Exif info/ updated for digital/ 3rd party lenses

[StevenWithAVee]

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Hey all,

 

As I'm waiting for my M240 ( will be my first Leica) I've been looking around trying to decide what lens/lenses ill be buying to get myself started. I'm most likely looking at a Summicron 50 to get things going. It is supposed to be "updated for digital" with 6 bit coding. But I'm not 100% sure what that means. Lol Help?

 

What I would like for that to mean is the exif info will show the aperture/iso/shutter speed. As someone still learning about photography I find this info very useful as I'm sorting through my pics. I'm used to getting this info in my Canon setup. Is this what I will get with this plated for digital information? Or am I asking too much?

 

The second part of my question is how does this work with 3rd party lenses. I definitely want to stick with a Leica lens. But, as I'm sure you know, I could pick up a couple of Zeiss lenses for less than the cost of one Leica. After adding the cost of the camera body I have to admit that is tempting. But does this mean no information in the exif data?

 

Thanks for any info you can tell me. Links are welcome if there is somewhere else you can tell me where I can find my answers.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

The camera sets exif for ISO and shutter speed. It also approximates aperture through a small light sensor on the body as no M mount lens can transmit aperture information directly. On my M9 aperture is wrong in exif about 60% of the time. Filters are not automatically taken into account.

 

The 6 bit coding is a simple bar code on the lens mount that is read by a reader on the camera lens mount. It reads the specific lens attached (ie: curren 50mm summicron) and it also prompts the camera to apply the appropriate lens correction data to the recorded file (both raw and jpeg). This is most noticable with wide lenses where the correction is neccessary if you don't want colour shift and distortion issues on the edges of the frame.

 

You can code third party lenses. But only to the closest match of a Leica lens. I have coded my CV 21mm f1.8 lens as a Leica 28mm Elmarit andt hat does a good job of correcting the CV21mm's red flag issue. CV lenses have a groove inthe mount to make coding easier. Zeiss lenses don't. You can replace the mount with a coded one or dremmil the slots on the original mount or just not worry about coding. You could also code with a sharpie on the original mount but that wears off too quickly.

 

Gordon

[StevenWithAVee]

The camera sets exif for ISO and shutter speed. It also approximates aperture through a small light sensor on the body as no M mount lens can transmit aperture information directly. On my M9 aperture is wrong in exif about 60% of the time. Filters are not automatically taken into account.

 

The 6 bit coding is a simple bar code on the lens mount that is read by a reader on the camera lens mount. It reads the specific lens attached (ie: curren 50mm summicron) and it also prompts the camera to apply the appropriate lens correction data to the recorded file (both raw and jpeg). This is most noticable with wide lenses where the correction is neccessary if you don't want colour shift and distortion issues on the edges of the frame.

 

You can code third party lenses. But only to the closest match of a Leica lens. I have coded my CV 21mm f1.8 lens as a Leica 28mm Elmarit andt hat does a good job of correcting the CV21mm's red flag issue. CV lenses have a groove inthe mount to make coding easier. Zeiss lenses don't. You can replace the mount with a coded one or dremmil the slots on the original mount or just not worry about coding. You could also code with a sharpie on the original mount but that wears off too quickly.

 

Gordon

 

Thank you. This makes sense now that I think about it. The camera itself knows the shutter speed and iso, only the lens has the aperture information. And with the manual lenses the camera has to guess at the aperture. I'm ok with that.

[250swb]

 

You can code third party lenses. But only to the closest match of a Leica lens. I have coded my CV 21mm f1.8 lens as a Leica 28mm Elmarit andt hat does a good job of correcting the CV21mm's red flag issue. CV lenses have a groove inthe mount to make coding easier. Zeiss lenses don't.

 

I only have one Zeiss lens, a 21mm f/2.8 Biogon, and it does have a groove to allow it to be coded. Can't speak for the rest in the range but Zeiss started this a long time ago with the 21mm.

 

Steve