False lens profile for Sony A99 and other Sony cameras

[deranonyme]

There is a lot of confusion about Sony Cameras. A7 and A7R - and the A7S too - are no NEX APS-C models. But you can adapt nearly every full frame lens indedendent from there mount on this mirrorless Sony cameras. I miss there all Minolta and Sony lenses and other third party full frame lenses.
The A99 is a SLT full frame camera, too. You can't mount there the three listed Sony e-Mount lenses but all A-Mount full frame lenses from Sony, Minolta, Sigma, Tamron and so on. I miss also all of this lenses!?

[gregglee]

I have discovered that the Sony and Minolta lens camera and lens profile files in ASP2 have many errors. Many were not present in the ASP 1 profiles.

For example the A99 a full frame a-mount camera was shown crop frame (aka asp-c) and the lens group was e-mount and the exif name was wrong. Many lenses that are FF were listed as crop frame. As a result A99 didn't map to correct lenses.

example A99 profile was listed as:

begin camera
group: sonyemount
multiplier: 1.5
menu_make: Sony
menu_model: a99V
exif_make: SONY
exif_model: a99V
end

should be

begin camera
group: minoltaSLR
group: genericSLR
multiplier: 1.0
menu_make: Sony
menu_model: a99V
exif_make: SONY
exif_model: SLT-A99V
end

I changed all that applied to my equipment and ASP2 now associates lenses correctly.

The A7 listing is also wrong but I haven't studied through e-mount camera and lens profiles to recommend a fix.

begin camera
group: genericSLR [wrong]
multiplier: 1.0
menu_make: Sony
menu_model: NEX-A7 [wrong name but may be what asp2 uses internally]
exif_make: SONY
exif_model: ILCE-7 [probably wrong. This is what the camera writes in exif. US model is listed in catalog as ILCE-7/B]
end

In windows 7-64 the profiles are in C:\Program Files\Corel\Corel AfterShot 2\supportfiles\Profiles\LensProfiles
They are text files that you can open in notepad or wordpad. You cannot update them in place, but can copy over them from another folder with admin privileges. Which you should do anyway so you have original copies before modifying.

I doubt if Corel has attempted to include adapted lenses, and may not have the profiles structured to do the mapping separate from native mount.

[deranonyme]

Thank you for this hint. It fixed what Corel not did.

[gregglee]

No problem. On looking at it a bit more about adapted lenses, if they transmit id info through the adapter to the camera for inclusion in image metadata, it may be possible to to get them to list in ASP2 by editing A7 profile in profile_sony.txt to

begin camera
group: sonyemount
group: minoltaSLR
group: genericSLR
menu_make: Sony
menu_model:
exif_make: SONY
exif_model: [This should be whatever is displayed in Model in the ASP2 metadata tab.]
end

Note:
1. Be sure to save a backup of the modified files. ASP2 version update may overwrite your modified file with the original.
2. I don't know how asp2 identifies e-mount lenses. e-mount uses a different makernote tag address from a-mount. Or it may use one of the other metadata lens id tags. I don't know if ASP2 is clever enough to look in one tag location for a-mount lenses and another for e-mount.
3. After modifying profile files, in lens correction you may have to click reload exif to get asp2 to update.

[gregglee]

Followup on note 1 above. Version 2.1.2.10 update WILL overwrite your edited files

[afx]

Followup on note 1 above. Version 2.1.2.10 update WILL overwrite your edited files

??
Could you please tell us what exactly gets overwritten?

cheers
afx

[deranonyme]

The update contains the complete LensProfiles folder, too. So our editied files will be overwritten. The simplest way would be that Corel does its Job and updates the lens profiles. This could be done in a few minutes. Or we edit it again and again and again.....
I believe Corel is not really interested in correcting such simple bugs. This is not a good user support. This bug is posted here since a longer time and with no big efford to correct.
By the way, is it common that the lens will be correct auto identified for RAW pictures but for the same picture stored in jpeg format there is no auto identification for the lens?

[deranonyme]

Moved to Darktable. Maybe I come back if Corel understands what "support" means.