EXIF Tooling - Overview

Overview of the project

Having been a keen photographer for more than 15 years, I have a large number of photos saved that I wanted to analyse to determine whether :-

  • I favoured a specific camera model/lens combination

  • I have preferred settings for different types of events

  • I can learn anything about the types of photographs I take and get out of my comfort zone.

  • There's anything else that I wasn't aware of in my pictures that will help me improve.

  • I can sell things that I don't use much..

In addition to the above, I'm not by any means a programmer, so I wanted to create a project in Python to help me learn how Python works, so that I can re-use this information for my other projects.

Some Background: -

  • I exclusively use Sony Cameras since 2013, and so most of the focus of this project is on the use of Sony ARW (Raw) files and Digital Negatives (DNG) where they are available.

  • Not all of the information provided by the ARW files is available for other camera formats (and vice versa) but I wanted to the analysis tool to be useful for me to check whether it was more generally useful for others.

  • Like many people, over the years I change cameras and these have different capabilities, so the same data isn't available on all of the pictures.

  • Most of the graphs and analysis that the tool provides can also be generated in Microsoft (c) Excel , but as stated above I wanted to use this project as a 'real use case' to improve/learn Python programming.

I invite commentary from readers on the usefulness - or not! - of whether they would like to use a similar tool for their pictures. Contact me above!