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Olympus OMD EM10 and Panasonic GX7 RAW file questions?

S

snerkler

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 14, 2012
1,182
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I'm contemplating buying either the Olympus OMD EM10 or Panasonic GX7. I've just downloaded sample files from each camera and found that the .ORF files of the EM10 aren't supported by Mac's preview software so I can't open the files to view straight from my hard drive. I tend to view my photos using preview and then select which ones I want to save and discard before importing to Aperture or Lightroom. Does anyone know how quickly apple will bring out an update?

Also, looking at the supported RAW for Aperture neither are supported, but having just tried them the GX7 RAW file works, but the EM10 one doesn't. Again, how quickly do apple bring out updates?

Both are supported by Lightroom 5, but apparently the EM10 file support is preliminary, what exactly does this mean?

Thanks.

Edit: Adobe's DNG converter doesn't work with the .ORF files :(
 
Last edited:
Always a problem when you are on the bleeding edge buying a new camera. I know, I have E-M1.

Aperture does not do E-M10. So not surprising that Preview does not either.

No way to predict when Apple will release the next raw file support update. E-M5 was in Aperture 3.4 and Aperture 3.5 added E-M1. So you may need 3.6.
 
MCAsan said:
Always a problem when you are on the bleeding edge buying a new camera. I know, I have E-M1.

Aperture does not do E-M10. So not surprising that Preview does not either.

No way to predict when Apple will release the next raw file support update. E-M5 was in Aperture 3.4 and Aperture 3.5 added E-M1. So you may need 3.6.
Click to expand...

Thanks. How far apart were 3.4 and 3.5 released, and how long after the EM5 and EM10 did the respective updates come out? I know it's not perfect, but it might give me some idea how long I have to wait.

I can convert the .ORF files to TIFF, but then they're huge. Do you know if you convert to TIFF whether you lose any data from the RAW file?
 
snerkler said:
Thanks. How far apart were 3.4 and 3.5 released, and how long after the EM5 and EM10 did the respective updates come out? I know it's not perfect, but it might give me some idea how long I have to wait.

I can convert the .ORF files to TIFF, but then they're huge. Do you know if you convert to TIFF whether you lose any data from the RAW file?
Click to expand...

Don't know, I was not tracking the Aperture dot releases. You might find a page that has all the 3.4 and 3.5 dot releases and dates.

Hopefully you are using a referenced Aperture library like LR does. The photos are stored in folders in the file system. With Apeture the other choice is they are stored inside the Aperture database itself.

Down load your ORF files into the file system olders where you would store them if you are doing a referenced Aperture library. Don't try to import them into Aperture. Once Aperture is updated, you can go back and import all the ORF files. Use the Olympus to create TIFFs from the few critical ones and you should be able to import the TIFFs into Aperture.
 
MCAsan said:
Don't know, I was not tracking the Aperture dot releases. You might find a page that has all the 3.4 and 3.5 dot releases and dates.

Hopefully you are using a referenced Aperture library like LR does. The photos are stored in folders in the file system. With Apeture the other choice is they are stored inside the Aperture database itself.

Down load your ORF files into the file system olders where you would store them if you are doing a referenced Aperture library. Don't try to import them into Aperture. Once Aperture is updated, you can go back and import all the ORF files. Use the Olympus to create TIFFs from the few critical ones and you should be able to import the TIFFs into Aperture.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your help, I'm not sure what you mean by referencing files though so need to look into that. When I import them I choose the option NOT to copy the files into the aperture library, but just link them from my hard drive. Is this what you mean?

As for the TIFFs can you do this in camera then? I can create TIFFs using LR too which then can import into Aperture which I did for this 'experiment'.
 
Aperture referenced library vs a managed/embedded library
http://support.apple.com/kb/PH7625

Excellent video on the two types of library storage. https://www.video2brain.com/en/videos-4657.htm

If I go Aperture in the future, it will be with a referenced library. I am used to that structure as that is the way LR imports files. LR does not have an option of an internal database file that holds all the originals, versions, ...etc.

I think the camera bodies only export ORF raw or jpg files. Indeed use LR or the OLY software to create TIFFs as needed for Aperture. In the short-term, just use LR until Aperture is updated. Then you can tell Aperture to import a copy of all your ORF files.
 
I got an E-M10 recently (love it BTW, but the GX7 would be a nice choice too).

Your versions must be behind; I can convert using Camera Raw/DNG converter 8.4. Everything works fine in LR 5.4 and PS. The sensor isn't anything new, I think, so what they have now is awfully good, and may get better. The "preliminary" is probably indicative of more testing, but you are gonna tweak RAWs anyway. Adobe doesn't certify it until it passes their quality control tests; it's not just a matter of file translation from one format to another. Lens corrections are embedded in Olympus RAW files, I believe, so there isn't a separate Adobe update for those.

One reason I go with Lightroom is that I've never bought a camera so new it didn't already have RAW support.

Some other applications are also quick on the RAW draw, if you will, like GraphicConverter (really handy if you're gonna do conversions, but does much much more, and a good choice for culling before importing). HoudahGeo also has E-M10 support.

I found when I moved to an SSD that having used referenced files in Aperture and Lightroom (I used both at that time; not recommended) made it SO much easier. It's nice to have the catalog/library on the SSD and images elsewhere. And moving around and dealing with referenced photos is way easier with LR than Aperture, I found. Much like the Finder. Aperture was just painful.
 
Sokolov said:
You can use exiftool

Install it from here:http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

And open Terminal go to folder with your ORF and run: exiftool -CameraType2='E-M1' *.ORF

And files will be opened in Aperture! Presto!
Click to expand...

Thanks, although not 100% sure I follow, I've not used terminal a lot at all. I have found one way to get the files into aperture and that's to first open them in lightroom and then export as TIFF and open the TIFFs in aperture. A bit long winded, and takes up a lot of room as the TIFF files are large.

I might give the exiftool a whirl whilst waiting for Apple to bring out RAW compatibility.

Once question re the terminal command, you've typed E-M1 yet my camera is the EM10, does that matter?
 
snerkler said:
Once question re the terminal command, you've typed E-M1 yet my camera is the EM10, does that matter?
Click to expand...
E-M10 have same sensor as E-M1. This command just change metadata and pretend that photo was taken on E-M1 camera. Apple have support E-M1 raw files.
This command will work only on E-M10 raw's.
 
Sokolov said:
You can use exiftool

Install it from here:http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

And open Terminal go to folder with your ORF and run: exiftool -CameraType2='E-M1' *.ORF

And files will be opened in Aperture! Presto!
Click to expand...

I've found converting to TIFF in LR and then opening up in Aperture is very long winded so I'd like to give this a whirl. However, I'm not sure I follow you instructions. Do I open terminal, then select the folder and then type "run: exiftool - CameraType@='E-M1'*.ORF" into terminal?
 
MCAsan said:
EM-10 raw files are supported in LR 5.5 which was released last week.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but they were supported in LR before that. It's aperture support I want. I've had to import into LR then export as TIFF and then open these TIFF's up in aperture. Obviously it's very long winded and TIFF's take up a lot of space.

I don't know how to use exiftool with terminal though. Those instructions above are a bit too brief for me :(
 
Understood. The Aperture app will handle those files when the raw converter function in OS 10 is updated. The raw converter is not part of Aperture. That update could be in 10.9.4 which will likely be the last Mavericks update before Yosemite.
 
LR 5.5 made the provision E-M10 raw support permanent. Now the profiles in Camera Calibration give you the Olympus selections; that wasn't always true with the preliminary support. Good luck with Aperture support. Maybe if you researched the history of other RAW types you'd get an idea of how long it will take. It's obviously not a priority.

TIFF is a lossless format, in that it doesn't do compression. But it's still a different format than RAW. Olympus, for example, stores lens correction info in the RAW; not sure if that gets written to TIFF. The whole point of RAW format is that it is, in fact raw, and not processed. Even TIFF is some processing.

And as noted other applications like GraphicConverter can manipulate the new RAW files, and you could change exif information within that application so as to get them to be processed in Aperture. Whether the results would be acceptable depends; I treated a couple ORF as M-1s and it seemed to work OK, but I don't use Aperture much because of issues like this.
 
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