Enabling Subject/Focusing Distance in Aperture 3

In Adobe Bridge CS4 I can see in my RAW master file the "Subject Distance" in the EXIF.
Now in Aperture 3 the Subject Distance and Focusing Distance are blank.
Now, is this a bug to be solved or do I need to enable something within Aperture to display the image?
I need this information as I deal mainly with wild life and having to only use Aperture 3 to get the information would make my life so much simpler.
Neither the Canon 5D, 40D, 5D Mark II, 7D nor 1D Mark IV would show this information in Aperture but will readily display in Bridge.

Failure?
There is information on the focal length in Aperture. And it will show you the focus point.
I don't know if it picks up the subject focus distance. And if it doesn't, this is something that's just not a feature, it's not a failure.
For having exactly two posts total, both of them on one subject, you sure are quick to pick up on "another failure" eh?

Similar Messages

How does ACR compute focus distance?

Hello folks,
In the recent versions of ACR, I've seen that it can include in the EXIF the focus distance from converted RAW files. I'm just wondering how it determines such information, particularly with Canon CR2 files. The focus distance seems to be accurate only on very long focal lengths (500mm and above). I have a 400mm lens and I noticed that I'm getting only any of 6.5m, 11.5m, or 76.6m as focus/subject distance.
Can you guys provide me an idea as to how the the focus/subject distance is determined? For the type of photography that I do, this would be a very useful piece of information.
Thank you very much.
Mark

Thanks, guys!
@Jim:
I'm using a Canon 40D . Indeed some of the focus points are on areas which might be farther than the subject, but they were not activated (since I used only the center point AF). I believe embedded focus distance should be based only on the active focus point/s.
@ssprengel:
Yes, it seems there is a predefined set of distances that are returned.
Thanks for the link. I tried it and I'm still trying to figure out how the focus distance is determined based on the metadata (that was an awful lot!) retrieved. Of interest are the fields FocusDistanceUpper and FocusDistanceLower, but I couldn't find documentation about these fields in the web. The tool will be very useful. When I have the free time I can probably conduct some tests.
@MadManChan2000
Does it mean the camera embeds a rather rough approximation of this information?

Is 5x minimum focus distance covering all distances?

In the Shooting Guide three distances are recommended:
1 x minimum focus distance (32 cm)
2 x minimum focus distance (64 cm)
5 x minimum focus distance (160 cm)
I have added the actual distances for my 24-70 mm set-up.
In the lensprofile these distances are interpreted very differently - and most off at the shortest distance (this has been discussed earlier, and I corrected the data in the lcp-file).
When the profile is opened in LC, the focus distance is shown like e.g.: 24mm, f/11, 1,6m, raw.
99% of my images were shot at a focus distance longer than 5 m. Of course I will choose the 1.6m option, because it's the closest, but at the same time the number seems a bit esoteric. I think that >1.6m would be more intuitive. Not all users are making there own profiles.
Question: I guess the profile is much the same at any distance longer than 5 x minimum focus distance?
Br, Eigil

Hi Simon,
at a distance of 1.2 m the image of my A1 size target covers about half of the frame width and I can get a good distortion profiles from 9 shots according to the recommendations of the user guide. But this distance is not what I want because I normally take images from landscapes. Increasing the number of shots does not seem to be a good solution for the problem. With a reasonable number one cannot increase the distance to a satisfactory value and I have not seen a proof that the method works well with a very large number of very small images of the target. (Small residual mean errors shown in the profiles are no proof, I got these with apparently wrong profiles) . Therefore I suggest a different method for producing a distortion profile based on two considerations. The first one is that distortion is a property of the lens and its settings, not of the objects before the lens.That is, only the focus setting of the lens is important, not the distance of the target from the lens. The second consideration is that distortion of a good lens in essentially independent of the aperture, otherwise one would get blurred images with open aperture. This means that I can choose any aperture to create a distortion profile which is good for all apertures. Consequently I take 9 shots at a distance of 1.2 m with the focus ring of my lens set to infinity at an F-number of 22. The images are fairly sharp, the ALPC has no problems finding the corners. The result is similar to the one I got with 25 images at a distance of 2 m which is still marginal.
I think, the chromatic aberration profiles obtained for very high F-number are also good for small F-numbers, the vignetting profiles certainly are not. One would not need the complex procedure with many images for creating vignetting profiles, one image of a white uniformely illuminated target taken from any distance should be sufficient. I hope that Adobe will share my opinion and separate the creation of vignetting profiles from the creation of distortion profiles in ALPC. So far I will manually correct vignetting of my few images taken with small F-number.
Helmut

Cs6 focus distance in exif data.

cs6 doesn't save the focus distance in the exif data (Canon 7D) like cs5, is there a fix for this?

I opened your images in CS6 and CS5 this is what I see in file info:
CS5Cs6
Windows Explorer does not show Distance and Chrome does not show it either
Propoerties does in the cs5 not CS6

TS3989 why i can't enable photo stream on my aperture?

am trying to enable my photo stream on aperture but i can't turn it on and always asking to turn it on

See:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4350553?start=15&tstart=0
Solution: downgrade to version: 5.0.2

What's focus-angle and focus-distance in CSS radial-gradients?

Reading the reference ( http://docs.oracle.com/javafx/2.0/api/javafx/scene/doc-files/cssref.html#typepaint ) I found these two values you can set in a radial-gradient definition:
radial-gradient([ *focus-angle* <angle>, ]? [ *focus-distance* <percentage>, ]? [ center <point>, ]? radius [ <length> | <percentage> ] [ [ repeat | reflect ], ]? <color-stop>[, <color-stop>]+)
Could someone enlighten me what they mean? I wrote a little tool for visual definition of Gradients (http://88.198.17.44/blog/2012/04/13/it-works-fxexperience-tools-gradienteditor-plugin/) as an extension to FXExperience Tools, and I'd like to include it if it makes sense.
Thanks
Toni

focus-angle and focus-distance are together used to determine the focal point of the radial pattern.
See this image: http://www.webdesign.org/img_articles/6822/gradient.jpg

Make an item not enable and focus

Hello,
I created a user form with several edit text on it.
These items are unable=True so the user can modify the text.
But on an action, I want to make all the items on the form enable = false. The problem is that the focus always stay on the last edit box. I can't make it unable=false.
Do you know how you can remove an focus of the form ?
Thanks for your help
Sebastien

Hi,
The issue is getting the focus away from the last item.
So, because this functionality is not available in the SDK through a standard manner, you have to be very creative to obtain your goal.
I don't know how but I can force some ideas:
- Can't you set toe focus on an pucturebox with the size of one pixel, per default invisible?
Set the picturebox visible, set the focus on the picturebox. Set the EditText enabled=false, then set the picturebox invisible.
This sounds stupid, but this means that this functionality is needed and missing in the DSK.
Greetz
Eddy

Moving Camera & Keeping Objects in Focus

I am making a scene where a camera is moving past several layers of objects that are supposed to look like building silhouettes. The camera movement stops in front of one of the layers. This final layer is in focus. All of the other layers stay in focus, but the one that needs to be in focus is blurry.
Please look at the images below:
This is what it looks like at the 6:10 mark. The layer in the front is blurry, all the others are in focus.
This is the top view at the 6:10 mark. That line just above the camera is the blurry foreground layer.
This is what it looks like at the 7:09 mark.
This is where the camera stops at the 10:00 mark, and it is pretty much in focus at this point.
What setting do I need to change so that the foreground layer stays in focus for pretty much the whole time, and maybe allows the layers in the distance to become blurry?
Thanks!

It's just like a real camera. Select your camera layer, press the "A" key twice to reveal the lens properties and then animate the focus distance and aperture to get the results you want.

Lens profile for Leica Summilux 50

When I run lens profile downloader, and select Leica from the lens manufacturer dropdown, I don't see any Leica lenses listed. I read elsewhere that there is a profile for this lens, yet I don't see it in the profile downloader.

Adobe probably doesn’t have one because I believe this is a manual lens.
A lens profile is a file that contains a series of corrections that are matched to various combinations of: focal-length, aperture and focus distance. This lens is fixed focal length, so that’s 1 of 3 parameters that are known, but unless the raws from the camera contain aperture and focus-distance data then a lens profile isn’t very precise and the profile matching can’t take place automatically.
If you want you can try making your own profiles using the Adobe Lens Profile Creator—search Adobe.com for the program, and see if you can get them to work. Besides the program you’ll want to print out the checkboard calibration target at a known size on a laser printer.
Start by shooting the series of images of the target for just one focus distance and aperture and see if that profile works. If so, then do some more for various apertures and focus-distances. If the info is not stored in the raw files then you’ll want to make a series of profiles and match them manually, yourself after recording what the aperture and focus distance were. If your camera is one that records an aperture value but it is just a guess based on a front-facing photocell on the camera body, then this could be wildly wrong so the corrections may not be that close.

"File ... already exists, but it is inconsistent with this one." error

I've previously used ALPC to profile a Zuiko 12-60 on a E520 and I had no trouble at all. I had 33 different sets of 9 pictures each, and they all merged nicely into one consistent profile. The profile worked perfectly and corrected lens distortion better than any other software I've used. Now I'm trying to profile my Nikkor 10-24 on a Nikon D7000, but as soon as I try to append the 2nd set to the 1st one (same focal length and focus distance, different aperture), I get this message: "File <filename> already exists, but it is inconsistent with this one. Please select a different location or use a different file name.".
My brother has been having this same issue and he's also using a Nikon D7000, but with a Sigma 17-70 2.8-4.0. Any ideas why this is happening? Some sort of D7000 raw conversion issue, maybe? I used ACR to convert NEF to DNG. The first profile is created and works well, though apparently not very accurate.
I tested the one profile that is saved, at 10mm and f/3.5, and it's not very good. Distortion is clearly over-corrected. The one difference between the profile I did for the Olympus and this one is that I refocused after every shot for this one (since the wide angle really throws corner focus off when you reframe it). Could this be it? If not, what else?
I'm using an A4 13x21 chart. It's enough to fill the frame with 9 shots at minimum focus distance.

I am having the same problem with my d7000. This happens regardless of software used to convert NEF files, so if I had to guess at why this is happening I would say that the d7000 maybe has a different format for its makernotes, which is where the lens information is stored, and the lens profile creator doesn't read it.
Here's what happened when I tried to profile my 50mm f1.8 nikkor: I took 9 pictures at f1.8 and nine at f2.8. The profiling worked fine on both. So I ran it first on the f1.8 set, and saved it. Did the same for the f2.8 set and tried to save it, but it wouldn't allow me to append the file to the existing one, giving me the "inconsistent" error discussed here. I then save the second profile separately.
I opened both on windows notepad, and this is the lensID inconsistency already discussed here:
The profile I did with the f1.8 set had this line in it:
<stCamera:LensID>76</stCamera:LensID>
And the profile I did with the f2.8 set had this line:
<stCamera:LensID>179</stCamera:LensID>

Lens profile for Leica 24mm f/2.8 Elmarit

I'm looking for a lens profile for the Leica 24mm f/2.8 Elmarit lens. I see that Adobe doesn't have one, but if anyone has made one, or can give me some suggested corrections, would be appreciated.
Thanks
William

Adobe probably doesn’t have one because I believe this is a manual lens.
A lens profile is a file that contains a series of corrections that are matched to various combinations of: focal-length, aperture and focus distance. This lens is fixed focal length, so that’s 1 of 3 parameters that are known, but unless the raws from the camera contain aperture and focus-distance data then a lens profile isn’t very precise and the profile matching can’t take place automatically.
If you want you can try making your own profiles using the Adobe Lens Profile Creator—search Adobe.com for the program, and see if you can get them to work. Besides the program you’ll want to print out the checkboard calibration target at a known size on a laser printer.
Start by shooting the series of images of the target for just one focus distance and aperture and see if that profile works. If so, then do some more for various apertures and focus-distances. If the info is not stored in the raw files then you’ll want to make a series of profiles and match them manually, yourself after recording what the aperture and focus distance were. If your camera is one that records an aperture value but it is just a guess based on a front-facing photocell on the camera body, then this could be wildly wrong so the corrections may not be that close.

A Question for Adobe

I'm wondering if you
guys could help us out by publishing a spread sheet of some sort which guide us to the exact targets and shooting sequence. This might be organized with inputs such as lens focal length(Or range), sensor size/geometry and outputs such as which targets and what sequence of shots. This would remove a lot of confusion and ambiguity on our parts before we invest the enormous effort required to produce a reasonable profile. There is also the matter of money, if we are going to print sets of target files and properly mount them to hard foam board etc. It would seem to me that a little help on this from Adobe, would help to jump start this activity. Also might remove some of the criticism from DXO et al.
What do you think? Can this be done?

johnblue3 wrote:
Thanks Lee Jay,
I've played around with your spreadsheet but still have a few questions about using it. First, I noticed that for short focal length lenses it calls for very large target sizes at fixed distance. Some of these sizes are beyond what I can reasonably print and mount. Any Remedy for this? I gather that you procedure assumes nine shots, does this mean that the same target is shot nine times? Finally, why has Adobe not commented on this thread at all? I"d really like to know whether they think this is a viable approach.
Finally, Lee, I noticed in another thread that user required nearly 2400 frames to profile six different lenses with his camera. That's nearly 400 frames per lens, how do we reconcile that approach to your spreadsheet result?
Yeah, that's just reality. Short focal lengths = short focus distances, large targets or lots and lots of shots.
I didn't assume nine shots, you can enter it. I had 3x3 in it when I uploaded it, but you can change it. And, yes, that means you shoot the same target nine times, as is shown in the shooting guide provided with the tool.
My spreadsheet only calculates the situation for one shooting case. That means, for one focal length, focus distance, and aperture. If you start adding focal lengths, shooting at different focus distances and shooting different aperturs at each of those, plus multiplying all that by 6 lenses, the shot count can add up. For example, I shot one set at 6 focal legnths, 2 apertures, 1 focus distance and 9 shots for each of those. 6*2*1*9 = 108 shots. But if I had shot at 3 apertures, 2 focus distances and done the same for 2 lenses, that would have been 6*3*2*9*2 = 648 shots.

Sony: Lens Profile Creator knows the subject distance, ACR does not

When making a lens profile for a Sony alpha DSLR, lens profile creator identifies the focus distance, and processes each distance accordingly. However, when loaded in ACR (or PS lens correction filter), the software does not display the distance. Why can LPC read the subject distance and ACR cannot?

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
el_floz wrote:
The Creator, however, determines / calculates the subject distance itself.
Is this a complicated way of saying "God only knows"?
In all seriousness, if one program can calculate a piece of info from a file, so could another. The designers may just not have chosen to dig so deeply into the manufacturer-specific data as to do so. Or, as appears to be the case here, the information is derived from known subject material in the image itself.
-Noel

Show focus points - not showing...

I'm shooting with a 1D Mark III, and when I select "show focus points" not seeing the focus points...
Is this supposed to actually show where my focus point was on the shot(s)
That would be very helpful. What am I doing wrong?

Allan Eckert wrote:
I don't know what Kirby is talking about. He seems to be answering someone else's question.
It reads pretty clearly to me.
The camera has a sensor. Additionally, it has an array of focus-sensors that are fixed in position relative to the main sensor. Which of these focus-sensors was used by the auto-focus system to determine the focusing distance is what is displayed by the feature under discussion.
The point I'm trying to make is that the "focus point" in the discussion refers to which exact focus-sensors in the camera were used to achieve auto-focus. Unless your camera and your subject did not move between the time of focus-lock and the time of exposure, there will not be an exact correspondence between the spot on the sensor that is associated with that focus and what is depicted under that spot in the image.
In my practice, I find it much more awkward and time-consuming to select a focus point while the shot is framed than it is to focus with the central cross-type focus-sensors, lock focus, and then frame the exposure. So for me -- and I think many others -- knowing which focus-sensor was used by the auto-focus system doesn't tell me anything: there is no correspondence between the focus-sensor used and the image.
In the linked blog post, the author shows an image with the selected focus-sensor super-imposed over the model's upper eyelid. IME, it is assuming too much to assume that the autofocus system used that spot on the model's face when it determined the focusing distance.
There are programs that will analyze the actual image and attempt to show what parts of the image are in sharpest focus. Aperture does not do that.
This is -- as I indicated -- tangent to the OP's question. But the way s/he worded the question made me think that s/he things there is a certain one-to-one correspondence between the focusing-sensor used and the objects depicted under that focusing-sensor when it is superimposed over the image. There is not. I found that important to know, and so I pass it along.

Is there a fix for 5d ii focus issue

Hello, I just purchased the 5Dii used but the owner said the camera was working perfectly. I notice that when I take photos the photos do not look sharp. I am shooting in raw and using fast enough settings that they should be sharp. I tried different lenses and a tripod still same results when viewed at 100%. So I have been reading about the 5d ii having focus issues and was wondering if there is a fix to this problem? Also, I read that with 21 mp the photos won't look sharp in the view finder or when viewed at 100% has anyone else heard this? Any suggestions would be helpful. I am thinking I need to return the item which is a shame, I was so excited to get the 5d ii and very disappointed to be having this issue.

I don't suggest using the viewfinder to judge quality of photos -- it's too small.
There are no focus "issues" with a 5D II -- it's an excellent camera. It doesn't have the advanced focus system of the 5D III but if the focus points on your 5D II tell you that something is correctly focused then it should be correctly focused.
There are NUMEROUS things that can cause problems (none of which are defects.)
1) If you allow the camera to auto-select it's focus point, remember that the camera will always pick the focus point which can lock focus at the closest focusing distance. Suppose you're taking a photo of someone's face, but on the side of the frame there's a bush -- and that push is in far enough that one of the focus points is on the bush. The camera will focus on the bush and NOT on your subject's face. Usually you will want the camera to focus on the nearest subject, but when shooting shots with distracting elements in the frame which are closer then your intended subject, you need to pick the focus point you want the camera to use rather than allow it to auto-select the point.
2) If focusing at a particularly low focal ratio (especially at close distances) the depth of field can get REALLY thin. If you want focus on your subject's eyes -- you will need to carefully position the focus point and lock focus on your subject's eyes -- otherwise you may end up getting a focus lock on their nose (as an example) and the eyes will be slightly soft.
3) In the default "one shot" mode, the camera will focus prior to taking the shot. When focus lock is achieved the camera will stop adjusting focus. If either you or your subject move after that point, the camera will NOT re-adjust -- you'll get a soft shot. With moderate f-stops usually a small movement wont change focus distance enough to matter -- this is mostly an issue at shallow f-stops. But if shooting action where you KNOW your subject is moving and focus distance is changing, you need to use the "AI Servo" mode which continuosly updates focus.
4) Your 5D II allows you to adjust the focus accuracy of a lens. Some lenses will routinely focus just slightly in front or behind your intended focus distance. When you detect that you have a lens that does this, the camera can compensate. This adjustment requires that you set up an accurate focus test to determine if an adjustment is needed and how much. Do not attempt to make an adjustment by using regular every-day shots... use a carefully controlled focus target, tripod, etc. There's a procedure for doing this.
5) If you suspect inaccuracy with focus points (and you really need to be careful to use controlled circumstances before arriving at such a conclusion) you can test by switching to "live view" mode to see if you get different results. Live view mode does not use the phase-detect auto-focus points... it uses contrast-detection focus instead. Contrast detection is slower but in theory should be able to provide more accurate focus as long as you have a subject with some decent contrast. If live view is consistently outperforming the standard phase-detect AF mode then you may need to perform focus adjustment on your camera (this is specific to each lens you own... this is because each lens can behave differently.)
Lastly... your camera records which AF points were used when it takes a photo. This data can be displayed IF you use the Canon EOS Utility (which should have come with your camera). It'll put the familiar focus array overlaying your photo and highlight the active point(s). Just be aware that if you did a "focus and recompose" that the camera is going to report which focus point was used to lock focus but wouldn't know you recomposed the shot. If you're not recomposing and your subject distance wasn't changing then the utility should be accurate.
Incidentally, Apple's "Aperture" software also allows you to view the Canon focus point data. As far as I'm aware, this is not available in Lightroom or Photoshop.
Tim Campbell
5D II, 5D III, 60Da

Enabling Subject/Focusing Distance in Aperture 3

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