How to remember your manual lenses without EXIF

Mattias — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:50:45 +0000

When you use a digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) with modern lenses, you can always go back and look in the Exif to see what lens you used for each picture. But with the manual, old lenses there is no Exif-data from the lens. So if I use my Canon EOS 350D on a photosession, and 3 manual lenses – how do I remember which one I used for a single picture?

Well, I have come up with this rutine. Simple, I know – but useful. Take a picture of the lens before you mount it. If you use some kind of filter, take a picture when you mount it and when you dismount it and put it back in the bag.

Heres from my session the other day… I started with Pentax Super Takumar 35mm/3.5. Added macroring to shoot some flowers.

Add macroring

I took my flower-pictures. Removed the macroring.

Remove macroring

Took some pictures without the macroring. Then changed to Yashica ML 35mm/2.8

Change to Yashica ML 35mm

Shot some images. Changed back to Super Takumar.

Changed back to Super Takumar

A new change to Yashica ML 50mm/2. Well, I think you get the hang of it now? ;)

Change to Yashica ML 50mm

Pros

You dont have to remember a thing… well, almost nothing.
The pictures of lenses don’t need to be good, as long as you can see what they are.
Add keywords in your digital darkroom when you get home, then delete the pictures of lenses.

Cons

You need to know which lens you started with.
Could be a bit clumsy when you’re in a hurry
You dont get the f-stop recorded, so you might want to take notes anyway.

RetroCamera » memory

How to remember your manual lenses without EXIF