Help, deadline approaches, can't open 5D4 RAW files

[Curmudgeon]

Crap! Took the plunge for the 5D4, and now I have egg all over my face.

I was so excited. Like a lot of 5D2 shooters I passed on the 5D3 because for someone who is primarily a landscape shooter it was no way a $3500 upgrade. The years dragged by, the usual 5D three-year refresh timeline brought nothing. Five years and counting from my 5D2, Canon was blithely trotting out the same old sensor technology (with algorithmic refinements) in cameras like the 5DS, as if there was no problem. I seriously considered changing horses, but hung in because of the lenses, the ergonomics, the usual good Canon stuff. But with growing doubts: I stopped giving myself the annual Christmas/birthday present of one shiny new L a year. Still, I couldn't bring myself to make the expensive switch of brands until I had seen if the 5D4 would address the issues that landscaper/portrait type shooters have been complaining about for years. (Sorry, but for certain kinds of shooting, DR does matter.) But where was the semi-mythical 5D4?

Finally, in mid-September, it was here, and the reviews were glowing. Even Canon's harshest critics were saying that Canon had significantly upgraded its game for my kind of shooting. Hell, DPR loved it--dozens of significant improvements as a general-purpose tool. And DxO--yes, DxO--rated its DR as two full stops better than the 5D3. I was there. After nearly seven long years, I plunked down my money for a new 5D. In fact, I went nuts. Call it a retirement gift for myself, or maybe playing Christmas catchup: but in the same week I also went ought and bought the two lenses I'd been lusting after since their release: the 24mm TS-E II, a landscaper's dream, and the 100-400mm L II, in my mind the ultimate all-purpose telephoto for someone who is only occasionally a wildlife/sports/action shooter. (Now that I had the body, what excuse for not owning the lenses?)

I was happily gassing about all this to a friend, who happens to coach the local girls high school tennis team. He wanted a slide show for the team banquet--a slide show like all the major sports had, and asked if I'd do the shooting during their last match on Thursday. Are you kidding? I went out and fired off 675 shots at (for me) an orgasmic seven shots per second--exactly twice the frame rate of my 5D2. And just to cut down on the computer-screen clutter, for the first time in my life I shot RAW without a JPEG backup.

I went home and put the files on the computer. Then I tried to load them into Elements 14. Nada. Nuttin'. Never had this problem with three previous Canon bodies. O.K. After struggling with Adobe's convoluted website for several hours, saw the welcome message that I had successfully downloaded Camera RAW 9.7, with Adobe-certified support for the 5D4. Back to Elements 14 to finally bring those 650 shots into the catalogue. Nada. Nuttin'. According to Elements 14, the files were still corrupt, or already in the catalogue, or in a format not supported by the program.

I'm frustrated; I'm furious--why does this crap have to be so complicated? More to the point, I have a friend and team of high school girls hoping to see for the first time something more than Mom's cell phone pictures of themselves in action. (Only major sports--football and basketball--get serious photographic attention at the high school level.) The banquet is about a week away, and I have nothing to show them. Can't find any help elsewhere on the net. There's a work-around I'm guessing: I could process the RAW files in Canon's proprietary software, save them as JPEGs and move them over to Elements, but Canon's software is so clunky that I've never used it and I'm sure it would take me more than a week to get up to minimum speed. I'm hoping someone on this forum has encountered a similar problem and can provide me with a magic bullet to get the files into Elements.

 

[Zeidora]

Use Canon's DPP, convert to .tif, open .tif in whatever you want.

 

[rs]

Use the free Adobe DNG Converter?

Personally I use Canon DPP, and after a small learning curve I get great results in a much faster timescale than I ever did with Lightroom.

 

[axtstern]

So you Are an early adopter of a professional tool who wonders why a toy Software is not up to your task.
With your next breath you state that the tool you have and that would do the job will not ne used.
That is because it is clunky ans you know this from never using it.

I rest my case. You Are beyond help.

 

[JonAustin]

Dear Curmudgeon:

Please disregard axtstern's snarky & condescending post, and try Zeidora's suggestion of using the DPP software bundled with the camera (and make sure you check Canon's website for the latest updates).

I haven't used DPP in a while, and it sounds like you haven't either -- if ever -- but from what I've read, Canon has made strides in improving its interface and efficacy over the years, as attested to by rs. In your time-crunch situation, it's worth a shot.

By the way, I'm a huge tennis fan / regular player, so I hope your photographic efforts yield a superb slide slow that will be enjoyed by all the young ladies. (And I'm very envious of your screen name!) Good luck!!

 

[rfdesigner]

I would use DPP,

In DPP3 (which is much faster on my PC, I have DPP4 as well) it's this:

within the folder with the images:

ctrl-A (select all)

click the Quick Check from the ribbon.

rate the images you want to process, once done close the quick check window.

Then go through and select each image you want to convert with ctrl-click

ctrl-B (batch process)

Select TIFF-16bit

pick all the other bits you want.. it's worth spending 5 minutes here so you don't miss anything (like sending them to some folder you can't then find!)

Press "Execute"

Go do something else for a while.

then upload the TIFFs into whatever application you want.

 

[zim]

big +1 to rfdesigner's instructions

The only thing I'd add is you may want to do a test with just a couple of files first to prove to yourself that everything will be ok (for example will those big tiff files be ok, you may be able to get what you need from jpg instead) then go for it!

good luck and post a few shots (if you can)

PS you've given me lens envy ;D

 

[rfdesigner]

big +1 to rfdesigner's instructions

The only thing I'd add is you may want to do a test with just a couple of files first to prove to yourself that everything will be ok (for example will those big tiff files be ok, you may be able to get what you need from jpg instead) then go for it!

good luck and post a few shots (if you can)

PS you've given me lens envy ;D

good call on the test run.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I've been working all weekend with limited Internet access, but I wanted to give a heartfelt thanks to everyone who took the time to address (constructively) what was admittedly an amateur's problem. I wouldn't have pushed the panic button if it had been just my issue, but the coach and the girls were looking forward to the results, and the coach (I gathered from the girls' comments) had built up the team's hopes.

Next time I'll look before I leap. But I'll say this in my own defense: in addition to a brand new camera, brand new lens, and a brand new card to handle the faster bit-rate, things were also complicated by the fact that this was my first time working with photo files on a new computer with a new version of Windows. So it was a little harder than usual to know where the problem lay.

The one thing I will say for Windows 10 at this point is that finding downloads is a lot easier than it was on previous versions. After I'd calmed down a bit, I was able to locate my download of Camera Raw 9.7 easily enough, and once I converted the files to DNG, they loaded into Elements. A fairly cumbersome three-step process (download, convert, import) for what had always previously been a simple one-step process, but an adequate short-term fix.

I still can't import CR2 files directly, but I'm guessing that's because Camera RAW 9.7 is probably operating as a stand-alone rather than being incorporated into Elements' plug-ins. I know Elements has a menu bar buried somewhere that includes both a list of functioning plug-ins and an updater tab--I've seen screen shots of it on YouTube. I just wish the $50 manual I bought told me how to unearth it. While the author lauds the improved capabilities of Elements 14 to work with RAW, he makes absolutely no mention of how to check for or download updates to Camera RAW or anything else. I'll figure that out, and when I get a little time, I'll also try the DPP route suggested by several people.

Bye the bye, with all of its unpredictable back and forth motion, tennis would seem to be a pretty fair test of an autofocus system, and the 5D4--100-400 L2 combination produced well. As a retired journalist who occasionally had to provide shots for his own stories, I would guess the pairing would make a more than viable outdoor sports lashup for any mid-sized newspaper. I shot ISO 3200 and the noise looks comparable to 800 with the 5D2. The layout of the courts forced me to shoot almost exclusively at 400mm at f5.6. I also had to shoot across (and therefore above the net), which meant that I had to use a small cluster of autofocus points, only a little easier than working with the center point of the 5D2. But when I could keep those points on the subject, I got at least a 90% hit rate. Not bad I think--considering that I'd picked up the lens just two days before the meet and didn't have the time to take so much as a practice shot, much less calibrate the autofocus. All in all, I'm happy to report not one moment of buyer's remorse--for the lens or the camera. I find there is much to like about the 5D4--the new sensor and the touch screen are terrific of course, but so are a number of smaller things you might not think of at first. The ability to lock settings--always a problem for me when shooting from odd positions with the 5D2--is wonderful.

As requested, I'd post a couple shots for the curious, but--you know--teenage girls, without permission....

And again, my sincere thanks to everyone who took time to help. Oh, and yeah, the tennis team thanks you too.

 

[zim]

No surprise re permission, good to know you got a result!

Also good to know that basically pulling that combo together straight out the box just worked.

 

[Macoose]

"While the author lauds the improved capabilities of Elements 14 to work with RAW, he makes absolutely no mention of how to check for or download updates to Camera RAW or anything else."

Mr. Cur,

In Pse14, click on Help and the update tab is at the bottom.

Because Pse15 will be coming out soon, there is likely no more updates for Pse14. In my experience, Adobe's last update for the versions I have occurred during the summer.
I've bought the last two new versions at Staples during the Black Friday sale.

I hope this helps.
Good Luck!!

Macoose

 

[atlcroc]

The link below shows that PSE 14 only supports ACR Version 9.5. There's a good chance they will not add 9.7 support until PSE 15. This has happened to me previously where I had to buy the newer version to get the latest ACR version. I've played with DNG and Raw on some other photos and was pleased with using DNG. After converting to DNG I could use all the options for processing raw in the current version of PSE. Adobe has included 9.7 in the latest version of Lightroom, but I've seen nothing to indicate they have included it in PSE 14. If you opt for DNG, you can use the converter to do the whole batch a one time and have them stored in the same folder. Then when you open PSE the next time you should get the message new files have been found and they can be brought into PSE for processing.


https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/kb/camera-raw-compatible-applications.html