Having problem with lens identification in LRC

Any thoughts or suggestions? I was able to get images to consistently import with the correct name, or so I thought.  It appears to be a combination with setting Enable Profile Correction to default prior to the import.  Turns out is seems that there is something else that is not standard on my catalog because, when I tried to repeat the test on a new one, no joy.  

I really am beginning to dislike the backend of this forum.  At least four times now, I have typed out a response, clicked send, only to get the response “an error has occurred.”  complete with non of what I wrote.  Going to go write it again in Word and then cut and paste.

Also, if you are regularly enabling lens profile corrections, you can use the Any Filter plugin to search the Lens Profile Name (what’s currently displayed in the Lens Corrections panel):

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​@David Maltenfort I ran exiftool on the DSC_9863.NEF and also on one I took with a different lens today.  The output from both of them did have the correct name identified (full output is attached).   

Sorry, I didn’t explain all the details in my last post.  Metadata is such a complicated mess (independent of LR) that I try to rely on progressive disclosure, only as needed.

If you use the Exiftool options -a -G, you’ll see which metadata sections the various lens fields are coming from on the two sample photos you provide:

$ exiftool -a -G DSC_9863.nef | grep -i lens
[MakerNotes] Lens Type         : G VR
[MakerNotes] Lens              : 24-120mm f/4
[MakerNotes] Lens F Stops      : 5.00
[MakerNotes] Lens Data Version : 0204
[MakerNotes] Lens ID Number    : 170
[MakerNotes] Lens F Stops      : 5.00
[Composite]  Lens ID           : AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR
[Composite]  Lens Spec         : 24-120mm f/4 G VR


$ exiftool -a -G DSC_9729.nef | grep -i lens
[MakerNotes] Lens Type         : G VR
[MakerNotes] Lens              : 24-120mm f/4
[MakerNotes] Lens F Stops      : 5.00
[MakerNotes] Lens Data Version : 0204
[MakerNotes] Lens ID Number    : 170
[MakerNotes] Lens F Stops      : 5.00
[Composite]  Lens ID           : AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR
[Composite]  Lens Spec         : 24-120mm f/4 G VR

The MakerNotes section is the proprietary metadata that each manufacturer adds to its photos. It’s not governed by any industry standards.  The lens fields stored in MakerNotes provide a Lens ID Number (170) and a generic description (24-120mm f/4).

The Composite section contains fields that are synthesized by Exiftool itself from other fields contained in the photo. In particular, the Composite:LensID field is synthesized from these MakerNotes fields (according to the Exiftool source): LensIDNumber, LensFStops, MinFocalLength, MaxFocalLength, MaxApertureAtMinFocal, MaxApertureAtMaxFocal, MCUVersion and LensType. Exiftool has built up its database of these lens identifications over the years from contributions from dozens of individuals.  (And On1 may be using Exiftool under the covers.) You can see in the Exiftool’s installation folder the file Nikon.pm, which has about 650 rules for defining lenses.

So as you see, the full string “AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR” is not stored in the photo metadata.

What you see in the Lens Corrections panel is also inferred from the same MakerNotes fields:

When you select Enable Profile Corrections, LR uses EXIF and MakerNotes fields to infer the lens and choose a lens profile. The Model shown in the panel is the lens model associated with the lens profile that LR chose.  

When things go well, the lens model chosen by LR is correct and it shows the correct profile. But based on reports here and the Camera Raw forum, things sometimes don’t go well. Due to ambiguous metadata in the raw file (or no metadata at all), LR can fail to automatically select the correct lens profile. And LR’s lens profiles may be less comprehensive than what Exiftool has in its database (I’m just guessing at that). And note that LR allows you to choose any lens profile for a photo, so what’s currently shown in Lens Correction may be wrong.

LR could do what On1 is probably doing and incorporate Exiftool itself, since Exiftool’s database of lens identification appears more complete than LR’s set of lens profiles.

But unfortunately, that trips over a complication from Adobe’s legal department. Based on posts from years ago, Adobe apps won’t access proprietary metadata fields from raw files unless Adobe has a legal agreement with that camera manufacturer for that particular camera. So if LR were to incorporate Exiftool, it would have to carefully strip all information for cameras for which Adobe hasn’t signed agreements.

A smaller software vendor with a more sensible legal deparment would just do it and include Exiftool, as many apps and web-based services have.

So considering all this, I think it’s very unlikely anything in LR or Camera Raw will change with respect to lens identification.  It’s generally only a problem with older cameras and lenses.

Since this has been going on for over 10 years (I found a thread earlier than the one from 8 years ago), I’m pretty sure that this is not an easy fix.  However, I’m curious as to why it would be hard to do:

 The metadata coming out of the (or at least my) Nikon have the following metadata
 

• Metadata field
  • Lens
    • When correct

      • AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

    • When incorrect

      • 105mm f/2.8

  • Lens ID

    • When correct

      • AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

    • When incorrect

      • AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED

Why can’t Adobe put a logic statement in the code that essentially says, if the Lens field is generic, use the Lens ID field? Wouldn’t that fix the problem?

Looks like this has been going on for over 8 years!.  Frustrating,  to say the least.  Only one thing in that thread I disagree with.  The problem is not simply cosmetic.  What am I supposed to do when I have different brands of the same lens?  They all will show up in the library filter as the generic name.  

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Why is the same thing happening with my D850 an image I took on May 9th, 2026 with the most current firmware for the camera?

That image doesn’t contain the field EXIF:LensModel either:

$ exiftool -a -G /Users/john/Downloads/DSC_0885.nef | grep -i lens
[MakerNotes]    Lens Type                       : G VR
[MakerNotes]    Lens                            : 24-120mm f/4
[MakerNotes]    Lens F Stops                    : 5.00
[MakerNotes]    Lens Focus Function Buttons     : AF Lock Only
[MakerNotes]    Lens Data Version               : 0204
[MakerNotes]    Lens ID Number                  : 170
[MakerNotes]    Lens F Stops                    : 5.00

In my catalog of sample raw photos, raws from the D5 (2016), the D850 (2017), D3500 (2018), D5600 (2017), and the D7500 (2017) are missing EXIF:LensModel:

It looks like Nikon didn’t start consistently supporting EXIF:LensModel in its cameras until around 2018.

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I didn’t give completely accurate information about where LR reads the lens metadata from, but your sample files show what’s going on. The short answer is that the metadata recorded by the D800 doesn’t conform to the EXIF 2.3 standard introduced in 2010. On1 has a private database of lens models that it uses to reconstruct the model name, whereas LR doesn’t.

Gross details:

Neither sample file contains the industry standard metadata field EXIF:LensModel, recording the lens model (e.g. “Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR”). This is where LR normally gets the lens model.  EXIF:LensModel was added to EXIF version 2.3 (from 2010), and the D800 was released in 2012, so I think it’s likely that Nikon hadn’t yet moved to EXIF version 2.3 when they released the camera. The raw metadata doesn’t even contain the field EXIF:ExifVersion (suggesting Nikon was taking the standard that seriously back then).

When EXIF:LensModel is missing, it appears that LR reads the proprietary field MakerNotes:Lens, which in both photos is “24-120mm f/4”. That is why the Lens field in the Metadata panel displays “24-120mm f/4” and the .xmp sidecar created by LR contains ‘aux:Lens="24.0-120.0 mm f/4.0".

But On1 uses the numeric lens id stored in the proprietary metadata field MakerNotes:LensIDNumber=170 to look up the lens name in its private database of lenses to come up with the model “Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR”, and then it writes aux:Lens="Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR" to its .xmp sidecar.

Finally, when the raw metadata is missing EXIF:LensModel and a sidecar is present, LR reads aux:Lens from the sidecar to get the lens model.

So this is why the photo with the LR-created sidecar shows “24-120mm f/4” while the photo with the On1-created sidecar shows “Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR”.

If you want all your photos to show “Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VR”, you could use the Lenstagger plugin to add the lens model into the industry standard metadata field.

LR doesn’t read the EXIF metadata from the .xmp sidecars -- it always reads it from the raw files themselves. Please attach the corresponding .nef files here. We can put them under the microscope to see precisely what’s going wrong were and file an actionable bug report.