Thanks for sharing this, Platypus. It is a bit eye-opening that so many lenses using the same ID and DXO doesn’t give the user the opportunity to choose the correct one.
This whole situation shows how PL6 is at the same time brilliant in how it can handle high noise levels and detail in images, and a complete failure when it comes to applying the correct lens optical module. And without that optical module, the brilliance is effectively negated.
DXO is literally shooting themselves in the foot.
And customer service has not responded at all to my ticket on this matter after 4 days. An open ticket with ZERO response. Shameful.
Still I’m wondering why the difference between PL6.3 and PL 6.5.
And how could PL ever distinguish between these 137 lenses. Is there a second item for identification?
Next to lens id, there are a few other tags that carry information helping to determine, which of the listed “id 137” lenses might have been used. Info such as aperture range and min/max focal length etc. can be taken into account - if such info has been written tho the files by the camera body, which is not necessarily the case with all bodies, not even with the ones supported by DxO software. A lot of metadata is stored in undocumented “MakerNotes” requiring some reverse engineering.
I can understand a developers ambition to write a perfect automaton, but I wonder that the quality people accept a less than 100% hit rate without a security net to keep customers happy.
I wonder in general with what sometimes adventurous flaws SW developers get away these days. It’s not exactly dawn of computers, right? They are around for a couple of weeks now, some even say decades.
Who distributes Lens IDs? 22× the same ID doesn’t appear as if “somebody” cares at all?
I wonder if the question about the lens ID numbers is part of the reverse engineering? Maybe without a lens ID number that the camera recognizes, the auto focus etc will not function correctly. And there might be a limited set of numbers that are recognized and therefore the numbers have to be re-used. I have no doubt at all that reverse engineering in order to make a 3rd party lens function in the Canon/Nikon etc systems is a complicated affair that I probably could not possibly comprehend.
Indeed, I remember two lenses the D8xx series of Nikon constantly confused: The 105/2.8 Micro Nikkor and the 24-105/4 Sigma Art. Which was a real pain, because the confusion went down to the point of confusing the in-camera microfocus-adjustments. Which were obviously not the same for two very different lenses. Depending which lens I adjusted, the adjustments for the other lens went down the drain. Took a while to find out. I just used @platypus link to Canon EXIF and put in Nikon instead:
To me, these IDs look different - but the lenses were confused on all DSLR bodies of Nikon.
I simply don’t believe Sigma to be stupid enough to give 13 lenses the same ID. That’s asking, no, begging for trouble. And of these 13 only one (18-35/1.8) is not a rather old model.
If anyone from DXO is reading this thread. Here is the solution to the problem. The user can simply look at their lens, as shown in the photo below, and read the name of the lens. Then, the user can verify if the software has chosen the correct optical module and if the incorrect module is indicated, the user can then make a manual selection. While I have to wear glasses to see clearly to drive, as well as glasses to see clearly when reading books or viewing the computer screen, I do not need my glasses to know that the lens below is not a Sigma. Heck…I know that with my eyes closed BECAUSE I DON’T OWN A SIGMA.
Seeing is believing, nevertheless, ExifTool lists Sigma lenses too…and I don’t see any duplicated LensType values. Maybe it’s just a question of interpreting LensType (or LensID) figures as hex, ascii or other encoding. BUT: I have the sneaky suspicion that DxO is “constructing” lens info from other tag values.
Other than that, the interesting part is how Nikon Lens IDs are “assembled”:
The Nikon LensID is constructed as a Composite tag from the raw hex values of 8 other tags: LensIDNumber, LensFStops, MinFocalLength, MaxFocalLength, MaxApertureAtMinFocal, MaxApertureAtMaxFocal, MCUVersion and LensType, in that order.
Over 5 days since I submitted the ticket with customer service and complete silence. The ticket is still open and no one has responded in any way. Not even a “we are looking at the problem and will let you know.” Zero response.
Even worse is the fact that I opened a second ticket, but a non-technical one, expressing my dissatisfaction with how customer service is handling my problem (not handling…silence) and that ticket was closed without any engagement at all.
This is a complete failure in customer service. I am very disappointed to say the least.
I re-opened the second ticket mentioned in my previous post and stated that the issue of my dissatisfaction had not been solved because there has been ZERO engagement with me. That I am still unhappy and dissatisfied with customer service.
That re-opened ticket has been marked as solved and closed for the second time without any engagement or explanation.
The original technical issue ticket about the lens misidentification issue is still open and there has still been ZERO engagement by anyone in customer service after 6 days.
It’s not a help for your current case, just saying: I was searching my mails for the Sigma 35/2 Contemporary lens being confused with a Leica Summicron Don’t k ow. Took a while for them to react, I’m not sure if that case was closed, but during testing another bug popped up. Or was it while waiting for months for a 24/2 profile?
Don’t know anymore. My experience with DxO support dates back to 2013, Nikon D7100 was not supported, support advised me to use JPG instead. Not each reply is helpful…
I can understand when it takes time to solve a problem, as sometimes problems are difficult to track down. But what I do not understand, is not engaging at all with the customer who contacts customer service. This has happened to me twice this week alone with DXO. And engaging the first time with the customer after 6 days if very bad customer service.
So, I did finally get a reply to my ticket I started 6 days ago. And the response made me feel like the person didn’t read and comprehend my issue of DXO thinking that the lens is a Sigma. They explained to me how to choose a lens profile when asked. Nothing about the fact that the only lens profile from which I have to choose is the Sigma profile because the Tamron profile is already installed in PL. And PL will not use that profile because it thinks the Tamron lens is a Sigma.
I do not feel as if I will spend any further money with DXO, or at least any significant amount, because of the awful customer service. This lens issue is not the only issue which has existed since PL 6 was introduced. There is a dng file issue which began with PL6 which is as of yet unresolved as well.
Thanks for the suggestion. If DXO customer service can’t do any better than what they are doing presently, I will not need any further assistance in the future in dealing with DXO. I will make my life easier by going back to Adobe like I was from Lightroom 2 until Lightroom 6. I never had such issues with Adobe customer service.
