Capture One 4.8.2 - no display of M8 aperture anymore?

[user237428934]

After upgrading to Capture One 4.8.2 I noticed, that the software does not show the calculated aperture values from the EXIF Informations anymore. Before that the aperture value was visible.
Does anybody know if this is a bug in 4.8.2 or did they change the behaviour? Or did I make a mistake?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Surely it never did, as there is no linkage to tell the camera what the aperture might be.

Cheers,

R.

 

[burt]

Surely it does. 😉
It's an estimate from the raw data (fairly accurate).
Cornerfix does the same thing.

 

[user237428934]

Surely it never did, as there is no linkage to tell the camera what the aperture might be.

Cheers,

R.

You are slightly wrong this time. The M8 writes a calculated aperture in the EXIF field "Approximate F Number". This is not the excat f number because - as you said - there is no linkage to the real aperture. But this calculated aperture is quite accurate so you had good information about time and aperture in Capture One. Sadly with C1 4.8.2 this information is not displayed anymore.

 

[Roger Hicks]

You are slightly wrong this time. The M8 writes a calculated aperture in the EXIF field "Approximate F Number". This is not the excat f number because - as you said - there is no linkage to the real aperture. But this calculated aperture is quite accurate so you had good information about time and aperture in Capture One. Sadly with C1 4.8.2 this information is not displayed anymore.

More than slightly! But to be honest I never really looked, as I 'knew' it couldn't be a true (transmitted) number. A calculation never occurred to me. I'll look next time!

Cheers,

R.

 

[DrDick]

The little circular window in the centre of the front of the M8 is I believe a light sensor that helps the camera calculate the F number by giving it a comparison between light through the lens onto the sensor and light read by the little window above the lens. Lightroom doesn't display aperture in Exif data from the M8

 

[Philippe D.]

Hi,
It's a bug.
Here a part of email from Support to a french user who indicate them this behavior few days ago.

"[...] I'm assuming this is just a bug in the software and thank you for bringing it to our attention, I will pass this along and hopefully we can fix the probelm with a future update. [...]
Kind Regards
Phase One Support"

 

[JPSuisse]

Actually, I've wondered about this one. I tag the F-Number with Exiftool manually with the number I noted in my "Photo Journal." (See recent post about keeping photo journals!) This way, it will display correctly in Lightroom.

Since the number in the Leica makernotes EXIF data is different than the one I tag, I've been wondering what certain programs would do with conflicting information. Could be a problem down the road, but Lightroom, Bibble and Photoshop have no problems with this method.

To be a little more specific: the value I manually tag is "FNumber" and the value the M8 tags automatically is "ApproximateFNumber." I would really like to tag both so that the values are the same. But, I have found no software on the Mac (or on PCs) that will tag a MakerNote value.

Interested to hear some comments on this one... 🙂))

Cheers, JP

 

[Tracnac]

Hi,

Don't know too much about the M8 but I'm pretty sure that the software : EXIFTOOL can do the job. it's a really powerfull line command tool.

Works on any platform.

Regards.

 

[Philippe D.]

I would really like to tag both so that the values are the same. But, I have found no software on the Mac (or on PCs) that will tag a MakerNote value.

Interested to hear some comments on this one... 🙂))

Try PhotoMe (on PC) 😀

 

[sandymc]

To be a little more specific: the value I manually tag is "FNumber" and the value the M8 tags automatically is "ApproximateFNumber." I would really like to tag both so that the values are the same. But, I have found no software on the Mac (or on PCs) that will tag a MakerNote value.

ApproximateFNumber is specific to EXIFTool; it's not a Leica name.

If you want, CornerFix will update the EXIF aperture value with what's in the MakerNote.

Sandy

 

[JPSuisse]

Sandy,

I looked at the EXIFTool documentation. There is a tag 0x0313 named "ApproximateFNumber" that is a maker note under the heading "Panasonic Leica 2 Tags for the M8." This indicates that the tag we are talking about here is indeed a camera specific tag.

I rather doubt that CornerFix can change maker notes. But, I am not sure. This could also mean that somewhere another tag named "ApproximateFNumber" may exist and that CornerFix may be able to change it. If that's the case, though, I doubt that Capture 1 or Lightroom would read this tag when importing M8 files.


Generally, I would avoid changing maker notes. ExifTOOL for instance will not allow me to change most maker notes anyway. I don't know about CornerFix. My post was just a question about what happens if the maker note value for "ApproxiamteFNumber" and the EXIF tag FNumber are INCONGRUENT (=not the same).

Cheers, JP

 

[sandymc]

For clarity:

a) the aperture estimate is a MakerNote value - as such, it has no name, its just a value. Leica may have given it a name, but if so, they haven't revealed that name publicly. ApproximateFNumber is what ExifTools happens to call the value, but you will not find it called that by any other program.

b) CornerFix doesn't change the MakerNote. What it does is to copy the an aperture value (either the Leica estimate, or CornerFix's estimate) to the EXIF aperture field, where any program (C1, LR, Aperture, etc) can read it.

Carl Bretteville's document describes the MakerNote, and the Leica and Cornerfix estimates. You can find his document here: http://bretteville.com/pdfs/M8Metadata_v2.pdf

Sandy