For your application, you need the Bayer data, right? It sounds like the de-Bayering (or demosaicing) process won't interfere with the data you want, so it might be simpler to just stick with minimally-processed RGB. Depends what you want the data for, of course - as someone else said, colorimetry g...

Is it possible to access Bayer image data directly, without stuffing it into the EXIF data on a JPEG? Earlier in this discussion, I found a passing mention of Bayer data getting transferred directly to memory before being read out again to the ISP. Is it possible to access the data at that point? Or...