Inability of exiftool to parse Auto Focus info from Canon EOS-R DNG

[ralfbergs]

That looks good.  It will probably copy more than you want though.  To copy just the focus points, you could do -tagsfromfile %d%f.cr3 -makernotes ...

To apply to a whole directory:

exiftool -tagsfromfile %d%f.cr3 -makernotes -ext dng DIR

The last command did exactly what I needed -- thanks a bunch.

[ralfbergs]

That looks good.  It will probably copy more than you want though.  To copy just the focus points, you could do -tagsfromfile %d%f.cr3 -makernotes ...

Hi Phil, I need to ask a stupid question again, maybe I misunderstood the above?

Does the above only copy the auto focus info, and drop (overwrite) "vital" info that the Adobe DNG Converter put into the DNG file?

Reason I'm asking is that I suddenly have a very strange problem in Lightroom. Normally as soon as I switched to the "Develop" tab in LightRoom, the photo I selected would visibly change, due to the lens profile corrections being applied (among others, it would be distorted a bit, which is very visible). That suddenly doesn't happen anymore. :-(

"Enable Profile Corrections" is still enabled when I switch to "Develop", but no corrections are applied. Under "Lens Profile" I see a make of "None," and I have to manually change "Make" to "Canon" to then have the lense profile corrections applied -- the photo immediately changes as I was used to it.

I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything in Lightroom...

Thanks in advance for your time.

[Phil Harvey]

That command copies all of the maker notes, which includes much more than just the auto focus information.

- Phil

[ralfbergs]

That command copies all of the maker notes, which includes much more than just the auto focus information.

Many thanks for confirming.

Then I need to search somewhere else...

[ralfbergs]

Reason I'm asking is that I suddenly have a very strange problem in Lightroom. Normally as soon as I switched to the "Develop" tab in LightRoom, the photo I selected would visibly change, due to the lens profile corrections being applied (among others, it would be distorted a bit, which is very visible). That suddenly doesn't happen anymore. :-(

Hey Phil,

sorry to bother you again with this, but I somehow have the impression that the procedure to copy the "makernotes" from the CR3 into the DNG somehow "corrupts" (or at least modifies) this makernotes, so that Lightroom is unable to properly parse it anymore.

I use a development profile during import to automatically apply lens corrections. This worked always so far (with the CR2 for my 550D and 7D), even with the DNGs I had to create now that I have a new cam with CR3 that LR6 no longer understands. But as soon as I use exiftool to copy the auto focus info (or rather the full "makerdata"), the lens corrections are no longer applied automatically anymore.

Can you please guide me what to do so that I can help you to find out what's wrong? As I suggested above already, it seems that somehow the makernotes are modified in a way that LR6 no longer properly reads the lens model from it... ;-(

Many thanks in advance for your time.

PS: Two screenshots from LR6 attached. One when importing unmodified DNG, one when importing a DNG modified with exiftool.

Kind regards,

Ralf

[Phil Harvey]

I tried this with LR5 and a sample Canon EOS R sample CR3 I had handy, but LR5 didn't have a lens profile for the RF lens of my sample.  Could you send me the CR3 you are using with the EF 70-200mm so I can test this myself?  My email is philharvey66 at gmail.com

- Phil

[ralfbergs]

I tried this with LR5 and a sample Canon EOS R sample CR3 I had handy, but LR5 didn't have a lens profile for the RF lens of my sample.  Could you send me the CR3 you are using with the EF 70-200mm so I can test this myself?

Many thanks, Phil.

I just sent you one sample file to your email. Please let me know if I can help in any other way.

Many thanks again for your kind help and efforts.

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Ralf,

I've taken a look at the samples you sent.

as soon as I use exiftool to copy the auto focus info (or rather the full "makerdata"), the lens corrections are no longer applied automatically anymore.

First I verified that I could apply the lens profile for the 70-200 to the DNG file you sent using LR5.

Then I ran this command:

exiftool -tagsfromfile 0N8A1407.CR3 -makernotes 0N8A1407.dng -o 0N8A1407-2.dng

Then I opened 0N8A1407-2.dng in LR5 and found that I could still apply the lens profile.

So I am not able to reproduce the problem that I think you are indicating.  If these are the steps you took, the only other difference is that I am using LR5 and you are using LR6, which makes it difficult for me to look into this issue any further since I don't have LR6.

- Phil

[ralfbergs]

So I am not able to reproduce the problem that I think you are indicating.  If these are the steps you took, the only other difference is that I am using LR5 and you are using LR6, which makes it difficult for me to look into this issue any further since I don't have LR6.

Hi Phil.

Many thanks for testing.

Maybe the way you did it is slightly different to how I did it?

When I import photos, I apply a development profile that automatically applies lens profile corrections. So as soon as I switch to the "Develop" tab, the profile corrections will be applied automatically, without having to click anything in that area.

After I have modified the DNG with exiftool, this no longer works. In the "lens profile" UI cluster, make, model, profile show "None." I have to manually switch the "Make" to "Canon," so that it will then show the (correct) model and profile. That means that the profile corrections are no longer applied automatically, I would have to manually apply them to each and every photo individually after I have imported a bunch of new photos I shot.

I hope this was not too confusing, and I made my point clear.

What I could offer is to meet online (e. g. Skype or Teams or Zoom) and present to you my desktop and how Lightroom (mis-) behaves as I tried to describe above.

Let me know if this is interesting for you, and then I'll get in touch with you via email so that we can schedule a meeting.

Again, many thanks for your time and dedication.

Best regards,

Ralf

[Phil Harvey]

I didn't have to manually select anything.  The make and lens model were already indicated when I switched to the Development tab.  I'll do it again and upload a screen capture...

- Phil

[Phil Harvey]

This is what I see after just switching to the Development tab for the exiftool-edited DNG file:



(whoa.  That screen grab turns out twice the size of what I see in LR.  I guess because of my monitor resolution settings)