Photography

First Photos from The Canon EOS 70D (or not!)

17 Comments

So it turns out that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 can’t handle the RAW files from my new Canon EOS 70D. There is no update for LR 3 that will correct this either.

This leaves me with three options. I could write off Lightroom and just use Canon’s bundled software. I don’t really see this as an option having the rest of my photos in Lightroom and being so comfortable with what Lightroom can do, I see it as pretty much a necessity in my photography workflow these days.

I could use Canon’s bundled software to import the RAW files and then export them as DNG, which LR would then be able to read. While this is not too ridiculously complicated it does add a lengthy step to my workflow which I’m not very keen on.

So the answer was to bite the bullet and spend the $85 dollars on upgrading Lightroom. Not ideal with the Rand Dollar exchange rate heading the wrong direction! However, to be honest I’m not actually upset about the “forced” update, I’m looking forward to seeing what’s new in LR5 and I enjoy my gadgets and new technology so no problem there. Until I tried to install LR5 that is…

I should have read the system requirements before jumping in and buying the Lightroom update but, you guessed it… I didn’t and LR5 needs Mac OS X 10.7 or later to run. I’m currently running OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard and a mild panic set in knowing what the usual going rate for operating systems can be.

Fortunately an update to OS X Mavericks from Snow Leopard is free and is currently downloading, phew….

The moral of the story is do your homework! When it comes to new technology, make sure whatever setup you have is compatible with whatever you are getting. I think I’ve been pretty lucky in that I was considering upgrading my LR anyway and mac’s OS X Mavericks is free. Unless of course there are some more hidden gremlins, Fingers crossed that’s not the case, I’m soon going to have a whole lot of new software to go along with the new camera!

17 thoughts on “First Photos from The Canon EOS 70D (or not!)”

  1. I saw the comment now Victor. Thank you. I was just trying to find out the ramifications before I ran into a problem. I’d prefer not to have the raw file + a dng as it just seems like a space waster to me. My adobe bridge, camera raw process allows me to use the NEF file so perhaps I should just stay with that.

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  2. I forgot about this post. Bit the bullet and upgraded my IMAC and wife’s air book. Not too many problems. Mail works with gmail, slower and it feels less stable with more spinning wheels. But overall not a problem and can hardly tell the difference. The upgrade took all day.

    With respect to RAW versus DNG. My process is NEFS converted to DNG to LR and back-up of the NEFS on import to anther drive. LR does this automatically. If i need the Nefs they are there.

    I do not do 36″ blow-ups but if I did and it were a problem I could use the Nefs in Photoshop. I have never read that DNG was worse than NEFs and lots of pros use DNG. But I could be wrong. Why not try the process I use for one photograph and see if there is a difference and see if there is a difference between the NEF and DNG. I would be interested in the results.

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    1. Turns out the problem I’m having with my MacBook Pro is specific to late 2010 models and is actually an issue with the graphics card and for some reason this issue only surfaces once you upgrade to mavericks. Apparently it puts more strain on the hardware than Snow Leopard used to.

      Hopefully you won’t have any issues.

      Reply

      1. I have a late 2012, I get more spinning wheels and a few other surprises, but nothing like the annoyances and impediments of the Windows laptop I have hung onto for some special apps.

  4. I was just testing out Lr5 as I’ve been an adobe bridge camera raw and photoshop user for a couple years. Today I noticed I could not choose to import the nef (nikon here) file and it forced me to convert to dng on import. I’m having trouble finding out if using dng will be a detriment to me in the future. I blow up some of my images large like around 36″. I always was under the impression that dng was not as good as the camera raw file directly from the camera and now I’m afraid to use LR. Any info you can share with me on this would be greatly appreciated!!!

    Reply

    1. Hi Laura,

      As far as I understand .DNG is just Adobe’s way of naming a RAW file and nothing is actually changed from the RAW file that came out if the camera. I could be wrong but I certainly wouldn’t worry about using it as almost all of the top photographers I follow use Lightroom.

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      1. Hi Barry….thank you. I want to make the switch from adobe bridge camera raw but I can’t help but research like a fiend before the switch. Anyway, I appreciate your response.

    1. I’ll keep you posted Victor, from what I’ve read nothing too drastic is changing. Why are you putting it off? I guess I was purely putting it off from a comfort point of view until I was obliged to upgrade now.

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      1. I put if off until my calibration software was updated and then life intervened with a reno project and I hope to upgrade my IMAC next week. Comfort was a factor too!

      2. Victor, I would suggest holding off on the update to Mavericks if you don’t need it just yet. The reason I say this is that my MacPro keeps crashing now because of something called a Kernel Panic, I’m still trying to isolate the issue with the help of the good folks on the Apple forum but it looks like Google Chrome or possibly LR5 is the cause. I’ll keep you posted.

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