[StephenBall]

My brand new 15-30 D FA WR Pentax lens is - "lens not recognised" when I interrogate the photo image info. The same thing happens with the new Pentax 24-70mm lens. A bit frustrating really given they are OEM lenses. According to Pentax the firmware on my K1 is not the issue. Wex photographic say it is the same on all 15-30 lenses. Can anyone confirm my experience I.e. that the lens identification simply does not work.

[Kunzite]

Please be more specific - you're interrogating the photo image info on which software?
Then, we might be able to help. But AFAIK, Pentax is properly writing the information in the image file.

[stevebrot]

Welcome to the Pentax Forums!

How are you interrogating the photo image info?

Any software tool that reads the EXIF metadata embedded in the RAW or JPEG file is only as good as its lookup tables. What is encoded is a lens id code, not a "friendly name". If that code is not known to your software or if it is ambiguous, an identification cannot be done. Adobe Lightroom is particularly troublesome in that regard. I have had my Sigma 17-70/2.8-4 (C) since Spring of 2014, but Lightroom is not able to recognize the lens on import despite having a profile on file that it uses for lens corrections.

Although it is a command-line tool, the ExifTool program is probably the best available resource for "interrogating" image information. It is generally very current to available cameras and lenses and its interpretation of the metadata is considered authoritative. If you are curious and have the time and are not intimidated by the lack of a user interface, it is worth taking a look at:

ExifTool by Phil Harvey

There is also a graphical interface that works with ExifTool. It is not officially maintained, but works well with current ExifTool versions. The home page for ExifToolGUI is at:

ExifToolGUI

And the actual download is accessed on the ExifTool discussion forum:

Latest ExiftoolGUI version 5.16


Steve

[Na Horuk]

You probably have to update your software. Lens ID is actually just a number in the photo file and has to be looked up in a table by the software. If your software has an old lens table, new lenses like the DFA 15-30mm, might not be in it yet.
If you are using Photoshop or Lightroom, you need to update Adobe Camera Raw to the latest version. I think the website also lists which lenses the update includes, so you can check if your lens is supported yet.

[StephenBall]

Wow, that was quick. I am glad I joined Pentax Forums. Thanks all. Technically I'm a dunce but I sort of get what people are saying. I'll update the software on my K1 (when I have a moment) and Lightroom to see if things fix themselves. By the way my older Pentax lenses are all recognized. I also love the 15-30 lens. Cheers Stephen

[BigMackCam]

Hi Stephen - it's just your post-processing software - Lightroom - that you need to ensure is up-to-date

[Adam]

Wow, that was quick. I am glad I joined Pentax Forums. Thanks all. Technically I'm a dunce but I sort of get what people are saying. I'll update the software on my K1 (when I have a moment) and Lightroom to see if things fix themselves. By the way my older Pentax lenses are all recognized. I also love the 15-30 lens. Cheers Stephen

Lightroom would be the culprit here, the latest version of CC does have lens IDs for the new DFA's. You can also get bridge CC, which is free for everyone.

Adam
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[Giklab]

Right click in Explorer and look at the Properties tab, Windows is usually up to date with regards to EXIF.

[Rondec]

The problem is the software. Each Pentax lens (and non-Pentax lens) is supposed to have a unique identifying number that the software reads and then compares to a database to see what the lens is. The problem is that Adobe doesn't update the database very quickly and particularly for older versions of Lightroom, the lens won't be identified.

You can still use the software, but it won't have auto lens corrections and things like that in it.