iPad RAW Question

[coffeecat]

I have a question for any folks out there who use an iPad for photo processing and shoot only raw...

I have a new iPad Pro - which reviews would have me believe is so fast I could use it to replace the multi-thousand core Linux cluster at work ;-)

I shoot exclusively raw (mostly on an E-PM2), and when I read in photos from the SD card, initially in iPhoto, they look dreadful and blurry. I’m guessing that I’m looking at the embedded jpegs. But when I look again a day or two later, I get lovely full-resolution pictures (on the same device...)

I have two questions:

1. Is this normal?
2. If yes, how long does the iPad usually take to process the raw images for “proper” viewing.

If I look at any of these pics in Affinity Photo on the iPad (straight away) I can see the full res version OK.

This is a bit annoying, since I cannot quickly review a set of pictures I’ve just taken. Whereas I can on my trusty Microsoft Surface 3 (non pro).

Thanks in advance!

Rob

 

[coffeecat]

For reference, I loaded in about 50 pics about 3 hours ago, and they are still blurry...

 

[pondball]

On a recent trip I only downloaded my RAW (.orf) photos to my My Passport WD Wireless Pro... there is a card reader as part of the unit.. I then browsed the photos from my iPad Pro using FileBrowser... and only downloaded to my iPad a few RAW files at a time... no problems with blurry shots doing it that way... worked on them in a variety of apps including Affinity Photo and Photos (for sharing as jpgs to family/friends)

 

[50orsohours]

I don’t have that issue on mine. Although I don’t look at the photos in “photo”. I also have Lightroom installed and that is where I spend my time or Affinity. Hope someone will figure it out for you.

 

[50orsohours]

Ps: I’ll test “photos” tonight once back

 

[coffeecat]

OK, slight update. Now, about 3.5 hours after initial loading in 50 orf files, I finally have non-blurry pics in Photo app.

 

[pondball]

OK, slight update. Now, about 3.5 hours after initial loading in 50 orf files, I finally have non-blurry pics in Photo app.

that seems abnormally long for sure... no other apps open? I don't often restart my iPad Pro but sometimes when things are bogging down that will be a temporary solution

 

[coffeecat]

Here’s another update: First I turned it fully off and on again.
Then, I just read in 20 old orf files. I then tried viewing them immediately in LightRoom CC. This app took roughly 1 sec per shot to import and render them (AFAICT, VERY unscientific...).
5 minutes later and iPhoto has still not rendered them at full resolution.

So I think I at least have a solution to my initial annoyance, in that by using LightRoom just as a raw photo viewer, I can look at pictures immediately after loading them in. This despite the fact that I do NOT have an Adobe CC subscription. So full marks to Adobe, all is forgiven! I will then down select, and edit in Affinity, or Snapseed.

Happy days,

Rob.

Still seems weird that the inbuilt Apple photo app is so slow at rendering orf files on such a powerful computer, mind you...

 

[coffeecat]

Also - many thanks for all your replies so far

 

[coffeecat]

Just for context, if I read an ORF file into my 1 year old Windows 10 PC, from cold, LR takes maybe 4 or 5 secs to render it full res at 100%, using an Intel Core i5-6500 with fast SSD and 16GB RAM.
So the 1 sec or less on the iPad Pro actually is impressively fast, and my problem seems to be just an app issue with the built in Apple photo app?

 

[50orsohours]

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

Here is a screenshot for you, moments after I uploaded the photos from the card. I’d go to an Apple store and have them look at your iPad

 

[coffeecat]

@50orsohours - thanks for testing for me!

 

[50orsohours]

Any time. Now if there was a way to move the photos from LR to photos as a batch, instead of one at a time, I’d be real happy.

 

[pondball]

question for both @50orsohours and @coffeecat ... are you using the same method of import? I've done a wee bit of searching around and it seems some methods of import are faster than others. Some card readers are still USB2 while others are USB3. Some have had success with using the old CCK while others go direct from camera to iPad... and others the lightning to SD card reader... the latter claims fast speeds of transfer ( < 2 seconds an image for over 200 images)... you might want to check out this workflow description here to see if they are doing anything different that you are @coffeecat

 

[50orsohours]

question for both @50orsohours and @coffeecat ... are you using the same method of import? I've done a wee bit of searching around and it seems some methods of import are faster than others. Some card readers are still USB2 while others are USB3. Some have had success with using the old CCK while others go direct from camera to iPad... and others the lightning to SD card reader... the latter claims fast speeds of transfer ( < 2 seconds an image for over 200 images)... you might want to check out this workflow description here to see if they are doing anything different that you are @coffeecat

I just ordered the SD to lightning connector from Apple at the time I ordered the iPad.

 

[coffeecat]

question for both @50orsohours and @coffeecat ... are you using the same method of import? I've done a wee bit of searching around and it seems some methods of import are faster than others. Some card readers are still USB2 while others are USB3. Some have had success with using the old CCK while others go direct from camera to iPad... and others the lightning to SD card reader... the latter claims fast speeds of transfer ( < 2 seconds an image for over 200 images)... you might want to check out this workflow description here to see if they are doing anything different that you are @coffeecat

I know I am using the latest model (USB 3) lightning to sd card reader. I'll have a look at the link you posted this evening.

 

[coffeecat]

question for both @50orsohours and @coffeecat ... are you using the same method of import? I've done a wee bit of searching around and it seems some methods of import are faster than others. Some card readers are still USB2 while others are USB3. Some have had success with using the old CCK while others go direct from camera to iPad... and others the lightning to SD card reader... the latter claims fast speeds of transfer ( < 2 seconds an image for over 200 images)... you might want to check out this workflow description here to see if they are doing anything different that you are @coffeecat

So, I was basically doing the same workflow as your link, apart from the bit near the end where he adds all photos from last import into an album. But I thought I’d try that to see if it made a difference, and today I am not having the problem at all...

I imported 30 or so orf files, and without any further steps I could view them in Photos straight away, at 100%. So that’s very weird. I’m happy (as long as it doesn’t happen again!) - maybe there was some app misbehaving in the background - hard to tell.

Anyway, all good now. I’ve confirmed that the non-subscription Lightroom CC will allow me to view raw files but not edit them, but frankly now this is fixed I will probably delete it.

Thanks again for your help folks!

Rob

 

[Krandall]

All I can say is that I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one to have this problem! I thought I had something wrong with my DSLR when ing Borneo, when I viewed the photos on my iPad Pro in the evening. They were all soft!!! At all focal lengths with all lenses! Fortunately I also had my GX85 with me, and that stores both RAW and JPG, which is probably why I didn't realize that this was a "RAW" issue and not a "camera" issue. I just kept shooting with the GX85, and stopped using the Canon. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised to find there was NOTHING wrong with the Canon photos. I was a little irritated, because I might have used the Canon more, but it did force me to rely on the Panasonic, with excellent results.

I do think this is an IOS problem, though, not an "iPad problem", because I've used this iPad with the Canon RAW files before and not had this issue of soft images. It never even occurred to me to think of just waiting longer.

That said, although the iPad LR software has gotten MUCH better, it's still not good enough for me to use it for more than "quick and dirty" field editing. Particularly the shadow/highlight functions which I use a LOT to recover details. On the iPad, those functions don't work the way they do on a computer... They just make areas "lighter" or "darker" they don't recover any detail.

 

[coffeecat]

All I can say is that I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one to have this problem! I thought I had something wrong with my DSLR when ing Borneo, when I viewed the photos on my iPad Pro in the evening. They were all soft!!! At all focal lengths with all lenses! Fortunately I also had my GX85 with me, and that stores both RAW and JPG, which is probably why I didn't realize that this was a "RAW" issue and not a "camera" issue. I just kept shooting with the GX85, and stopped using the Canon. When I got home I was pleasantly surprised to find there was NOTHING wrong with the Canon photos. I was a little irritated, because I might have used the Canon more, but it did force me to rely on the Panasonic, with excellent results.

I do think this is an IOS problem, though, not an "iPad problem", because I've used this iPad with the Canon RAW files before and not had this issue of soft images. It never even occurred to me to think of just waiting longer.

That said, although the iPad LR software has gotten MUCH better, it's still not good enough for me to use it for more than "quick and dirty" field editing. Particularly the shadow/highlight functions which I use a LOT to recover details. On the iPad, those functions don't work the way they do on a computer... They just make areas "lighter" or "darker" they don't recover any detail.

Likewise for me it’s interesting to hear that I’m not the only person ever to have experienced this problem! I’ve not had much chance to take photos recently, but I did today and the iPad worked fine. Can’t really complain (!) but all very weird. When I first started using computers several decades ago, they were renowned for behaving consistently, but that was before they became so complex... Now they appear inconsistent because of complexity that we can’t “see” (IMHO!)

Rob

 

[50orsohours]

Just a heads up, I tried focus stacking on the iPad using Affinity and discovered that at least in my case 4 or more photos will turn off the app if I use hi res files. These are the raw files from photo. Posted on their forum. Initially I had one of the moderator respond quickly and I was asked to post the raw files. No matter what I tried I had an error code come up. (200) I posted the issue I was having, even uploading just 1 photo but no more response from them. Another issue I noticed is that if I opened up the photos in LR and saved those back to photos (JPEGs now) the 3 Photos merged end up being around only 40mp. It may or may not help some of you.