For photographers, the choice of an operating system is a big one. It determines the programs you can use, the layout you’ll deal with and, it may surprise you to find out, even what files are natively supported by your system.
Apple users have had support for RAW files for some time, but Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system lacks it, which means that up until now you’ve needed a third party program to view and manipulate these files.
Thanks to a new codec pack launched by Microsoft, this is no longer an issue. By installing the 32 or 64 bit version of the codec pack you’ll be able to use any of Microsoft’s photo programs with your RAW files, and see those files in Windows Explorer, making organization of those giant folders of photos that much easier. Currently, Microsoft claims that 120 models are covered by this current codec pack, however they stated that more are being added as the codecs become available.
You can download the codec pack directly from Microsoft. Below we have a full list of
the cameras that are currently supported.
- 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, α-7 Digital in Japan)
- Epson: RD1
- Panasonic: G1, GH1, GF1, LX3
