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Windows PC, Windows 11 Pro, Lightroom Classic (whatever's current)
I use the focus shift (focus stack, image stack) function on my Nikon D850 to sometimes capture sets of images. I noticed that in PIE (Photo Information Extractor) they have a field called "Focus Mode" and it shows values like "AF-C, AF-S, Manual", and when I capture a stack it's set to "Fshift".
I haven't found an equivalent field in the Lightroom Metadata display to show this information. Am I missing it, in which case can somebody tell me what it's called so I can add it to the default customization, or does Lightroom not make this information available?
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Nikon's Focus Mode is a Nikon-specific field stored in the EXIF MakerNotes metadata section (where most cameras store non-standard manufacturer-specific fields). In general, LR only displays industry-standard fields, not MakerNotes.
You could use the Metadata Viewer plugin to display all such manufacturer-specific fields. You could use AnyFilter plugin to filter and drill-down by Focus Mode:
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Thanks for the reply. Is focus distance and subject distance the same kind of thing - manufacturer specific?
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Focus Distance is manufacturer-specific, while Subject Distance is an industry-standard EXIF field. You can add Subject Distance to the Default tagset in the Metadata panel by clicking the Customize button at the bottom of the panel.
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Interesting. I've never been able to get LrC to display a subject distance for any of my Nikon cameras. D300, D500, D8XX - no subject distance. The Show Focus Points plug-in does, but I never get a distance from Lightroom.
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The Show Focus Points plugin is accessing proprietary MakerNotes to show the points and probably gets the focus distance from there too.
In my test catalog of over 1100 photos from 108 cameras, only 8 photos have the EXIF field Subject Distance (first column), and only 6 of those have valid distances, which LR correctly reads into its Subject Distance field in the catalog (second column):
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Sounds like the subject distance doesn't work very well in Lightroom. At least not for what I'm shooting or what you're shooting.
Is the filter above something in Lightroom or is it something separate?
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"Sounds like the subject distance doesn't work very well in Lightroom."
It's not a LR-specific issue -- most cameras aren't setting the EXIF subject distance field in the photo.
The screenshots show the use of the Any Filter plugin.
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