P7100 NRW format and RAW converters (might be relevant for P7700 too!)

Hi all,

I have found that most 3rd party RAW converters might have problems with RAW files from P7100.

Those that always work fine: LR, Phtoshop/ACR,  ViewNX2

Those that have problems: DxO, Oloneo, Oneone Suite 7, Qimage (these are just the ones I tried)

Here is a link to a file that is rendered normally in LR/ACR/ViewNX2 but not in other converters

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s4m1bym9wwzhdc3/DSCN0595.NRW

When I render using LR/ACR/ViewNX2, the image looks normal - like I remember it. But with other converters it shows ugly greens:

LR4.2

DxO-8.0.1

It is the only file that shows such a severe color distortion. With other files the colors look OK.

But I still think that even when colors look OK, there is a problem. Initially I have noticed that when using DxO the reported color temperature (As Shot) is always incorrect - e.g. LR (and ACR) says 6800 but DxO 8.0.1 displays 9448.

I suspect strongly that NRW format as used by P7100 (and maybe P7700?) uses some tricks that are proprietary to Nikon and as a result only their own RAW converter and Adobe (who gets format description directly from manufactures) do it 100% right.

I have reported the problem to DxO and Qimage. It would be interesting to check whether the problem is still there with P7700 RAW files. DxO does not fully support P7700 yet (i.e. no optical corrections) but it should be able to open a file. If it shows incorrect color temperature, this would be a sign that something is wrong.

Please note that even though I can see incorrect color temperature in DxO in all RAW files taken by my P7100, in all of them except that one the colors look more or less normal (but maybe they are slightly incorrect - as different RAW converters always render in slightly different ways, it is difficult to say).

Alex