Unable to download raw files from camera — I see this has been a problem for several years. Has anyone found a solution?
Mac mini, macOS 15.3
As this document shows:
The Z8 is supported forRaws but for uncompressed ones only.
Alternatives exist, of course, including whatever app Nikon suggest for processing Raws.
kkm2091 wrote:… I see this has been a problem for several years.
From the Z8 manual:
You can see that Nikon offers 3 different forms of RAW files. Apple accepts Lossless compression RAW files, but not the others. So you may want to use Lossless compression.
Look at how many just Nikon cameras are on Apple's list of supported formats! Every camera model and sub-model has its very own RAW format that's different from all the others. Apple doesn't seem interested in writing new code to support them all, and I find it hard to blame them for that.
I use High Efficiency*, which is not supported. 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 export a jpg that I can import to Photos. I sometimes find that I can further improve the image some with Photos own editor.
Just bought new Nikon Z8
