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how can a wrong lens info get into the EXIF of the A7RII !?


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need help: how can a wrong lens info get into the EXIF!?

For a few days in 2016 LAOWA sent me the new LAOWA 12mm f/2.8 ZERO-D prototype for testing and comparing with my brand new Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper Wide 10mm f/5.6 Aspherical. I used the A7RII and made many testshots with both lenses and had to change the lenses for each scene. The LAOWA 12mm had a Nikon F mount and I used my fully mechanical Metabones Sony E - F adapter. The camera does not know of any lens. The Voigtlander had the fully compatible electronic E-mount and the camera can see the lens and aperture.


I developed the RAW with Capture 1, my LR Ver. 5 did not support the A7RII.
I wrote about the results here on SAR with many images of the test.
https://www.sonyalpharumors.com/experiences-laowa-12mm-f2-8-zero-d-prototype/

I published the images in my flickr - all with embedded EXIF.

A few days ago I got a comment in flickr, that my title of the images, saying the LAOWA 12mm f/2.8 ZERO-D, is wrong, the EXIF says Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper Wide 10mm f/5.6 ???

I checked all LAOWA images and all had the wrong Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper 10mm in the EXIF!!! The same wrong EXIF in the article here at SAR.
Some images with the LAOWA show the wrong Voigtlander in the EXIF, but no aperture
The images with the Voigtlander show the correct Voigtlander in the EXIF, but with aperture!!!

I developed the images again with my C1 for Sony and with the new LR Ver. 6 and with ACR and Photoshop CS6 and with Affinity
all show the same wrong lens in the EXIF.

I attached 3 screenshots from LR6, you see the EXIF info in the upper left corner

laowa1 shows the image with the Laowa 12mm, the EXIF shows only the exposure time is shown, the lens is --- and no aperture
I changed the lens to the Voigtlander 10mm
laowa2 shows the image with correct lens info Voigtlander Heliar-Hyper with exposure time, the complete lens info with 10mm and the rest in brackets, and aperture
I changed the lens back to the Laowa 12mm
laowa3 shows the image with the Laowa 12mm, now the EXIF shows the exposure time, but only the lens in brackets without the 10mm in front and no aperture (of corse, no electronic connection)

 

I tried to reproduce this with the Voigtlander and any other lens with the Nikon Adapter, but did not get this effect again.

How can the wrong and incomplete lens info get into the EXIF?

Does anybody have an idea???

thanks
dierk

 

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Guest Jaf-Photo

The lens ID is interpreted by the camera firmware, by the processing software and by flickr. So, when the firmware or software does not recognise the lens, you may get a funny designation. I have a few Minolta and Sigma lenses that aren't properly recognised and show up as completely different lenses in the software. Not a big deal unless you apply the correction profiles, which will be wrong.

 

The fix is to edit exif manually, if showing the right lens matters.

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The lens ID is interpreted by the camera firmware, by the processing software and by flickr. So, when the firmware or software does not recognise the lens, you may get a funny designation. I have a few Minolta and Sigma lenses that aren't properly recognised and show up as completely different lenses in the software. Not a big deal unless you apply the correction profiles, which will be wrong.

 

The fix is to edit exif manually, if showing the right lens matters.

thanks for the answer.

 

I understand, that the camera can not identify a lens without any electronic connection.

What I don't understand:

  1. does your camera have only these problems with your Minolta and Sigma lenses?
  2. Do these lenses have electronic connection to the adapter and camera?
  3. Or do you only have these lenses adapted?
  4. Do you use an electronic "intelligent" adapter like Metabones?

Sorry, many open questions for me.

 

And I hate to edit the EXIF in all these files :-(

Thanks for any further explanations.

 

dierk

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Guest Jaf-Photo

They are electronic and native.

 

Relax. This is common. Sony naturally does not have firmware support for third party lenses. Nor do they support third party adapters.

 

Nevertheless, processing software will recognise some third party lense - but usually not very new or very old lenses.

 

So, what you describe is only to be expected.

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Nevertheless, processing software will recognise some third party lense

 

If the camera couldn't recognize the lens for lack of an electronic connection and firmware support, it shouldn't be able to include lens information into the raw file "nevertheless"?

 

However:

I developed the images again with my C1 for Sony and with the new LR Ver. 6 and with ACR and Photoshop CS6 and with Affinity

all show the same wrong lens in the EXIF.

 

this leaves as conclusion only, that the raw file did include lens information and that it was not "generated" by a bug in the processing software. After all, it seems extremely unlikely that five different processing softwares would exhibit the same bug of "inventing" the same wrong lens information. If so, it can only have been inserted into the raw file by the body itself. :o

 

From a logical point of view I would now assume, that the Body does not properly clear the information of the last lens it did recognize, once you take that lens off and attach a new one which cant' (for lack of an electronic connection) overwrite the previous lens's information still residing within the body.

 

As for the wrong lens being shown, but without aperture:

The body's awareness of which lens is currently connected needs to be updated only upon lens change. The aperture needs to be updated on every shot taken. So the "initialization" or clearing/overwriting of particular pieces of information has to happen on different "events" within the body's software. And not all events seem to be handled properly.

 

As a hint to Sony's firmware development :) :  clear lens information within body upon "lens dismount" event. Register new lens information within body only upon "known lens mounted" event. Leave info blank in all other cases.

 

Conclusion from my side: this seems to be a firmware error of the body which I would report to Sony.

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Guest Jaf-Photo

Chrissie, I have plenty lenses with no camera firware support that are recognised in LR, C1 and DxO. I have never been bothered to find out why, but I guess the camera must write some form of lens ID to the exif.

 

The reason I'm not bothered is because I can always remember which lens I used.

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 I guess the camera must write some form of lens ID to the exif.

 

 

Jaf, if the lens has an electronic connection to the camera, there is at least a path on which information can travel from the lens to the body. Be the lens supported by the body or not. Let's call it for simplicity an unrecognized (and hence unsupported) "ID". The best the camera can do in this case is, to write that ID transparently (i.e.: without modification) to the raw files.

Raw converters can then pick up this information and act on it.

 

@Dierk  was reporting on a lense, for which there was no path which the information could have taken, because the adapter was fully mechanical. And then the camera wrote some wrong information to its files. That information can only have come from a lens, which the camera had recognized before, and failed to "forget" when that lens was removed.

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....

 

As a hint to Sony's firmware development :) :  clear lens information within body upon "lens dismount" event. Register new lens information within body only upon "known lens mounted" event. Leave info blank in all other cases.

 

Conclusion from my side: this seems to be a firmware error of the body which I would report to Sony.

 

I quote only a part of your answer to show, to what I am answering.

 

First of all:

I see absolutely the same problems and reasons and agree in what you wrote. And thank you for taking the time!

I did a lot of research in LR6 in my images from 2016, as the images with these problems are from 2016.

And I did some more testing today.

 

The main and most important difference to the images from 2016: I have the firmware 4.0 on my A7RII. This firmware was released in August 2017, meaning, that I have no chance to test the problem with the same firmware again, good for today and bad for my researches.

 

Let me start with my test from today:

 

  • the camera was set to shoot without lens, meaning, that you can shoot without the camera knowing of any lens. The same situation as with an unintelligent pure mechanical adapter.
  • I  with the Voigtlander Heliar, all settings on manual
  • switched off the camera and demounted the lens and mounted only the camera cab, no lens at all.
  • made 5 shots with the camera cap
  • switched the camera off
  • mounted the Voigtlander Heliar again and made 10 shots
  • did not switch the camera off to test, if this could cause the problem and put the cap on again
  • did 5 shots with the cap on
  • switched the camera off

 

I loaded the images into Lightroom 6

all images with the Voigtlander Heliar show the correct lens and aperture in the EXIF

all images with the cap on had no lens and no aperture informations, as expected and as it should be

 

My investigations in all images from 2016:

a series of images from my tests with the Laowa 12mm show the wrong lens info and no aperture (as described above)

as I changed the lenses during these tests some of the images show no lens info (as it is correct)

I could not find any system in these wrong and right settings in the EXIF!??

 

but a big BUT:

I found one image from August 2016, some time after my Laowa tests, where I definitely used the same mechanical Metabones adapter with the 85mm Nikkor tilt/shift lens and fond the wrong lens info Voigtlander Heliar and of corse no aperture! Only one image! Here is the image in flickr.

 

My conclusion:

as you described above, it must have been a bug in the firmware

but with the new firmware it is useless to invest more time into this problem.

 

again: thanks very much for your help and effort Chrissie!!

 

dierk

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They are electronic and native.

 

Relax. This is common. Sony naturally does not have firmware support for third party lenses. Nor do they support third party adapters.

 

Nevertheless, processing software will recognise some third party lense - but usually not very new or very old lenses.

 

So, what you describe is only to be expected.

Jaf,

I don't know, if this is just a misunderstanding.

 

You say, you have electronic and native lenses. To me that means, that all lenses have electronic connection to the camera. In that case the camera will have at least some info about the lens like focal length and I would expect aperture too. If the firmware does not recognize the lens, it just can not do any in camera lens corrections. That's all.

 

I use the intelligent latest Metabones adapter Sony E to Cannon EF with some Canon and Zeiss lenses, all with Canon E-mount. And the camera handles the automatic aperture and writes all the info into the EXIF - as expected. It is not important at that time, that the firmware knows the lens.

 

The above described problem is, that with the use of a non electronic pure mechanical adapter the camera has no info what so ever about the lens! And therefor can not write any lens information into the EXIF.

 

If you remember the lenses, that you used during the shooting, you are very lucky! When I go out with more than one lens, I don't for sure remember, witch images was taken with witch lens (as long as I don't have one wide angle and one tele lens of course :-) )

 

regards

dierk

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Guest Jaf-Photo

Yeah, it's a misunderstanding. I misunderstood the question.

 

If you had framed it as a simple "Why does the exit show the previous lens when I use an adapted manual lens?" it would have been easier.

 

The reply is also in the question "Because Sony's firmware doesn't clear it".

 

I was stumped by such an obvious question dressed up in too many words.

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