K3 does not recognise focal lengths below 10mm

I am extremely disappointed and extremely p*$$"d off that Pentax/Ricoh haven't addressed this problem yet, which was also a problem on the K5. It's ridiculous that they have come out with a new camera that won't recognise the focal length on lenses that were manufactured long before they came out with this camera.

It's ridiculous that they can come out with radical new ideas like the selectable AA filter yet don't bother to make sure their camera can recognise the focal length of all available lenses. The Sigma 8-16mm is one of my most used lenses, and below 10mm I can't use DXO's excellent lens-correction profiles (as I couldn't with the K5) because the focal length is not recorded in the exif. Surely a simple firmware upgrade would fix this?

It's simply a matter of camera manufacturers continuing not to recognise the existence of third party lens manufacturers. Pentax have never made anything below 10mm so they don't admit to the existence of such lenses. It's a shame but sort of understandable from their point of view.

Why does that stop you from using DXO (I'm not familiar with it myself)? Perhaps if you manually alter the EXIF?

Personally I don't see it as understandable. They should make their camera work with whatever lenses are available in their mount. Let's say they took this a step further and somehow stopped their cameras from recognising any third-party lenses (the sort of thing Apple would do). How many people would continue buying their cameras? I certainly wouldn't, and I'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way.

The focal length actually gets recorded correctly in EXIF makernotes. Just needs copying to the right place for braindead DxO to see it. Use ExifTool/ExifTool GUI to fix this.

Jonathan, I can understand your frustration, but the 8mm - 16mm lens you have is a made by Sigma not Pentax.

Do you really think Pentax R&D will test every third party lens with new camera body? No camera manufacturer wants you to buy third party glass, it just does not make business sense.

In relation to DxO software not being able to read the correct Exif info, that is a pain. I guess compromises have to be made sometimes when you buy third party kit, but at least you have the option to do so. As Pentax don't make a 8mm - 16mm and Sigma do you get half of what you want which is better than nothing.

Have you thought about a tilt and shift lens? It might be better suited to the type of photography images you want to take?

At least with the Sigma 8mm - 16mm you can make adjustments in photoshop manually, although it can be very time consuming.

Karel, thanks for your post about ExifTool/ExifTool GUI. I was unaware of this software and have just taken a look and downloaded it.

Many Thanks

I can change the exif in PhotoMe, but it's a pain, as I can only do one image at a time. I know batch-editing is possible, but I need to look at each file individually to see if it was taken below 10mm.

As far as I am aware, enabling the camera to read focal length is a fixed function, which means it has been deliberately crippled not to read anything below 10mm. While trying to sell your own lenses is perfectly understandable, the best way to stop people buying the Sigma 8-16mm is to produce a comparable lens, not deliberately make it difficult to use the only existing lens of this focal length that works on your cameras.

It's actually Sigma's fault and applies to all marques. They don't , as I understand it, pay the licence fee so they have to "reverse-engineer" their lenses. This means they end up paying money if they run foul of patent law, as in the case with Nikon recently. It also means that their lenses will not necessarily work fully with new camera bodies. Sometimes they have to re-chipped by Sigma, sometimes they can't be upgraded at all.

Neither Pentax nor any other manufacturer will keep track of Sigma's problems, they have enough of their own. Pentax lenses will report properly to Pentax bodies and they make no claims about lenses from other manufacturers that may or may not do so.

If you use ExifTool GUI then one of the menu items is Modify > Exif: LensInfo form MakerNotes. This will copy the relevant values to the right places. And with the GUI you can do it on a whole bunch of files at the same time.

It just goes to show that EXIF is far from being a cross-manufacturer standard

Thanks, Karel, that's a great help! I've just done all the files I shot the other day in one go.

Actually, just finished processing them and after checking them again it didn't work after all, all the images below 10mm say 0mm.....

Done manually by selecting all the images reading focal length 0mm in one go and changing them to 8mm......both LR and DXO profiles now work.

Thanks for the heads up on the program, Karel!

Someone on the other forum made a small program that scans your folders and automatically corrects the Exif data for any shots taken with the Sigma 8-16mm.

It did not work "out of the box" for me, and thinking back I believe I had to use a different version of Exiftool and update one of the .dll files, but it works well for me now.

It can be found here:
link

Handy tool. just downloaded it. Cheers

It is a shame that the GUI is not being developed any more - there are still a few bugs in it. ExifTool gets updated all the time with new lenses and other EXIF discoveries. As some other programs also install and use it, it is a good idea to check that you don't have old versions lurking on your PC.

I use ExifTool/ExifTool GUI and Geosetter Beta all the time.