Is it possible when pictures are posted that................

[Bonhomme Richard]

the camera, film, and if known, exposure used could be posted under the photo. I'm new and the question has probably been asked but I was curious. I just thought it would be helpful to us amateurs.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. I second that. Good idea.

of course, that is if known.

[Blue_In_AK]

2. "If known" -- good point

I'm so new at this, too, that I'm just turning dials and pushing buttons and lifting a prayer. :)

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. I'm trying to train myself to.............

carry a pad and make notes about each shot and the lens, conditions, (overcast etc.), whether using the nikon or the yashica. I figure it's the only way to be consistent and really learn proper form.

[RagingInMiami]

4. In all the years I shot with film, I could never train myself to do that

I felt it really took away from the actual photography experience, made it a tad bit too technical. When I switched to digital, it automatically did that for me.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Is there somewhere you can click on your digital picture

that tells you all that stuff?

P.S. And thank you, CC, if you're out there, for telling me about the histogram thing on the camera. What a great invention.

[RagingInMiami]

6. On the 10D, it's the button that says "info"

So I imagine it should be something similar on the 20D. And if you get photoshop, you cann always check out all that info once the photos are on your computer.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Thanks.

I have PaintShop, but it's probably on there, too, I would guess.

[Ms. Toad]

8. I haven't found it...

in PaintShop Pro, but if you post photos on the www.photogroup.smugmug.com site it will tell you :)

(Trying to drum up more galleries for you F. Gordon)

[Blue_In_AK]

10. I'm glad you mentioned SmugMug...

My gallery won't let me add pictures anymore. Do you know what the problem is?

[Ms. Toad]

28. I've been playing elsewhere,

(mostly creating my family calendar) so I haven't added any to my gallery in a while. Maybe I'll try tomorrow after I get a couple more shots of my poinsettias.

I have noticed that Smugmug is friendlier to the Internet Explorer browser than to Mozilla (Netscape derivative). It's a pain to design websites for multiple browsers, but there are enough HTML differences between the browsers that if you don't do parallel designs the websites don't work well except with the browser you programmed for...most people don't bother.

If you are using Mozilla or Netscape you might want to try IE to see if it makes a difference.

[Blue_In_AK]

29. No, I'm on IE,

but the "add photos" function just isn't there. It's asking me for a login, but I never had one, and when I put in my e-mail address to ask for my password, it says it doesn't know me. F.Gordon, where are you?

[F.Gordon]

30. You don't enter your email address

I checked it. Works fine. You need to enter the word photogroup instead of an email address... then the password. If that doesn't work... PM me and we'll figure out what the prob is.
:hi:

[Blue_In_AK]

31. Thanks, F.

Where have you been anyway?

[lakemonster11]

9. If you have Windows XP and are viewing your pictures

in a folder, if you hover the mouse over a picture, the information should pop up in a yellow box.

One really cool thing is that if you use a zoom lens, it will tell you the length of your lens at the time you took the picture as well as the range of lengths the lens supports.

You can also see this (and more) data inside Photoshop by "browsing" for your pictures. The "meta data" shows up in a box on the lower left of the screen.

[CC]

15. You are welcome, next is

white balance. :rofl: I'm still learning it and to remember to reset it each time.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. I've been playing with that, too...

I read somewhere that when you do sunsets or that late afternoon angled sunlight (like we have all day here this time of year) that you're supposed to put it on the cloud setting to capture the gold tones. Is that right?

[CC]

19. Not really sure and

I would say play with it. Use cloudy and sunny and see which you like. I am still learning it and found that sometimes I like it better when breaking rules. I found out I should use grass to set the white balance when using the infrared lens. :shrug:

[CC]

23. I had found this site before and

went looking again. I haven't tried this yet but am going too. I did talk to someone that has and they say it works and is much easier than using a white balance card (?). http://www.photosig.com/articles/1460/article

[lakemonster11]

18. If you shoot in RAW, you get to adjust the white balance manually

when you process the picture.

I find that a whole lot easier than trying to do it before I take a shot.

[CC]

20. That is true and I have been using it

so far. I end up with a custom one every time there. But I would like to know how to set it in camera and get used to it there too. Maybe that is the old film me but it can't hurt to learn. Though I must admit it is great knowing I can fix a pic after it was shot.

[bvar22]

11. metadata

I borrowed this beautiful shot that Blue-In-AK posted to another thread.
I would have used one of my own, but my web host (Freeservers) wipes the metadata.


I opened her shot in Corel Paint12, and hit "Document info".
This is the display.



Adobe will display the same information.
Some metadata info even displays if the image was altered,
and the software used to alter the shot.

This info is useful, and I can use it in processing my own shots, especially if there is one I like and want to reproduce the settings. The info from digital pics posted here has been very useful.

I DO worry about security. While my software doesn't display the serial# of my camera, that is not proof that that info is not recorded in the metadata. Someone (government) with the right software may be able to read the serial# of the camera (and ownership). Normally, this would not be a problem, but I DO take photos at protests. There may be a a time when I (or you) will want to anonymously publish pictures critical of our government without fear of reprisals.
There are ways to "wipe" metadata.
One is to save to .PDF format.


Your shot is beautiful, Blue-In-Ak, very alive. I can smell the flowers.
I admire your work, and hope you are not offended that I used one of your shots.

I am unable to read any metadat from shots I post at Freeservers. My pics have the metadata encoded before I upload to them, but not when they appear at DU. At least not in my software.
Can anyone here read the metadata in any of my posts?

I was nable to produce this data by hovering my mouse over the shot in XP, but would love to be able to do so.

[Blue_In_AK]

14. Thank you, Bvar...

You're welcome to use my photos any time for this kind of demonstration. It's really interesting to me and I learn a lot. I'm just so pleased with my new camera and lenses... This summer is going to be amazing.

[lakemonster11]

16. I guess the XP thing only works with RAW images.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

22. Or, in linux

[bvar22]

24. Linux rocks.

I'm in the process of migrating to Ubuntu, dual boot to XP.

XP DOES INDEED display the metadata.
In Windows Explorer, if I right click on the file, then click properties, and click the summary tab, the metadata is listed.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

25. just installed ubuntu 5.10

I am one happy badger.

Go for it.

[Blue_In_AK]

26. One other step - click the "advanced" button under "summary"

That's great. Thank you SO MUCH, Bvar. I'd be lost without you people.

ed. You don't have to go to Windows Explorer. It'll do this in the "My Pictures" folder, too, assuming that's where you keep your pictures.

[GOPFighter]

27. Security concerns

EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is a standard data exchange format used by almost all the digital camera manufacturers to encode info about the photograph. You can find a full description of the types of information it includes at http://www.exif.org/Exif2-2.PDF (it's 154 pages long). I didn't see any fields assigned to record a camera's serial number.

I assume the EXIF information is embedded somewhere in the digital image and thus it should be possible for some clever person to write an application (if someone hasn't already) that would allow photographers to open the file, check what's included, and delete anything they don't want anyone else to know.

I'm not sure that converting a photo to PDF destroys the EXIF file since text file converted to PDF usually keeps the text. I did notice that when I converted a JPG photo to BMP and back to JPG again, the EXIF information was gone.

[Bonhomme Richard]

12. I guess some things would be easier if I didn't..........

use a film camera.

[RagingInMiami]

13. Every photographer I would talk to back in my film days

Whichs stems all the way back to the late 1990s, would always tell me to use the method you mentioned. So it's not impossible.

[CC]

21. Some things might be but then again

I haven't gotten rid of my film camera yet. Film works better on somethings. Though must admit I use it less and less.
As far as writing it down, it is a good habit to get into and it does make you take the time to think a bit. There are things that digital doesn't tell you and should be written down too, like who, what and where.

[Boo_Radley]

32. linux command line utils

I was inspired by this thread and made a script to do this, if anyone uses imagemagick on Linux/Unix (or, with a little tweaking, MacOS X, or with a whole lot of tweeking, Windows), you could use a command line to get output like:

Shutter Speed: 1/6
Focal Length: 5800/1000
Camera: Canon PowerShot SD450.
F.Number: 28/10
ISO: unknown
34kb
picture.jpg
600 x 450 @8 BPP

Or just put it in a script. I used ImageMagick so I could make a two line script to produces



I haven't gotten around to changing the fractions to decimal. This kind of thing can be made to work on Windows, in fact I wrote it on Windows and made that image on Windows, but you have to install ImageMagick, and cygwin, and then figure out how to make all your path statements fit, and know how to use a command shell, so it's probably not worth your time. (If you knew all that stuff, you probably wouldn't be using windows -- no offence).

I think I'm going to put it in a loop to do whole directories like that.

Anyway, you fuckers got me thinking like this, so I thought I'd share it incase anyone likes the idea. (On Macintoshes, you have to instal ImageMagick, and install GhostScript, or something else to handle jpeg processing, and I'm not sure how to get all that working on a Mac 'cause I haven't tried it yet.)

Edit: I had posted the script, but the forum post function ate half my code. It doesn't seem to like square brackets very much. There's a copy of it here if you want it.

[Boo_Radley]

33. bump

http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/

THat's a pretty cool utility I just found. It's a command line utility, but that means you can copy/paste the output.