The problem lies with the lack of support which Adobe provides for older versions of ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). Once a new version comes out, there are no new updates for previous iterations of its Lightroom and Photoshop applications. This approach is by no means limited to Adobe and is shared by other developers of Raw processing software. Usually this is fine, as you expect developers to maintain revenues by enhancing their products and you can make a decision as to whether or not the latest features warrant the expense of an upgrade.
That's the carrot part, but the developers also beat you with a stick in their pursuit of income from existing customers. If you buy a new camera and that model was introduced after your Raw processing application went out of support, it will point blank refuse to open the files from your shiny new equipment. It is common for camera manufacturers to put the same sensor into different models, so you would expect the Raw files to be similar. That makes no difference whatsoever. One case in point is the Olympus OM-D E-M5 and its sibling E-M10, which essentially is the budget version and has the same sensor. The E-M5 was launched while Lightroom 4 was current, but the E-M10 is more recent and its files can only be opened in Lightroom 5.
There are four main options to get around this dilemma:
- Bite the bullet and buy the upgrade
The original Lightroom was a major advance for the management of large numbers of image files and Raw processing. The next three major updates all brought significant enhancements and the upgrade was always a no brainer. While Lightroom 5 has a few useful features, it has not moved the product forward in the same way as its predecessors. The situation might be different for similar applications from other companies, but Lightroom has a significant market share. Even more signficantly, the past few iterations of Photoshop since CS2 have added little of value to photographers other than the incorporation of the latest ACR processing. - Use the camera manufacturer's Raw conversion software
Canon's DPP is the best of the manufacturer's Raw processing software. Although a bit clunky, it is perfectly usable. Nikon only supplies a basic utility and expects its customers to pay for a more featured version. Software supplied by the other manufacturers is best glossed over. - Use free software
Freeware such as Raw Therapee is capable of good results, although the interface is not as polished as commercial offerings and support is limited. It can take longer for a new camera to be added, although often Raw files can still be opened if a similar model in the range is already supported.
http://rawtherapee.com/ - Convert the Raw files to DNG
DNG is a Raw file introduced by Adobe which is intended to be universal, although in practice most camera manufacturers have stuck to their proprietary formats. Adobe offers a free conversion utility which is updated with each new iteration of ACR (Adobe Camera Raw). I have linked to the version (8.4) which is current at the time of writing, but if this is out of date Google will be your friend if you search for "Adobe DNG Converter".
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/ ... ftpID=5738
The main benefit is that all Raw processing software recognises the DNG format regardless of version, which avoids paying for an otherwise unnecessary upgrade. The downside is that the conversion adds another step to your post capture workflow and increases disk space ultilisation.