Spotlight Search problem with Fuji XT-1 RAF files?

[Henry Gilbey]

My apologies if this has been asked before, I did a search and could not find it.

When I was shooting my Nikon D3 cameras, I could use the Spotlight Search facility on my Mac to search for specific RAW files via the Description/Caption, or via keywords etc.

But there seems to be a problem executing the same kinds of searches with the RAF files I shoot on a Fuji XT1 that I have been playing around with for a while now.

I execute the same search parameters etc., I know the files are in the folder I am searching, but it will not then display any Fuji RAF files in a new contact sheet.

Am I doing something wrong? It's driving me mad and I am sure I must be missing something. Thanks in advance.

[Kirk Baker]

My apologies if this has been asked before, I did a search and could not find it.

When I was shooting my Nikon D3 cameras, I could use the Spotlight Search facility on my Mac to search for specific RAW files via the Description/Caption, or via keywords etc.

But there seems to be a problem executing the same kinds of searches with the RAF files I shoot on a Fuji XT1 that I have been playing around with for a while now.

I execute the same search parameters etc., I know the files are in the folder I am searching, but it will not then display any Fuji RAF files in a new contact sheet.

Am I doing something wrong? It's driving me mad and I am sure I must be missing something. Thanks in advance.

Spotlight searches don't work well with RAW files in general and don't work at all with RAW files whose metadata is stored in XMP sidecar files.

-Kirk

[Henry Gilbey]

Thanks for explaining it Kirk, understood

[FVlcek]

One solution would be to convert the RAFs to DNGs (depending on your preferred raw converter of course). Even with full size preview embedded, compressed DNGs are about 1/3 smaller in filesize then RAFs (which don't even embedd a full size preview on most Fuji cameras), which is a nice boon, and do get indexed by spotlight.

[Kirk Baker]

One solution would be to convert the RAFs to DNGs (depending on your preferred raw converter of course). Even with full size preview embedded, compressed DNGs are about 1/3 smaller in filesize then RAFs (which don't even embedd a full size preview on most Fuji cameras), which is a nice boon, and do get indexed by spotlight.

Spotlight still does not index embedded XMP properly.  It won't pull out specific metadata and put the data into searchable fields.  It treats the XMP metadata as a big blob of text which is only slightly useful.

-Kirk