[tempelorg]

@Miguel - the lens types are not misidentified, if that's what you tried to suggest, because this is with lenses who are well identified when used with a K-5, in my described case. So I don't see what you're getting at. Please elaborate.

@NZ_Ross - thanks for confirming my findings. Do you also see that it works right with other lenses? Also, does the DA 55-300 show up when using DNG format?

[stevebrot]

Thanks for trying to help, guys, but you do not have to explain software to me. I have been a developer for 30 years.

I just wanted a confirmation that others see this problem as well. That's exactly what I've been asking, BTW: "Is that a known issue?".

It is a non-issue. You answered your own question in your description of the problem. The EXIF is complete from the camera (no bug with the K-3), though it requires interpretation to display something meaningful. Problems associated with lens ID in the metadata can be summarized in a few points:

• Id not provided by the lens (most (all?) non-AF lenses)
• Ambiguous lens codes (common with Sigma)
• Lens code not in the reading software's look-up table
• One or more metadata elements stripped or overwritten during post-processing

I think I covered the bases.

Steve

(...only been a developer for 20 years, but still open to learn...)

[narual]

Could you please post the full description of that lens name as it appears in LR or exiftool? I wonder if it's particular chars or its length (the one for the DA 18-135 is pretty long).

Uh - that's happening with a K-5? Not seeing the problem with my K-5, only K-3.

How did you come into posession of the Porst lens, BTW? Lived in Germany?

The lens name in LR is "Sigma or Tamron Lens." I forget how Exiftool IDs it, but I remember seeing the full string that identifies it in there.

I picked up the Porst on ebay. It's a popular f/1.2 lens. One of the less expensive ones.
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/122-lens-clubs/74819-post-your-1-2-photos-1-2-only-101.html

---------- Post added 05-05-14 at 09:22 PM ----------

In the EXIF for my sigma, you can see '3 44' (which translates to Sigma or Tamron Lens) but you can also see '3 44.1' which translates to "Sigma AF 10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC" -- Trouble seems to be that Lightroom is reading the field the first one is in, and not the second field with the more complete lens ID.

Whether that's caused by the camera or not, I have no idea.

Complete list here:
Pentax Tags

[NZ_Ross]

@NZ_Ross - thanks for confirming my findings. Do you also see that it works right with other lenses? Also, does the DA 55-300 show up when using DNG format?

I am on vacation right now, so only have a few lenses with me. I brought the 55-300 at B&H in New York as few days ago. I am shooting RAW only in DNG - so yes the problem is also occurring using DNG

[stevebrot]

this is with lenses who are well identified when used with a K-5,

The maker-specific metadata structure changes between camera models. (I know...droll, isn't it?) That is one of the problems that face the software vendors and the authors of tools such as ExifTool. That is one reason why it is important, to update frequently as you acquire new gear.

I recently acquired a Sigma 17-70/2.8-4 (C), a lens that was released summer of last year. My older copy of ExifTool from fall of 2013 was unable to read the code and listed the lens as "unknown (###)". My older copy of Lightroom was similarly dumb. I updated ExifTool and the lens description magically appeared, though Lightroom was still dumb. On upload to Flickr, it was dumb too. I manually edited the lens ID field in ExifTool and both Lightroom and Flickr became magically smart. I am soooo powerful!

With any luck, the new version of Lightroom on the counter downstairs will recognize the Sigma and my new K-3 by itself and not require that I exercise my magical powers.


Steve

[tempelorg]

It is a non-issue. You answered your own question in your description of the problem. The EXIF is complete from the camera (no bug with the K-3), though it requires interpretation to display something meaningful. Problems associated with lens ID in the metadata can be summarized in a few points:

* Id not provided by the lens (most (all?) non-AF lenses)
* Ambiguous lens codes (common with Sigma)
* Lens code not in the reading software's look-up table
* One or more metadata elements stripped or overwritten during post-processing

Sure, that's all fair to say. But it has nothing to do with the topic of this (my) thread.

And I sure do not agree that this is not an issue. It is for me, as I do not see the lens type in Aperture, which bothers me (a little). I find it rather disrespectful to judge me on what I find to be an issue or not.

I am only asking for confirmation of my findings. You're trying to give explanations. That's not what I'm asking for here. If this is a bug in Apple's software, it's up to Apple to analyse and correct this issue. But without having proof that this is a repeatable issue and not just happing for me alone, I cannot make a point and report this as a bug to Apple. As a fellow programmer you should know this procedure about bug reporting

So I would appreciate it we could now focus on my own question, which is still: Can others reproduce this issue?

[stevebrot]

If this is a bug in Apple's software, it's up to Apple to analyse and correct this issue.

Apparently this is the case. Apple has been very slow to support multiple recent products (not just Pentax). As for the purpose of this thread, sorry for the misunderstanding. My read of your post was that you were concerned that the K-3 was not properly conveying the lens id information and that you were wondering if this were a known problem with the camera. You have since significantly edited your original inquiry so that it now provides a much clearer indication of what you are wanting to know. Thank you for the clarification.

The answer to whether this is a K-3 issue is apparently no, based on available evidence and user experience outside the Apple world. To confirm, all that is needed is to show that the data are there and that the Apple software is not capable of working with it.

As you are probably aware, the whole arena of image metadata is a huge can of worms. ExifTool is helpful, but it adds an additional layer of abstraction in the interest of being user friendly and providing a consistent API. As a result, ExifTool is only as good as its most recent algorithms for ferreting out and evaluating the available data. That being said, it is still very useful and can be applied in this case. Both of the lenses in question (18-135 and 50-300 WR) are in the list of supported Pentax codes for ExifTools and demonstration of their existence and readability in the K-3 output by that tool should provide adequate characterization of the issue to bring it to Apple's attention.

In all likelihood this problem will self-correct in future updates/versions of your Apple products. In the mean time, you still have the option of manually adding lens information to the XMP segment using ExifTool. I have used that approach with good success. Good luck.


Steve

---

Last edited by stevebrot; 05-06-2014 at 08:07 AM.

[NZ_Ross]

Just a quick update on this - I am now home from vacation and have used a number of A, F, FA, and DA lenses on the K3. The only lens that I own that is not displaying the ID (still) in Aperture is the HD DA 55-300 WR.

My conclusion - this is an Apple issue not a K3 one. Correction: it may well be a K3 issue following further testing, see post below

I loaded the latest Apple OSX raw update a few days ago - the problem has not been resolved.

[K-Three]

Just noticed an interesting twist,
K-3, various lenses (18-135, and 35LTD macro)
I inadvertently was shooting and saving both JPEG and RAW(DNG), so multiple files of the same image
Viewed in both iPhoto and Aperture,
The RAWs show full data, but the JPEGS don't have the lens identified or the camera serial number.
The JPEGs report the focal length but not the lens ID.
I don't shoot much JPEG, but it always seems to work for RAWs, only dropping the data when shooting JPEGs

Aperture 3.5.1 and iPhoto 9.5.1

[tempelorg]

Just a quick update on this - I am now home from vacation and have used a number of A, F, FA, and DA lenses on the K3. The only lens that I own that is not displaying the ID (still) in Aperture is the HD DA 55-300 WR.

My conclusion - this is an Apple issue not a K3 one.

And just to confirm: You don't have an 18-135, right?

And what makes you so sure that this is Apple's, not Ricoh's, fault? (I know the answer, just like to have someone else draw their own conclusions.)

---------- Post added 24th May 2014 at 08:13 ----------

K-3, various lenses (18-135, and 35LTD macro)
...
The RAWs show full data

So, you do see the 18-135 identified in Aperture when you look at the RAW image? Can you show us a screenshot that also shows that you're really looking at the RAW file?

How do you make Aperture to show you only the RAW image when you have both RAW and JPG pairs imported? While iPhoto keeps them as separate images, Aperture usually combines them into one, and I haven't figured out how to view them separately thereafter.

[NZ_Ross]

And just to confirm: You don't have an 18-135, right?

That is correct, I don't have a 18-135

And what makes you so sure that this is Apple's, not Ricoh's, fault? (I know the answer, just like to have someone else draw their own conclusions.)

The only lens I am currently having this issue with is the HD DA 55-300.

I have exported files shot in RAW out of Aperture and checked the EXIF using the Exifchanger software which gives a very detailed EXIF listing, and allows you to make batch changes to files.

For my HD 55-300 files exported from Aperture neither the LensID nor the LensModel fields have any data.

To test whether this is an Aperture or Ricoh K3 software problem, I then shot a JPEG in camera (I normally shoot RAW only) and loaded it straight to my desktop without importing to Aperture. The LensID and LensModel fields are still missing from the EXIF file without having gone anywhere near Aperture.

On this basis I am thinking it is a Ricoh K3 issue - for some reason this information is not being added in camera. Interesting, but that doesn't take me any nearer to an answer

[tempelorg]

BTW, Apple has confirmed this is a known bug (radar #16395119) but doesn't give any details on it. It was known before the last D.C. RAW update, though, so they may not deem this an important fix so far. If any of you has an Apple account and cares for Apple to fix this, it might help to report this yourselves at https://bugreport.apple.com/

[K-Three]

Here are screen shots from iPhoto and Aperture,
Note same image file number (straight from camera),
I may take some time this weekend to test all my cameras and lenses in jpg and raw to see what does and does not show up


If there is a trick to seeing both RAW and JPGs of the same image in Aperture, I don't know it, mine seems to show all images in a project.

For what it's worth,
This base library is about 10-years old, has been moved up between three different macs, and only recently (March 2014) updated so it can be shared between iPhoto and Aperture.

The camera serial number in Aperture does not match the serial number on the bottom of the camera,
Never noticed that before.

[FOX]

same problem here (could post similar shot to you K-Three) with the new HD 20-40 WR.
Only new lens affected? (apart from the commentedtamron-sigma models problems that have always been there)

[tempelorg]

The results here are all so erratic. I just re-tested with my 18-135 and found that the lens name is now shown in RAW and JPEG images, whereas K-Three shows that it does for his JPEGs. The fact that it works now for me may have to do with the recent OS X updates which I've all installed. But why doesn't it work for K-Three then?

(This reminds me of an obscure issue I found out a few months ago where I pointed out that certain flash operations did not work correctly with the K-3: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/172-pentax-k-3/254837-hss-sometimes-not-w...confirmed.html)

Then, today, I noticed yet another irregularity: My SMC 50mm/1.7 does show up in some pictures correctly as "A Series Lens", while it's blank in others. Between those shots I had different lenses on the K-3, and after re-attaching the 50mm all the images in row were having the problem, while all others before were good. So, this suggests that the lens ID was not properly registered by the camera when re-attaching the lens. Oddly, though, all other parameters were properly identified, such as the aperture (which was most times at f/1.7, and I had no other lens used with that wide aperture). I then checked the EXIF data with exiftool and found that the correctly identified lens has the numeric values "2 0", whereas the images with the blank lens had "2 215". This is most surprising because whereas 0 indicates a "don't know" value, 215 is rather specific and should be identifying the precise lens. This is all so weird. However, this effect with my 50mm lens is different from this thread's main topic because the main topic's issue does not have this variable Lens ID issue. It's just irritating me how this is all coming up now, one small problem after another, all with my new K-3.

Now, back to the original issue. Below are two screenshots from my current. As you can see, both RAW and JPEG show the Lens name correctly. So, for me, the issue of this topic appears to be fixed. Remains to be seen why K-Three still has trouble (but with JPEGs only, while my original issue was with RAWs but _not_ with JPEGs). Same with NZ_Ross.

@NZ_Ross - have you updated all your Mac software in the past days, including OS X 10.9.3?