Nikon Z6ii Raw Files Not Readable

[Jeff Hitchcock]

I just purchased a Nikon Z6ii and found that the raw NEF files are not readable by Photoshop or Lightroom. I have the most current Camera Raw app installed. I tried installing Nikon Capture NX-D instead, only to find that it crashes when trying to convert an NEF file.

Running MacOS Big Sur on an almost brand new MacBook Pro 16". Has anyone else experienced this issue? 

[D Fosse]

"Has anyone else experienced this issue?"

Anyone who buys a brand new camera model the minute it hits the shelves.

Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny. New camera support takes time. Adobe get nothing from Nikon. They have to do what you did - buy a camera when it's available, shoot test images, then sit down and deconstruct the files.

It will very likely be supported in the next ACR update. Rest assured that this is high priority. When the next update comes, nobody knows, but these updates come about four times a year. It can't be too far off.

[Jeff Hitchcock]

Thank you -- I honestly hadn't considered that Nikon would make a change to the NEF format for this specific camera. I was able to extract JPEG versions using the camera itself and am very happy with the results. Saving files as NEF+JPEG Fine for now.

[mag2017]

Thank you !

[John Waller]

There's a lengthy discussion on the Z6II in the Lightroom Classic forum:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic/nikon-z6ii-error-importing-to-lightroom/td-p/115766...

[D Fosse]

...just as it has been for every major high-selling camera model in history. These days the "hot" cameras are the Nikon Z series, the Canon EOS R series, and the Sony a7 series.

And predictably, every time, someone comes up with a hack to modify the files, to trick ACR/Lightroom into thinking it's the previous model.

That's actually getting a bit worse now, because there seems to be a new naming convention. Now they all just use incremental mark x numbers, while the basic model name stays the same. Canon and Sony have done this for a while, and now Nikon has adapted the same practice. But make no mistake, these are new cameras.

My own basic instinct, with any kind of hardware, has always been to hold back until the new gadget has settled into its surrounding ecosystem. That usually takes a few months, whatever it is.