List of cameras supported for raw files?

[JamesD]

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Sorry if everybody knows where this is but me.

I'm an OLD geezer photographer, good with my camera but consistently challenged by the computer end of 21st century photography (didn't grow up with all this).

Plus I have my first mac (after PCs all these years) and new to Photo Mechanic also.
Big learning curve for his ole hoss.

Can anybody point me to a list of cameras Photo Mechanic supports raw files for?

Much obliged,

JamesD

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[Kirk Baker]

James,

Sorry if everybody knows where this is but me.

I'm an OLD geezer photographer, good with my camera but consistently challenged by the computer end of 21st century photography (didn't grow up with all this).

Plus I have my first mac (after PCs all these years) and new to Photo Mechanic also.
Big learning curve for his ole hoss.

Can anybody point me to a list of cameras Photo Mechanic supports raw files for?

We don't have a specific list of cameras that are supported.  The list would be quite long and not worth maintaining.  Basically any camera that produces RAW files containing JPEG previews.  Virtually all Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus, etc. cameras are supported.  Medium format cameras are less supported since the RAW files usually don't contain a reasonable-sized JPEG preview in them.

Is there a specific list of camera models you're interested in?

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

PM supports virtually every camera; as long as their raw files have an embedded jpg preview in them (most do) it should work.

If you're on a mac, PM can also make use of the rendering engine contained on the OS. For my own workflow, I always use the embedded jpg though (I use Nikon capture NX to edit my raw files).

What camera brand/model are you looking at?

Cheers,
    Hayo

[JamesD]

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Hi All,

Thanks.

The Olympus E-1 is my main camera.
I still shoot my old Olympus E-20 from time to time for special purposes.

JamesD

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[JamesD]

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OK...as I start to poke around in Photo Mechanic...

It WILL in fact display a thumbnail of an orf (raw file) from my Olympus E-20 (just had an E-20 file handy, haven't tried an E-1 orf yet).
But when you mouse over the thumbnail the "Preview" magnifying glass is absent.

So... Photo Mechanic "sorta" supports Olympus E-20 raw files, but not fully?
Maybe there's an embedded jpeg it can display, but it can't really open (?) or read (?) the file and work with it like other files?

Something like that?

Thanks,

James

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[Kirk Baker]

James,

OK...as I start to poke around in Photo Mechanic...

It WILL in fact display a thumbnail of an orf (raw file) from my Olympus E-20 (just had an E-20 file handy, haven't tried an E-1 orf yet).
But when you mouse over the thumbnail the "Preview" magnifying glass is absent.

So... Photo Mechanic "sorta" supports Olympus E-20 raw files, but not fully?
Maybe there's an embedded jpeg it can display, but it can't really open (?) or read (?) the file and work with it like other files?

Something like that?

The E-20 ORF file only contains a thumbnail.  No embedded preview.

-Kirk

[JamesD]

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The E-20 ORF file only contains a thumbnail.  No embedded preview.

-Kirk

Thanks, Kirk.

You say "No embedded preview."
So, now I'm wondering "What's an 'embedded preview'?"

When I was between my PC and my Mac I sent an E-20 orf to a friend who processed it to a jpeg and returned it to me.
The jpeg thumbnail WILL produce a Preview "magnifying glass" if you mouse over it.
Is that something that's "inherent" in any jpeg file.
So...even though the E-20 orf didn't have an "embedded preview", the jpeg which came from the orf DOES?

I'm just... if I'm going to be working with Photo Mechanic for a long time  , I'm just trying to understand "what's under the hood", how it all works.

Very much obliged,

JamesD

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[Kirk Baker]

James,

The E-20 ORF file only contains a thumbnail.  No embedded preview.

Thanks, Kirk.

You say "No embedded preview."
So, now I'm wondering "What's an 'embedded preview'?"

An embedded preview is an image that the camera puts inside the RAW file for use as a preview.  Not all cameras put previews inside their RAW files, but most current models do.  Many older models didn't put previews in their RAW files.

When I was between my PC and my Mac I sent an E-20 orf to a friend who processed it to a jpeg and returned it to me.
The jpeg thumbnail WILL produce a Preview "magnifying glass" if you mouse over it.
Is that something that's "inherent" in any jpeg file.
So...even though the E-20 orf didn't have an "embedded preview", the jpeg which came from the orf DOES?

Your friend likely used a piece of software that was capable of rendering an ORF RAW file and then could save it as a JPEG.  Photo Mechanic does not have its own RAW rendering engine.  On the Mac, Photo Mechanic can use the OS-provided RAW renderer (ImageIO) to render many RAW formats.  The Windows version of Photo Mechanic has no alternative rendering capability and needs embedded previews to be present in RAW files in order to display them at high resolution.

JPEG files are not RAW files and don't need a preview.  They can be easily rendered without needing to reverse-engineer the format like RAW files do.

RAW files are more like a film negative whereas JPEGs are more like an actual print.  That is a very simplified explanation, but if you want more detail, I can explain further.  A RAW file has to be 'developed' before it can be used, but a JPEG is already ready to be used.  (Again a simplification.)

HTH,

-Kirk

[JamesD]

James,

The E-20 ORF file only contains a thumbnail.  No embedded preview.

Thanks, Kirk.

You say "No embedded preview."
So, now I'm wondering "What's an 'embedded preview'?"

An embedded preview is an image that the camera puts inside the RAW file for use as a preview.  Not all cameras put previews inside their RAW files, but most current models do.  Many older models didn't put previews in their RAW files.

When I was between my PC and my Mac I sent an E-20 orf to a friend who processed it to a jpeg and returned it to me.
The jpeg thumbnail WILL produce a Preview "magnifying glass" if you mouse over it.
Is that something that's "inherent" in any jpeg file.
So...even though the E-20 orf didn't have an "embedded preview", the jpeg which came from the orf DOES?

Your friend likely used a piece of software that was capable of rendering an ORF RAW file and then could save it as a JPEG.  Photo Mechanic does not have its own RAW rendering engine.  On the Mac, Photo Mechanic can use the OS-provided RAW renderer (ImageIO) to render many RAW formats.  The Windows version of Photo Mechanic has no alternative rendering capability and needs embedded previews to be present in RAW files in order to display them at high resolution.

JPEG files are not RAW files and don't need a preview.  They can be easily rendered without needing to reverse-engineer the format like RAW files do.

RAW files are more like a film negative whereas JPEGs are more like an actual print.  That is a very simplified explanation, but if you want more detail, I can explain further.  A RAW file has to be 'developed' before it can be used, but a JPEG is already ready to be used.  (Again a simplification.)

HTH,

-Kirk

Kirk,

1- I understand raw, raw development into tif, jpeg, etc.
2- Yep, my friend used some (?) third party raw developer on my E-20 orfs and sent me the jpegs back.

I guess what I'm not understanding, and curious about is...
- if my E-20 orfs don't contain an embedded preview (no magnifying glass on thumbnail)
- and Photo Mechanic doesn't render orfs itself
- and the E-20 is not supported by the Mac OS (I checked, the E-1 is, but not the E-20)
...then what are the thumbnails that I'm looking at, of my E-20 orfs???  Where did they come from?  How did they get generated?

JamesD

P.S.  I'm not real hip to computers and forums and all, but I do understand that iterations of asynchronous communication are really difficult relative to two guys just sittin' and talking about something.  So, I'm not going to keep hammering away at this forever.    Comes a time to just accept something for the way it is and not worry about the why.  My Daddy was an aviator, and I've just got his curious mind about things, is all.  So, I'll be a'thankin' you for your help, whether you're quite able to resolve every last detail for me or not.   

P.P.S. This is just my first day poking around with Photo Mechanic, and, this current head scratchin' aside, I REALLY think I'm going to like this program!

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[JamesD]

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So...I keep going back and forth from the forum here to Photo Mechanic itself and playing around with it to see how it works, etc.

And...

So I've got some orfs from my E-20 in a contact sheet looking at them, and I'm looking at the thumbnails, but they won't double click up BIG.
I "developed" one of the orfs in another program and saved it back to the same folder, as a tif.
It will "double click up BIG" but the orfs won't.
Is this just because the E-20 is an old camera which doesn't have an embedded preview in the raw file?
Can you do more with other raw files from more modern cameras that do have embedded previews in the raw file?
Such as my E-1 (I hope!)?

JamesD

P.S. Does it matter in any of this that I did not INGEST any of these files?
They were just on a folder on the HD and I just double clicked in the directory structure on the left and the thumbnails popped up.
Do I need to "formally" ingest these pictures?
Or if they are already on my HD, is just "navigating" to them sufficient?

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[Kirk Baker]

James,

So...I keep going back and forth from the forum here to Photo Mechanic itself and playing around with it to see how it works, etc.

And...

So I've got some orfs from my E-20 in a contact sheet looking at them, and I'm looking at the thumbnails, but they won't double click up BIG.
I "developed" one of the orfs in another program and saved it back to the same folder, as a tif.
It will "double click up BIG" but the orfs won't.
Is this just because the E-20 is an old camera which doesn't have an embedded preview in the raw file?

Correct.  The E-20 is an older model and only has a very low resolution thumbnail which is unsuitable for previewing.

Can you do more with other raw files from more modern cameras that do have embedded previews in the raw file?
Such as my E-1 (I hope!)?

More than likely, yes.  Find some images from your E-1 and see how it goes.

P.S. Does it matter in any of this that I did not INGEST any of these files?
They were just on a folder on the HD and I just double clicked in the directory structure on the left and the thumbnails popped up.
Do I need to "formally" ingest these pictures?
Or if they are already on my HD, is just "navigating" to them sufficient?

You don't need to do anything special, just browse the images where they are on your system.  Ingest doesn't cause previews to be embedded in your files.  Ingest is really just a really fancy downloader.

-Kirk

[JamesD]

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Hey Kirk,

Thanks!

I'm sure I'll have some other question come up before I get past the steepest slope of the learning curve here.
But I've got my head pretty much wrapped around this issue here.

And, as I said before, I really think I'm going to enjoy using Photo Mechanic (once't I get good at it!  )

Thanks a lot.

JamesD

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