Windows 7 and Vista now support camera RAW natively

Brian Ambrozy 26 Jul, 2011 at 6:37pm ET Article published in Tech

This is fantastic news for photographers, both amateur hobbyist and professional alike—Microsoft today released an update which allows Windows 7 and Windows Vista to natively support Camera RAW files from dozens of different cameras. This means you can browse and thumbnail images right from the Windows desktop and Windows Image Viewer. The update is called the Microsoft Camera Codec Pack and is available for x64 (64-bit) and x86 (32-bit).

The update is painless and installs quickly. I gave it a shot and was able to browse, quickly page through, and otherwise treat Canon RAW files from my Canon EOS 30D as normally as I treat JPG or GIF files.

Microsoft released a video explaining the update:

The full list of supported cameras:

Canon: EOS 1000D (EOS Kiss F in Japan and the EOS Rebel XS in North America), EOS 10D, EOS 1D Mk2, EOS 1D Mk3, EOS 1D Mk4, EOS 1D Mk2 N, EOS 1Ds Mk2, EOS 1Ds Mk3, EOS 20D, EOS 300D (the Kiss Digital in Japan and the Digital Rebel in North America) , EOS 30D, EOS 350D (the Canon EOS Kiss Digital N in Japan and EOS Digital Rebel XT in North America), EOS 400D (the Kiss Digital X in Japan and the Digital Rebel XTi in North America), EOS 40D, EOS 450D (EOS Kiss X2 in Japan and the EOS Rebel XSi in North America), EOS 500D (EOS Kiss X3 in Japan and the EOS Rebel T1i in North America), EOS 550D (EOS Kiss X4 in Japan, and as the EOS Rebel T2i in North America), EOS 50D, EOS 5D, EOS 5D Mk2, EOS 7D, EOS D30, EOS D60, G2, G3, G5, G6, G9, G10, G11, Pro1, S90
Nikon: D100, D1H, D200, D2H, D2Hs, D2X, D2Xs, D3, D3s, D300, D3000, D300s, D3X, D40, D40x, D50, D5000, D60, D70, D700, D70s, D80, D90, P6000
Sony: A100, A200, A230, A300, A330, A350, A380, A700, A850, A900, DSC-R1
Olympus: C7070, C8080, E1, E10, E20, E3, E30, E300, E330, E400, E410, E420, E450, E500, E510, E520, E620, EP1
Pentax (PEF formats only): K100D, K100D Super, K10D, K110D, K200D, K20D, K7, K-x, *ist D, *ist DL, *ist DS
Leica: Digilux 3, D-LUX4, M8, M9
Minolta: DiMage A1, DiMage A2, Maxxum 7D (Dynax 7D in Europe, ?-7 Digital in Japan)
Epson: RD1
Panasonic: G1, GH1, GF1, LX3

Comments

26 Jul 2011 ~ 7:12pm Bandrik This is fantastic news. I've generally been okay with minimally compressed JPEGs, but I may actually try shooting RAW for the first time on my Nikon D40.
27 Jul 2011 ~ 7:26pm Trumandrummer Finally,
Canon did have a RAW codec you could download, but it only worked with 32bit. I was getting tired of opening photos one by one in photoshop just to find an image I wanted.
27 Jul 2011 ~ 9:07pm Kwitko Very groovy. A big help. Prime, you're okay sometimes.
27 Jul 2011 ~ 9:18pm Tim What about the Red One camera?
27 Jul 2011 ~ 9:23pm Kwitko Do you own one?
5 Aug 2011 ~ 8:10pm Leonardo thank you
thank you
thank you

Nikon has been ignoring their customers' rants, asking for Windows 7 NEF (RAW) codec. Kudos to Microsoft. I hope this embarrassed Nikon.