[jeffkrol]

Just been out for a days shooting and none of my PEF's will import into iPhoto or Aperture. Installed new firmware yesterday. Just glad I'm not the only one.

What's the mechanism for finding out when this gets fixed? Do we keep checking the Pentax site?/

Will

not really a Pentax problem exactly.

[davemdsn]

not really a Pentax problem exactly.

If Pentax changed the exif tags in the PEF files to something that the majority of RAW conversion apps don't recognize then it is a Pentax problem. Picasa didn't change the exif data. Bibble didn't do it. OS X didn't do it. Of course, Pentax wants you to use their software, not someone else's. I don't expect Pentax to fix it. The 3rd party apps will step up to the plate so that they can keep selling their product.

[jeffkrol]

If Pentax changed the exif tags in the PEF files to something that the majority of RAW conversion apps don't recognize then it is a Pentax problem. Picasa didn't change the exif data. Bibble didn't do it. OS X didn't do it. Of course, Pentax wants you to use their software, not someone else's. I don't expect Pentax to fix it. The 3rd party apps will step up to the plate so that they can keep selling their product.

well if it works in ACR (Adobe product) then it's only partially a "pentax problem".
I assume software designers have a choice as to how they program to identify a file type. Some use one way, others use another. Unfortunately it seem this is not "standardized". More like mutual blame to me.....
Another reason for standards.
Reminds me of all the blame microsoft gets for lazy programmers not following the rules. Of course MS allowing this is partially to blame......
Not all software problems are at the OS level...
Anyways only my opinion.

[davemdsn]

I was not trying to place blame. When my kid spills his milk I don't blame him for it, it was an accident. However, it did happen and I didn't do it. If Pentax changes their tags it is not the fault of the 3rd party apps. I also don't think that Pentax did it to make anyone angry or put out. It just happened. But what happened was done by Pentax. The other apps didn't change anything. Kudos to Adobe for being able to work with the change, but not everyone likes using Adobe products for the RAW stage of their workflow.

I do with there was a standard. I'm a fan of DNG. Fortunately for me Apple reads the PEF 1.01 after the DNG conversion just fine.

[jeffkrol]

I was not trying to place blame. When my kid spills his milk I don't blame him for it, it was an accident. However, it did happen and I didn't do it. If Pentax changes their tags it is not the fault of the 3rd party apps. I also don't think that Pentax did it to make anyone angry or put out. It just happened. But what happened was done by Pentax. The other apps didn't change anything. Kudos to Adobe for being able to work with the change, but not everyone likes using Adobe products for the RAW stage of their workflow.

I do with there was a standard. I'm a fan of DNG. Fortunately for me Apple reads the PEF 1.01 after the DNG conversion just fine.

for a more fun filled discussion you should read this:
Am I the only one P*ssed *ff with Pentax and the K20D firware upgrade?: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
Edvinas has a nice picture of the work involved in correction this error:
Re: FIX: Pentax K20D 1.01 RAW files: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
My take is it was just an oversight and I actually think the original firmware was wrong. There was no Pentax Corporation. It ceased to exist. Obviously Pentax corrected their "error" to some RAW converters detriment. Since converting PEF to DNG solves this problem is seems just like an unfortunate set of circumstances and persoanally it seems Bibble et. al. uses more than it needs to identify a file type. I'm sure there are more elegent and safer ways to identify a file type than just a text string.
Note: from the looks of it, Bibble uses both make and model when model would have been good enough I suppose.
NOTE:A brief comment from the Bibble team.....
Probably not - it doesn't make sense to do a complete release to fix one problem if you've got others you're working on finishing up. We've had problems with Canons coming back from being repaired with variations in the model names that caused trouble and we're weren't able to immediately release an update. We are working on an update to resolve some open issues that will include a fix for the firmware. I don't have an estimate on the date yet, but I assure you it's as fast as we can do it.
-Colleen
Bibble Labs
We like our Pentax customers just as much as the others :): Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
One critical note, apparently Pentax is not the only one to experiece this. Imagine if you had your camera repaired and NOW you can't open your files...

[Robert Barnett]

This is just too funny. First you complain about the noise, now you complain that Pentax addressed or at least attempted to address the problem as well as most likely making some other minor tweaks. This ends up breaking Apple's apparently very weak RAW processing capabilities and you have the nerve to blame Pentax.

Folks pull your heads out already. Pentax can do whatever they want in a firmware update to tweak and fix problems. If Apples weak RAW support is so pathetic that it can't handle even minor changes (this applies to any other company who's raw support also drops dead because of it) then maybe you need to blame Apple (and any other companies that now have broken raw) and move to a company that apparently knows how to do raw support that doesn't break with minor tweaks. Yes, I am speaking of Adobe.

Pentax is not the one that has to fix anything. It is Apple and any other company that now has broken support. The problem is it seems to take Apple and others months upon months to add new camera support. Adobe had K20D support long ago but Apple and others are just now getting around to it. And, now it is broken because they don't know what they are doing and you blame Pentax. Give me a break.

Besides you should all be using DNG anyways.

Robert

[davemdsn]

This is just too funny. First you complain about the noise, now you complain that Pentax addressed or at least attempted to address the problem as well as most likely making some other minor tweaks. This ends up breaking Apple's apparently very weak RAW processing capabilities and you have the nerve to blame Pentax.

Folks pull your heads out already. Pentax can do whatever they want in a firmware update to tweak and fix problems. If Apples weak RAW support is so pathetic that it can't handle even minor changes (this applies to any other company who's raw support also drops dead because of it) then maybe you need to blame Apple (and any other companies that now have broken raw) and move to a company that apparently knows how to do raw support that doesn't break with minor tweaks. Yes, I am speaking of Adobe.

Pentax is not the one that has to fix anything. It is Apple and any other company that now has broken support. The problem is it seems to take Apple and others months upon months to add new camera support. Adobe had K20D support long ago but Apple and others are just now getting around to it. And, now it is broken because they don't know what they are doing and you blame Pentax. Give me a break.

Besides you should all be using DNG anyways.

Robert

This is the kind of ignorant post that makes me stay away from this forum for long periods. If you don't have something positive to bring to the table then go someplace else. If you don't use one of the apps that has a problem with this update then you shouldn't be throwing salt on those that do. Way to make friends.

[a a i b]

ANYWAY, back on topic.

I'm using Aperture, and back to my work around from before Aperture supported the K20D, which is

.PEF -> Adobe DNG converter -> Aperture.

Just not lovin' how the file size balloons up.

Now, in another thread, someone reported getting "exiftool" (ported to Windows, Linux, Mac) to simply replace the offending metadata marker that prevents Aperture and iPhoto from reading these 1.01 PEF files. Windows has a GUI front for exiftool, making the batch conversion, I imagine, easier, but no dice for us Mac users.

As I mentioned, exiftool works in UNIX, using the command line (Terminal.app), but I'll be darned if I can figure out the proper argument syntax. Any UNIX gods have a pointer for us? This could be a good stopgap until an update comes along.

***

An aside: the blame game is pointless, at least for me. I'd rather discuss workarounds and strategies; well, actually, I'd rather discuss pictures and gear.

[jeffkrol]

ANYWAY, back on topic.

I'm using Aperture, and back to my work around from before Aperture supported the K20D, which is

.PEF -> Adobe DNG converter -> Aperture.

Just not lovin' how the file size balloons up.

Now, in another thread, someone reported getting "exiftool" (ported to Windows, Linux, Mac) to simply replace the offending metadata marker that prevents Aperture and iPhoto from reading these 1.01 PEF files. Windows has a GUI front for exiftool, making the batch conversion, I imagine, easier, but no dice for us Mac users.

As I mentioned, exiftool works in UNIX, using the command line (Terminal.app), but I'll be darned if I can figure out the proper argument syntax. Any UNIX gods have a pointer for us? This could be a good stopgap until an update comes along.

***

An aside: the blame game is pointless, at least for me. I'd rather discuss workarounds and strategies; well, actually, I'd rather discuss pictures and gear.

There is a shell to go with it that makes it easy, I suppose .
Sorry not sure it works in UNIX. Not my forte.
Re: FIX: Pentax K20D 1.01 RAW files: Pentax SLR Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review

[davef]

ANYWAY, back on topic.

As I mentioned, exiftool works in UNIX, using the command line (Terminal.app), but I'll be darned if I can figure out the proper argument syntax. Any UNIX gods have a pointer for us? This could be a good stopgap until an update comes along.

.

It has been some time since I used Linux but from your shell program, you likely want something like:

>cd \directory where the PEF files you want to change are located\
>mkdir bkupdir i.e. make a subdirectory to back up original PEFs
>cp *.pef bkupdir\*.pef save all the originals
>exiftool Make="PENTAX Corporation" *.pef

As I recall, exiftool is a Perl script so the syntax of the above isn't correct. You probably need something like:

>exiftool.pl Make="PENTAX Corporation" *.pef

and if you want to spend some time reading the examples, exiftool will create a new directory and write the updated files to it to save you the backup step.

Dave

[davemdsn]

ANYWAY, back on topic.

I'm using Aperture, and back to my work around from before Aperture supported the K20D, which is

.PEF -> Adobe DNG converter -> Aperture.

Just not lovin' how the file size balloons up.

Balloon up? My converted DNGs are smaller than the original PEFs. I have been using the same workflow to keep things moving. I have been converting to DNG for years so it's no big deal to me.

[a a i b]

Balloon up? My converted DNGs are smaller than the original PEFs. I have been using the same workflow to keep things moving. I have been converting to DNG for years so it's no big deal to me.

Got confused. Conversions with Pentax Lab balloon up the files. Conversions with Adobe DNG converter muck up the EXIF data for time shot.

[a a i b]

OK -- putting some stuff together from another helpful UNIX Pentaxian, Mac users can do the following.

1. Go here: ExifTool by Phil Harvey
2. Download the Mac OS X package ExifTool-7.34.
3. The ExifTool installer should open up. Install, with your admin password

Now you have ExifTools installed. As mentioned previously, Windows users can use a GUI (graphic user interface) wrapper, but Mac users have to use the command line.

4. Download from your card the .PEF files to a folder. Download to a folder on the desktop, called "x" .
5. BACK UP THIS FOLDER NOW. Important: put the backed up .PEFs in a different folder.
6. In Applications -> Utilities, open up "Terminal"
7. In terminal type "cd" and the spacebar. Now, from the desktop, drag the folder with the .PEFs on to the Terminal window. The Mac will auto-complete for you the address. We are going into a directory with the images
8. Now copy and paste the following (much easier than typing):

Code:

exiftool -Make="PENTAX Corporation" ~/Desktop/x/*.PEF

If you have the folder "x" open, you can watch ExifTool make copies of the original .PEF files and update the files with the new metadata that let's Aperture or iPhoto process those images.

9. Import into Aperture or iPhoto. Back up your vault or whatever.
10. Delete the contents of "x" when you're satisfied the .PEFs are what you want them to be.


Thanks to morfic for the UNIXy goodness, and to davef as well.

[Robert Barnett]

No one in this thread should be talking about anything positive. Your all blamming the wrong company. Now I realize that all of your Mac junkies think Apple can't do anything wrong, but in this case they have.

Pentax makes the hardware and make any adjustments and tweaks they want via firmware. You have three choices here. 1. Don't buy Pentax. 2. Don't upgrade the firmware. 3. Upgrade the firmware and then wait for companies to fix their flawed software.

The fact that Adobe's products have no issues after the firmware update makes it clear that it is Apple and any other company who's software has broke that have the problem and not Pentax.

For godsakes people learn to blame the right people even when you think they can walk on water.

Robert

[RiceHigh]

No one in this thread should be talking about anything positive. Your all blamming the wrong company. Now I realize that all of your Mac junkies think Apple can't do anything wrong, but in this case they have.

Pentax makes the hardware and make any adjustments and tweaks they want via firmware. You have three choices here. 1. Don't buy Pentax. 2. Don't upgrade the firmware. 3. Upgrade the firmware and then wait for companies to fix their flawed software.

The fact that Adobe's products have no issues after the firmware update makes it clear that it is Apple and any other company who's software has broke that have the problem and not Pentax.

For godsakes people learn to blame the right people even when you think they can walk on water.

Robert

I think the right company to be blamed is Pentax but NOT Apple, Bible or any other 3rd party software companies.

Why? Its Pentax who changed the RAW header file in the firmware update of the K20D without any notice or warning to end-users and without any good co-ordination with other software companies (the outcome tells it all) suddenly and "all by themselves" (and without concerning about anyone else) and thus finally causes all those troubles and hassle. So?

For all these hassle, inconvenience, incompatibility and users unable to use their purchased software is just for one reason! To remove the name of "Pentax Corporation" in the K20D's firmware.

Its also a good example of poor planning. IF Pentax DID change the company tag to "HOYA Corporation" when they releaseD the K20D for the first firmware version 1.00 from the beginning. This great trouble and chaos can be avoided.