RiceHigh's Pentax Blog: K-3 and Mac/iPad RAW Support

Sunday, March 09, 2014

K-3 and Mac/iPad RAW Support

I received an email from a reader of this Blog and you may find the information he shared and the trick provided useful, as a K-3 user:

You may be aware that K-3 RAW images (both PEF and DNG) are not readable by Apple’s software such as iPhoto and Aperture, neither on the iPad with the Camera Connection Kit. There was no problem with my K-20D and K-5 before, but this time Apple and Ricoh seem to be out of touch, there is no fix in sight.

Now, I’ve done some research and found that it all comes down to a single byte: The DNG files have a “minimum version” field that tells the software that it needs to support this version in order to understand the data in the file. In K3’s DNGs this version is set to 2 while all previous Pentax DSLRs did put a 1 in there. And, alas, Apple’s software can’t deal with that.

Now, here’s the funny part: I wrote a little tool that changes this version field from 2 to 1. And with that, Apple’s software and the iPad can suddenly read and show those DNGs!

Now, it may still be that the DNGs contain some new information that Apple’s software can’t decypher, but I cannot see that the images suffer from it. Maybe it’s just some meta data that’s getting lost in this transition, but I could care less. All I care about is getting the raw data image out of it and that works just fine with that little fix.

I’ve made this tool and information available on pentaxforums.org, but didn’t get much response yet (http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/120-general-technical-troubleshooting/252732-k-3-mac-ipad-users-help-me-test-fix-raw-files.html). I’d like to get some more opinions on this, and see if others find any issues with this method. If not, I’d like to see if we can’t get Ricoh to issue a firmware update that changes this version number to solve this damm issue with Apple product.

Note: While there’s currently an “official” work-around, i.e. using Adobe’s DNG converter, this is not a solution on the iPad, as it can’t run this software. That’s why I like to get this solved properly, as I rather carry my lighter iPad than a Macbook around to review my images when I’m on the road.

Thomas

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Chris · 575 weeks ago

Why would anybody want to import RAW files to an iPad? Can somebody enlighten me? Isn't it that RAW files are destined to be postprocessed by serious software (running on a PC)?

2 replies · active 575 weeks ago

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Punx · 575 weeks ago

Sometimes, or some people like photojournalists needs to process and deliver their photographs on-the-go and the iPad is one of the best and fastest way to do that... That's what I do...

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Thomas himself · 575 weeks ago

One can use the iPad as a temporary storage when the card is full. That includes storing the RAW files

One can, however, also work around the topic's issue by shooting RAW+, with both images on the same card.

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Chris · 575 weeks ago

Well, I think that when you are in a hurry, the in-camera image processor, with parameters fine-tuned and well-balanced by Pentax engineers, is probably waaay better than a quick-and-dirty PP run on an iPad. Or are there convincing arguments or significant experience to the contrary?
(I do not understand why people love RAW so much anyway... with the same logic, in the film age every "serious" amateur would have to develop in an own dark room)

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Dan Johnson · 575 weeks ago

I use the button on the side of one of my K-5s (but I have opposable thumbs) so I'll have both JPEG & RAW. An Adobe DNG in 14bit color depth can be professionally Photoshopped and enlarged in onOne's Genuine Fractals Print Pro for 1000 years when saved on a Mellinata Disk, handing him a compressed JPEG in 8bit color depth that's been resaved over and over again or eMailed is a parallel to "making a silk purse out of a sows ear" or instead of sending your favorite photos taken on an expensive trip to a pro as 14bit DNGs you can demand Ricoh delete that button and use it like a Poloroid.

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Chris · 575 weeks ago

Dan, while I do not follow that procedure (and still get pictures that I really love to view), I see that RAW has its use and place for some. My objection just referred to importing RAW pics to a tablet and doing the PP there. It seems to me that in that case, the "perfect" information (RAW) is then PPed by lowly amateur software.

I may be wrong, though... but anybody will probably prefer a K-3 JPEG over a K-10D RAW any day. Which I believe makes another point.