I’m a bit of an organising freak… well I am in spirit if not always in practice! I like to try to catalog and keyword my images in Lightroom (nothing too time consuming). Now I’m shooting film again I am trying to keep notes about the images I’m making. After being spoilt by all the EXIF data stored by digital cameras I feel I would miss this information from my negative scans as it often helps me to improve my photography. I started considering storing this data in the keywords portion of the EXIF data, but when I see my images on Flickr without any camera model and other EXIF data it makes me cringe a little (the OCD in me again!) I have seen other film photographers on Flickr with this EXIF data and so I started a search of various Flickr groups for the perfect EXIF editing tool as it seems that Lightroom doesn’t have the function to let you edit camera model, lens data, exposure details, etc.
I have started using AnalogExif, which allows you to create a database of equipment, film types and developing chemicals. So far it works really very well and I can sleep soundly knowing that my film photography will be as organised as well as my digital photography!
Update 07/01/2012 – Unfortunately the ‘Original Capture Time’ part of AnalogExif doesn’t seem to work properly; it doesn’t set the correct field that is read by other software. I have therefore started using John Beardsworth’s Lightroom Plugin Capture Time to Exif. I’m currently using the trial version that is restricted to working on 10 files at a time. I might investigate using it to set the other EXIF fields too and therefore eliminate the need for AnalogExif. I’ll then buy the plugin; it’s just £8.
Simon
I’ve installed AnalogExif and might give it a spin on the few rolls I’ll be picking up tonight. I actually used it on the whisky pinhole but I’m not sure about the naming convention for that pinhole camera though.
Obviously you’re WAY more careful with your scans than myself and I can see that from your file hierarchy: JustTesting; ProperTesting; SeriousTesting. I think that last one needs an exclamation mark! 🙂
Si
James
Hey Si, I should really have paid more attention to what was in the screen capture – how embarrassing you can see just how “careful” I have been about my scans (that’s a polite way of putting it). I don’t know, I am just scared that I’m going to spend hours scanning all the negatives only to find out that the method I’m using is useless and having to start again. So I’ve scanned the same images over and over trying out the many, Many, MANY techniques and tips I’ve read on the net. My head is spinning and I still have little confidence that I’m doing it ‘right’.
I think I’ve got my B&W scanning sorted now (see my next post ‘My B&W Negative Scanning Workflow’) and I’m working my way through my latest batch of negatives from the FED 2, 3 & 5 and Yashica Mat. Hopefully I’ll be posting them soon. However: Must. Do. My Tax. Return….
I see the EXIF data you’ve added to the whisky shot – looks great. Imagine one day seeing film cameras in the Flickr database! I don’t see that ever being a possibility though. It would be nice if Flickr created a separate set of stats for film cameras or something.