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OK, maybe I'm rushing it a little but I've been shooting RAW+JPEG with a production Nikon D600 and, well, there is no RAW converter available yet, not even from Nikon.

Is it possible to open these RAW files without writing a decoder myself? I realize it cannot be optimal since the camera is not known but considering it uses a standard CMOS sensor with Bayer-Filter, just having the 14-bit samples per pixels would be good enough to produce an image from it.

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    It is about time someone made a standard RAW format – silenT_Thunder Sep 14 '12 at 19:28
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    @silenT_Thunder - Google the acronym "DNG" for such a format... – John Cavan Sep 14 '12 at 19:30
  • Did you try something like RawTherapee? – John Cavan Sep 14 '12 at 19:31
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    @Itai: You can use one of the open source RAW editors. Most things that run on dcraw will usually open new but otherwise unsupported version of RAW from the likes of Nikon, Canon, etc. I think dcraw generally ignores what it can't handle, and keeps trying to process when it can. I've even been able to open corrupted RAW files that ACR/LR wouldn't open with an open source RAW editor, and at times even save a working copy. – jrista Sep 14 '12 at 20:04
  • @JohnCavan - Some people see DNG as a second coming but it really cannot be universal. It's already hacked for Fuji cameras (there are special fields in the header) because DNG is only data and someone still needs to define the process. Until a file-format can include conversion-logic, it is pointless to have a standard container. – Itai Sep 14 '12 at 20:16
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You might try simply altering the EXIF data in the images so the camera model is something your conversion software supports.

I just did some experimentation with an image from my D300 that proved successful. Changing the model field from NIKON D300 to NIKON D900 (fictional, for now) made AfterShot Pro reject the image, but changing it to NIKON D700 worked fine. I don't imagine the raw formats among the cameras are all that different, and a quick eyeball comparison of the original and altered files as ASP displayed them didn't show any visible difference.

EDIT: Just found a D600 NEF and did the same experiment. Worked fine.

The D600 doesn't appear to break any ground when it comes to how the images are stored, so find its closest supported relative and use that.

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  • Great. Turned D600 files into D3X ones :) – Itai Sep 15 '12 at 18:43
  • But how can you edit the Exif when the raw file is not supported? I tried to open an unsupported NEF with Adobe Ps and Br, I also tried the Opanda IExif with no luck... how else can you edit the Exif data? – Omne Sep 23 '12 at 21:11
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    @Omne: You use software that just edits the EXIF and doesn't care what's in it. I did mine on the command line using ExifTool. – Blrfl Sep 24 '12 at 2:32
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I have no problem opening D600 NEFs in Image View Plus More. It is based on dcraw, but it gives you a GUI to tweak the development settings and once converted you get all the features imgview+ have - such as lens dedistortion, colour tweaking, transformations, retouching, etc..

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