p.1 #1 · LensTagger (or similar tool) is awesome! And install instruction on Mac.
Hi:
I mainly shoot vintage manual focus lens these days, and one of my biggest challenge is to add exif info to the lens. Since I shoot either Nikon Z8 and ZF with manual focus lens, they are suppose to able to record lens name with their latest firmware. However, Nikon's subject detection won't work if you are using non-chipped lens. One way to get around this problem is to use chipped adapter. I use Neewer's E to Z adapter, then manual focus lens adapter to Sony E-mount first. But, doing so, will remove the lens exif information. I knew that I can manually replace the file in Neewer adapter's file to add lens information. But I can only do one lens at a time and I lost the firmware update table. This get me thinking what if I can have a Lightroom plugin that can batch add lens information.
I knew I can change exif information using exiftool via the terminal, but the process is clunky. I often shoot different lens in the same day, and having folder organize by date means I will have multiple lens in the same folder. Figuring out which file to change exif info without a UI is tough. The ideal workflow will be to highlight the picture, then batch update lens info via Lightroom plugin.
LensTagger let me do that. However, I had install LensTagger in Window before and fail. I installed it a week ago and it still fail. After doing the batch update using exiftool in terminal gives me confident that the problem lies in the file path. So here are my steps:
1) install exiftool using homebrew;
2) the file path after homebrew for exiftool is in: /opt/homebrew/bin/exiftool. You can figure it out in terminal using "which exiftool"
3) create a lightroom plugin folder, and download the file from LensTagger
4) after download, unzip the file and move it to the destination of your download folder;
5) open up Lightroom and go to plug in manager. Click add and find the file you just move to the plugin folder;
6) open your plugin tool and click on LensTagger, when the UI open up, update the exiftool path to what's in step 2). Click update path
7) when you need to use lens tagger, highlight the picture then File->Plugin Extras->LensTagger, then update the lens information, update path, then click on run path.
I had to say this is not easy for me too. ChatGPT is good help for figuring out the path. Unfortunately, you do need to be comfortable using terminal for some of the steps. I wish the LensTagger instruction is a bit more fool proof.
The nice thing is, I now can use an adapter that can give me focus confirmation and I can still add lens information later on.
