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I recently bough Nikon D3500 and I shoot in jpg+raw mode. In the history of taken photos, however, there's only one copy of each photo, rather than two. Similarly, when I import the photos to edit them, I find only jpg formats. So, how to access and transfer the raw data?

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    \$\begingroup\$ How are you importing them? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 17:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ Via bluetooth to Snapbridge app. \$\endgroup\$
    – Svit
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 19:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ Sorry if this sounds obvious, but have you tried reading the memory directly in a card reader on your computer? \$\endgroup\$
    – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 20:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ My laptop has a card reader indeed! Thanks, problem solved. \$\endgroup\$
    – Svit
    Commented Sep 2, 2019 at 11:37

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According to this Nikon page, NEF transfer in SnapBridge is only available if your camera supports WiFi (Bluetooth would likely be too slow), and as far as I can tell the D3500 has no WiFi.

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    \$\begingroup\$ So wire is the only way to go? \$\endgroup\$
    – Svit
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 20:25
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    \$\begingroup\$ @SvitLaris Or a more expensive camera :) But is editing RAW on the phone really worth it? \$\endgroup\$
    – xenoid
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 21:36
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The camera's built-in playback mode knows to just show you JPEG files when reviewing when a RAW also exists — there'd be no point in separately showing the RAW preview (whih will be identical).

Then, you say imported photo on my phone. You note that you're transferring via the Snapbridge app. Unfortunately, these apps are made for quick social media sharing — they solve the problem of "I took a nice picture with my real camera, and now I have to take a snapshot with my phone in order to immediately share this with my friends/family". They generally don't transfer RAW files, and often transfer smaller or recompressed JPEGs. (Depending on the camera and app, that may be an option.)

This is largely because RAW files tend to be much bigger than JPEGs, so it would be slow, but it's also matter of target market and use case. (The few RAW-processing apps for phones are targeted at processing your phone's photographs.)

So, your only option is to transfer via cable (or, remove the card and put in a reader, which is often faster and less fiddly).

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What camera mode? There are several of the auto "Scene" modes where raw recording is not possible. That is my guess. See page 48 of the D3500 Reference Manual, free at https://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/471/D3500.html

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks, checked the manual, but I'm shooting in apeture priority. So my guess is that I did shoot the raw, but I don't know how to access/transfer it. BTW. if I shoot in raw mode, my camera says the preview photo it's in NEF format, but if I shoot in jpg+raw it says it's jpg. So there has to be a way of accessing the NEF files. \$\endgroup\$
    – Svit
    Commented Sep 1, 2019 at 19:23

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