blackest Loc: Ireland

A fair number of camera's can use manual lenses but one small problem is that the exif doesn't have the focal length or f stop.

My pentax will record a value for shake reduction but sometimes that isn't accurate e.g my 90mm macro lens I got this morning doesnt quite fit in with 85mm and 100mm being the closest options.

I did find that there is a couple of fields that you can write to in the exif on camera, photographer and copyright. normally you would set them when you first get the camera.

The photographer field is quite long so name, 90mm, f8 is easy to fit.
I don't change lenses very much out in the field so it's not that hard to work with particularly when the last menu used comes up. when you press the menu button.

Even if I get lazy or busy at least i know which lens i was using at the time.

Another thing that arrived this morning was a special arca swiss QR plate. I like to use a hand strap , sometimes a neck strap shoot hand held or on a tripod. The plate is from china it has a lip which stops it twisting on the grip and two strap bosses either side. This allows me to fit the neck strap one side and the hand strap on the other and easily switch from handheld to tripod.

The original strap attachment was plastic and either you attached a qr plate to that or had to unscrew it to attach the qr to the grip. With the first option you might not be level The second option made things slow. Both options made using the grip vertically relatively uncomfortable.

The new plate solves the problem and there is no issue with the plate when shooting vertically, it isn't noticeable even with the two heads that are designed to stop the arca swiss plate slipping sideways when loose in the tripod head. For $15 it was well worth it and the shipping was fast Airmail via DHL in a week.

I am very happy to have made the change from manfrotto to arca swiss.

The only thing I need now is a way to easily write the f-stop and aperture to the correct fields in Lightroom.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Blackest said: "Another thing that arrived this morning was a special arca swiss QR plate. I like to use a hand strap , sometimes a neck strap shoot hand held or on a tripod. The plate is from china it has a lip which stops it twisting on the grip and two strap bosses either side. This allows me to fit the neck strap one side and the hand strap on the other and easily switch from handheld to tripod. "

Blackest, in true UHH tradition you talk about something you know about, but do not give any reference for the intelligent but ignorant people like me. In tech writing always give references... but thanks for stimuli of my looking up one of many references...

Also?? "a special arca swiss QR plate" Which one??
They make good cheese, and army knives... them Swiss! Yep!

http://photographylife.com/arca-swiss-quick-release-system

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Which Pentax camera do you have? Mine, K-20 & K-5 & K-100 (IR Converted) allow the focal length to be manually inputted. For Pentax shake reduction for manual (film) lenses, such as K-, M-, A-, F- series lenses just pick the closest longer focal length. Do you really care what the EXIF data says, you know which lenses you have. If when sharing an image file, again what do you care what someone else thinks (85mm, 90mm, 100mm)? True, my cameras skip 90mm too. I guess Pentax did not bother having choices for lenses it does or did not make. Also I do have a 19mm Vivitar Pentax-A mount lens and I can choose 18mm or 20mm. So I'll choose 20mm.

There are stand alone applications for editing EXIF data. I had one on my old laptop that I would use when I had the wrong focal length recorded and wanted the correct one for my records or for label or conversation sake. But I would not loose sleep over leaving the incorrect data in. I should note, my situation MAY BE different from yours because I own a lot of lenses, mostly older prime ones. So I might not have changed the setting from one use to another for say one of 19mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 55mm, 100mm, etc.

I have a newer Manfrotto tripod and two heads, but I don't like it much. I really prefer my old Gitzo and two Gitzo pan heads. But for some uses the modern features of the Manfrotto are needed. I am tempted to get another (used) Gitzo legs unit. One taller than the one I now have. And perhaps get a Ball or Gimbel Head.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

There are several tools that can edit exif data such as exiftool and its associated gui. Also photome. I've experimented with this a little using adapted Canon manual lenses on a Canon DSLR.

What I don't understand is what this has to do with copyright. Since Exif data is easily edited it provides no protection, and lens data can be edited in the appropriate fields quite easily.

Cdouthitt Loc: Traverse City, MI

Not sure about Pentax, but Olympus has a "lens info setting" deep within their menu system that allows you to enter in multiple manual lenses that I use (in my case they are my old m42 mount Pentax lenses). When I then mount the lens, I either have to drill down into the menu system to select the lens or I could reprogram a button to skip the menu and have direct access to that feature. Not a lot of people know about that feature...I know I didn't until last week.

Look into it, perhaps there is a way to do a similar thing with Pentax.

blackest Loc: Ireland

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171024603755

It's the only listing I have found for this plate or similar.

blackest Loc: Ireland

I have the K5 and The K200D the focal length is recorded but you must have the shake reduction turned on to have it ask you.

my initial thought was for f-stop as for lenses I think I have less than 30. Mostly primes I do share them with different bodies so apart from the 2 pentax's mentioned they also see use on canon and m43.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Copyright is a field that you can change in camera to say what you want, E.g Tamron 90mm f2.5 whenever you want. In the film days people kept notebooks with settings used which of course still works but its easier to keep it in camera within the file. I guess you could use movie mode to make a short clip with the settings but this is effective.

I consider myself as still learning so it's handy to be able to look over past shots and have a fair clue how you got the shot and which lens you used.

At least its one use of copyright that is useful and no need to argue over :)

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

OK, so not copyright, but the modifying the copyright field in the EXIF data. That makes more sense to me, we all have our different methods.

For myself, I find that I can usually remember what lenses I've used, but with my modified Canon FL or FDn lenses they have a chip that records a focal length number and max f number for the lens in the EXIF data. That's enough to identify the lens, even with a zoom from the manual lenses that I have. Then I can use EXIF tool (if I wish) to update the data to change the lens data to a profile that explicitly identifies the lens as its actual type and specification, even down to the serial number. It doesn't/can't collect the actual aperture used, I would have to take notes if I wanted that, but it is easier than modifying the copyright field in camera every time I take a picture.

It looks to me as though your camera may be giving you enough information from the in body information to identify the lens, and if you wanted you could modify it with more detail later.

It's all extra work of course, so I normally only bother with a keeper image that I'm going to work on, then it takes maybe 30 seconds to update the EXIF data.

Have fun, this stuff is always interesting when using lenses that are from a different stable!

Sometime ago there was a thread about how EXIF data could be used to verify image copyright on the mistaken belief that it couldn't be modified easily. It's so easy to do that!

Check out the EXIF data for this!

(Download)

lsimpkins Loc: SE Pennsylvania

In LR, with add-ins such as LensTagger and EXIF Tool, you can add lens info. I used to do this with my Sigma 17-50mm zoom, until LR was updated to capture that info in the data from the camera. It is easy enough to do when in the Grid mode of the Library Module, while selecting Lens from the Metadata. The manual lens should show up as "Unknown Lens".

If the manual lens is an old, pre-auto diaphragm lens, there are no contacts to communicate aperture setting to the body, so you will not be able to capture that unless you manually record the value when making the exposure. You will still be able to add it with an EXIF editor, though.

blackest Loc: Ireland

Lens tagger doesn't seem too bad an interface to exif tool although it is quite limited in the settings it provides.

forjava Loc: Half Moon Bay, CA

Asymmetric encryption can guarantee the integrity of a message, that is, of the EXIF data. Something Nikon could offer, maybe after Nikon enables us to name our old lenses with more than an integer.

Peterff Loc: O'er The Hills and Far Away, in Themyscira.

Or any other vendor, but what incentive do they have to do that?

I'd love to have that option available, but until then I'm looking at weird workarounds.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I checked the EXIF data on that photograph. That's ridiculous. If it's the Ray Charles I'm thinking of, he was blind.
--Bob

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I can input information about lenses that don't electronically connect to my Nikon D700. If I'm not mistaken, I think that input information appears in the EXIF file in the lens data section. However, it does require me to make sure I select the correct lens when it's attached to the camera.
--Bob