nikonkelly Loc: SE Michigan

You are correct that PHoto mechanic uses the built in jpeg for viewing which makes it very fast, but this is not the case for processing... nor has it ever! it only processes the Raw image when outputting to jpeg.
Kelly

JerryEK Loc: East Central Florida

I do not know of a free app. But Corel has a program, AfterShot, which can be purchased independently or comes bundled with the latest PaintShopPro entry (2018, I think). It does very rapid batch conversion and allows some tinkering with how the images are translated.

jcboy3

The key issue to your question is the condition that the process use "the camera settings". This is not a common feature of most image processing applications. Unless Sony provides an application for this, you may be out of luck. If you like the JPG images that come out of the camera, with picture mode, sharpening, contrast, noise reduction, and other settings applied, then you are better off shooting JPG high quality in camera.

Personally, I would also shoot RAW, but then you have the issue of separating those files.

speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho

PS!

Dennis833 Loc: Australia

Get Capture One Express for Sony , a completely free solution. Then use the economical upgrade to the full professional version of Capture One Pro (for Sony). This video show you how to batch process to jpeg : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLgPGBeTphE

gerdog

I don't own a Mac, but I've read that you can open your raw photos in Preview and then export them to jpg. I use Irfanview on Window for batch converting, and sometimes Gimp. A raw file is big, and jpg is much smaller, so the quality between the two will always be different, but jpg files can be very good. I tend most often to convert to png format instead. Bigger than jpg files, but still nicely compressed. Good instructions on Preview here:
http://osxdaily.com/2013/01/16/batch-image-conversion-mac-os-x-preview/
I would experiment with different formats to see which is best for you.

kilpatrickp

imagemagick.org

Cheese

Seems to me you are trying to re-invent the wheel. Shooting RAW + JPEG take no additional time over shooting RAW alone, and JPEG files take up minimal card space.

JohnFrim Loc: Somewhere in the Great White North.

Technically that is incorrect, and the OP is correct -- it does take longer to save both file types, and the JPEGs do take up more than just minimal space (probably 30% of the space of the RAW).

But I agree with your premise that saving both RAW+JPEG is not really an issue. High-capacity cards are not that expensive, write times are not really an issue, and clearing the cards of images via "delete all" or "format card" happens without regard to what it on the card. The OP was splitting hairs with those technically-correct but operationally-insignificant arguments. And as for the OP's concern about read/write cycles on an SSD device (card)... a trivial concern not even worth mentioning. If SSDs are R/W cycle limited we would not be seeing laptops and even desktops with these devices as the main memory storage.

Logan1949

The OP is correct.
JohnFrim is also technically correct, the quality is, in fact, [Fine]. But, it is not [Extra Fine], which is a choice when shooting only JPEG, but not when shooting RAW+JPEG. This is true for the Sony A7Rii and the Sony A9. Possibly it is true for other Sony cameras with both Fine and Extra Fine options for JPEGs and with RAW+JPEG as a menu choice.

Page 93 of the Sony A9 manual says explicitly:

RAW & JPEG: File format: RAW + JPEG . . . The JPEG image quality is set to [Fine]
Extra Fine: File format: JPEG
The image is compressed in the JPEG format and recorded using a higher quality than with [Fine].

The OP is trying to get the highest quality JPEG images from his RAW files by a batch conversion process.

Personally, I shoot RAW+JPEG with the RAW going to the fast, slot 1, card, and the JPEG going to card slot 2; hopefully this is faster than writing both to 1 card. Anyway, on the A9, it is fast enough that I do not have to wait for it to write before taking more shots.