ffffffff stop bug in LR 4.2?

[dreed]

This doesn't quite look right. Does anyone else see it?

Lens is Canon 50/1.4

[francois]

This doesn't quite look right. Does anyone else see it?

Lens is Canon 50/1.4

Never seen it but I'm using the cheap 1.8 version of the 50mm. Does this issue appears on all the photo taken with your 50mm f/1.4?

[Ellis Vener]

This doesn't quite look right. Does anyone else see it?

Lens is Canon 50/1.4

I have that lens - the EF 50mm f/1.4 and have never seen that error in my copy of Lr 4.2 .

[francois]

I have that lens - the EF 50mm f/1.4 and have never seen that error in my copy of Lr 4.2 .

I would try to see whether the EXIF also has some issues or not. I could be a problem in Lightroom's catalog or a problem during import…

[johnbeardy]

Yes, definitely examine the EXIF in other apps. Is it every pic with that lens or every camera body?

[Andy Barnes]

I've just seen a very similar error to this today, after changing my 17-40mm lens. The Lens metadata field in Lightroom 4.3RC has been corrupted so that all that is displayed is "ÇÉÉÉÉÉÉ..." (have a look at the attached screen grab).

I haven't had a chance to check the lens and clean the contacts, but I hope that's all there is to this.

Does anyone if there is an easy way to batch edit the EXIF data for the corrupted shots so that I can insert the correct lens information? Otherwise my shots will be listed forever as having been shot with my ÇÉÉÉÉ... lens, which would be vexing.

[madmanchan]

You can try exiftool, which is very good for this sort of thing.

[Andy Barnes]

Thanks Eric. I've never used exiftool before, but it's certainly a wonderfully useful tool.

I think I have solved (or at least identified) the problem, but Lightroom is still showing rubbish in the Lens field, so I wonder if I can pick your brains about this.

After a little probing with exiftool it seems that the problem lies with the LensModel tag in exif. Images taken before I swapped the lens on and off show a LensModel description of "EF17-40mm f/4L USM". Those after show a tag of "???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????". I assume (perhaps wrongly) that it is this string of question marks which leads to the ÇÉÉÉÉ... entry in the Lens field in Lightroom (see the attached image).

Anyway, I therefore use exiftool to edit the LensModel entry in all of the bad files, using this command line: exiftool -LensModel="EF17-40mm f/4L USM" /Pictures/badexif.

The change was successful, but Lightroom still shows bad data in the Lens field, even though I have deleted the files, reimported them, re-read the metadata, optimised the catalog, everything I can think of.

Any idea what might be going on? Does the Lens field in Lightroom read the LensModel exif tag, or have I got it completely wrong?

Andy

[NikoJorj]

IIRC, there are several fields for lens ID, and LensModel is only one of them.

[Andy Barnes]

Thanks for your advice, Nicolas.

I am aware that there are many lens-related metadata tags in exif, however when I compared an uncorrupted file with a corrupted one from the same session the only significant difference I could find between the two groups of metadata was with the LensModel tag (I have described the contents of the tags in my previous post).

This is why I asked if Lightroom read the LensModel tag when displaying lens information. If it does not, then I would love to know which bits of the exif file are used for this information, as this may help myself and others solve the problem which we have been experiencing (as described above).

Andy

[dreed]

Thanks for your advice, Nicolas.

I am aware that there are many lens-related metadata tags in exif, however when I compared an uncorrupted file with a corrupted one from the same session the only significant difference I could find between the two groups of metadata was with the LensModel tag (I have described the contents of the tags in my previous post).

This is why I asked if Lightroom read the LensModel tag when displaying lens information. If it does not, then I would love to know which bits of the exif file are used for this information, as this may help myself and others solve the problem which we have been experiencing (as described above).

Another somewhat uncomfortable question is "where does the corrupt data come from?"

Is it generated by the camera?

Or is it generated when the file is copied from the camera to the computer?

Or somewhere else?