I save a jpg that I can import to Photos. I sometimes find that I can further improve the image some with Photos' own editor.
I'm using an app called Raw Right Away to show NEF thumbnails and allow QuickLook on NEF files.
Here is a link to Adobe's Digital Negative (DNG) converter that makes a universally acceptable RAW picture file. This is the format that Lightroom uses when it creates a new (edited) RAW file, and Apple and Photos supports it. The converter is free:
https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/adobe-dng-converter.html
There are three RAW file formats for a Z 8:
But, as léonie, says, you're out of luck using any of them in Monterey. And I'm not holding my breath waiting for future support of High Efficiency compression.
I use High Efficiency*, which is not supported even in new OSs. But I don't expect the Photos app to be very useful for RAW files anyway. Photos doesn't seem to offer anything special for RAW files.
I have my Z 8 save jpgs on the SD card and NEF files on the CFexpress card, and I import the jpgs to Photos. I use those jpgs to curate my pictures, rejecting most of them. Many of the jpgs are lovely on their own, But for the ones that seem like they could benefit from RAW information I edit them with either Nikon's NX studio (free!) or Adobe's Lightroom classic (subscription--bah!) I get the best results I can for these selected images with these RAW editors, and I save a jpg that I can import to Photos. I sometimes find that I can further improve the image some with Photos' own editor.
I'm using an app called Raw Right Away to show NEF thumbnails and allow QuickLook on NEF files.
Here is a link to Adobe's Digital Negative (DNG) converter that makes a universally acceptable RAW picture file. This is the format that Lightroom uses when it creates a new (edited) RAW file, and Apple and Photos supports it. The converter is free:
https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/using/adobe-dng-converter.html
The support for the RAW format is specific for each camera model.
Your Nikon zZ8 is not supported on macOS Monterey (Digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey - Apple Support). The first system version to include the support is macOS 15 Sequoia Digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2 - Apple Support. But there is a footnote that only the lossless RAW is supported.
You will probably not be able to upgrade your mid 2015 MBP to macOS Sequoia, so you might try to use the Adobe DNG converter to convert the RAW files to DNG.
But make sure to use the lossless RAW format, so you will be able to use the original RAW files once you replace your current Mac.
Thanks. I appreciate the quick response.
Thanks.
unable to view photos on MacBook Pro from a Nikon Z8 camera
