Nikon Z8 RAW photos incompatible with Apple "Photos" app

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James C. said:
FYI, "Apple makes the distinction between "vintage" and "obsolete" products. Vintage products are Apple products that haven't been manufactured for more than 5 years, but less than 7 years. Obsolete products haven't been manufactured for more than 7 years. Apple says it has discontinued all hardware service for obsolete products with no exception, but says that some vintage products may be able to get limited service. Apple says this is subject to availability and where the products were purchased." - from a 2018 CNET.com article.
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Yeah, I had a 5 year old MacBook a few years ago and just wanted them to replace the internal hard drive. Apple refused, so an independent repair shop got my money and I used that MacBook for another 3-4 years.
 
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James C. said:
Just a quick note, I have discovered that there are other free photo editing apps other than NX Studio. (I created another post to talk about this.) I just came across this article listing the "Best Free Photo Editing Software for Mac in 2023." Here's the link.
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James, I think you need to dig a little deeper. Your issue is not free photo editing apps compatible for Mac, but free photo editing software that recognizes Z8 files and works with Mac. Gimp needs a 'raw processor' to recognize the Z8 files. And the first 3 I looked at in your link do not yet support Z8 files. Now it is possible that updates have came out, but why would you go through all of this when NX Studio is free and works?
 
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jbk2forum said:
James, I think you need to dig a little deeper. Your issue is not free photo editing apps compatible for Mac, but free photo editing software that recognizes Z8 files and works with Mac. Gimp needs a 'raw processor' to recognize the Z8 files. And the first 3 I looked at in your link do not yet support Z8 files. Now it is possible that updates have came out, but why would you go through all of this when NX Studio is free and works?
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Regarding NX Studio, please see my posts of July 25th.

In short, NX Studio will not run on an external drive, which means that I would have to put all of my photos on my Mac's 2 TB drive (which is already 75% full) to work with it. Not an option.
 
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James C. said:
Regarding NX Studio, please see my posts of July 25th.

In short, NX Studio will not run on an external drive, which means that I would have to put all of my photos on my Mac's 2 TB drive (which is already 75% full) to work with it. Not an option.
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Can you clarify because while I run this program from my Mac, I am often using it with photos stored on an external drive?
 
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UPDATE regarding NX Studio and me:

So following BarkingBeansCoffee and Anjin San's above posts, I tried NX Studio again. But this time, I had things set up a little differently than I had before.

I was originally under the impression that not only did NX Studio need to run from the Mac's hard drive, but the Z8's image files had to be on the Mac's drive, TOO!

In the course of all my experiments with 3rd party post-processing software, I recently moved all of the Z8 photos I'd been working with from the Mac's drive to the external drive where I would normally work from. When I tried navigating to the Z8 photos folder this time, everything was there and NX Studio showed me all of the Z8 photos. I also played around with the photo editing features of NX Studio.

Although I still don't have the organizing/cataloging functions for my RAW photos (that I have invested so much time & so many photos into) in Apple's "Photos" app, I can at least now open, view and even edit my Z8 photos in one place. (Although, I think I'll still use Affinity Photo 2 for editing those "keeper" shots that I want to share.)

So I humbly "stand corrected" on some of my earlier misgivings about NX Studio for my situation.

In this case, it was an example of what we used to call a "PEBCAK" issue. (PEBCAK = Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard). ;)
 
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Well it's good that it took this long. There were some issues between version 1.3 and 1.4 that got fixed in 1.4.1 so make sure you have that. Good luck. Apple will get on board likely with Sonoma coming soon. I am not suspected HE* support which is why I have abandoned that.
 
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Mogadishu said:
Really? Maybe im missing something. Im shooting RAW lossless and I still cant view my Z8 Raws at all. Also under the raw support page in system settings, the Z8 isnt shown as an option.
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I'm right there with you!

I just now upgraded my Mac to the new OS ("Sonoma") and went back to look at the Z8 RAW photos that I tried importing into the "Photos" app in July. They are STILL appearing as blank, gray squares!

As an experiment, I then tried importing a few hundred Z8 photos that I've stored in a folder on one of my external drives. As those Z8 photos imported, the proper, actual image thumbnails of each photo appeared on the screen! For about TWO SECONDS! And then the Photos app rapidly & sequentially removed each image and replaced it with a generic, gray box!!!

WHAT THE ... ??

If you own a Nikon Z8 and are having the same problem under the new OS ("Sonoma"), I encourage you to contact Apple ASAP! Here's the link: https://www.apple.com/feedback/photos
 
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James C. said:
I'm right there with you!

I just now upgraded my Mac to the new OS ("Sonoma") and went back to look at the Z8 photos that I tried importing into the "Photos" app in July. They are STILL appearing as blank, gray squares!

As an experiment, I then tried importing a few hundred Z8 photos that I stored in a folder on the external drive where I keep my Mac's "Birds & Wildlife" photolibrary. And guess what? As all of those Z8 photos imported, the proper, actual thumbnails of each photo appeared on the screen! For about TWO SECONDS! And then the photos app sequentially removed each image, in rapid fire succession, and replaced it with a generic, gray box!!!

WHAT THE ... ??
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My guess is that quick flash of thumbnails is maybe the jpg being shown before it tries Raw.

I personally dont edit files in apple photos, i just use that for cataloging.

Since i cant make the raw the primary, i cant export them into any other software natively unless i export them to a folder, then edit, then save, then re-import.

Defintely alot more steps than just sending the Raw from apple photos put to my editor.
 
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James and others. Mea Culpa! I mistakenly said that the Z8's RAW lossless is supported by Ventura and would be with Sonoma. I re-checked after the most recent comments and I was wrong. Still waiting with you all.
 
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So i have a little more info as this is annoying me so i looked more into it.
This might not be an apple issue after all..

I edit my RAWs with affinity photo and happened to notice that the Z8 wasnt supported by them also. The files do import but are missing some metadata…

Anyways, in the affinity photo forums, there was a discussion about how affinity gets all its RAW libraries from libraw.org. Once they are updated there, affinity will auto update their support.

So i checked LIBRAW and see they dont support the Z8.

So im guessing that apple probably uses this same org also for their raw support.

On the libraw page it says that all libraries come from the camera developer so im guessing nikon hasnt published them yet.

I know the Z8 is supported within adobe lightroom so maybe libraw will get them eventually.

I think this isnt a huge deal for most people as most people use lightroom but just wanted to keep this thread up to date in case anyone else has a similar problem as me
 
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There is a growing discussion about Nikon Z8 RAW (NEF) files not being supported on the Mac in the Mac OS Ventura section of the Apple Support Communities. There seem to be quite a few Mac/Z8 owners out there who also seem upset about this and are trying to make Apple aware of it.
 
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Cameron T said:
But it's not on nikon. They'll tell you to use nx studio or something which does support their files
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That’s a fools errand on their part then. We are talking about the two most popular operating systems in the world, and finding files. I get that they might say that about HE* but not the lossless. Maybe one of the features of the Z9 for the extra $1500 is OS support. 🤬
 
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BarkingBeansCoffee said:
That’s a fools errand on their part then. We are talking about the two most popular operating systems in the world, and finding files. I get that they might say that about HE* but not the lossless. Maybe one of the features of the Z9 for the extra $1500 is OS support. 🤬
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I don't bother using native windows anything to look at my pictures, so if it supports my z9 or not is irrelevant to me. The reality is if Apple isn't going to support it, people are going to have to use a program that does (light room, c1, nx studio, etc etc etc). I don't think Apple (or msoft) cares a lot , because nobody pays for the free photo stuff that's included.
 
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Updating my imac now and was hoping to get support finally. :)
I will just keep spamming there feature request page on apple.com but i feel like im the only one to be doing this.

Alot of other forums just keep saying “switch to lightroom” as a fix :(
 
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