Lens IDs for non-CPU lenses

[ekkidee]

So ... does it make sense to assign lens IDs for non-CPU lenses? I have a few lenses from my film days that I use from time to time, and after running the images through exiftool, they all show up as "non-CPU" lens in my database. Occasionally there is focal length info which gives away which lens was used, but sometimes there isn't. Having a constant lens ID would be nice.

I'm of two minds about this. The first is that it would be a great feature and it could be baked into DxO and other DAM tools to help with post-processing corrections.

The second is that there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of old lenses that would need to be mapped. Someone would need to be the standards boss to enforce the assignment regime. On close analysis, it strikes me as highly impractical.

Has anyone ever looked at this? Has any similar proposal ever been floated? Am I overthinking this? (yes, most likely I am)

Most importantly, how do others handle metadata in non-CPU lenses?

[Phil Harvey]

I recommend just writing EXIF:LensModel, which is a string, for non-CPU lenses.  Then you don't have to worry about assigning a numerical lens ID.

- Phil

[ekkidee]

Alright thx Phil, I'll go that route.