MegaPixel 101

In my opinion, one of the coolest things about shooting in digital over film is Exif. So if it is one of the coolest things, what is it?

• EXIF -Exchangeable Image File Format

 

Now I can almost hear you saying, that's great, what does that mean? Well in simple terms, every time you take a picture, your camera is recording information. Here are some of the things it records:

• Date & Time
• Camera settings. This includes information such as the camera orientation, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, metering mode, & ISO information.

 

Can you see why this is cool information? I'll give an example of  something I just shot recently. I thought it would be fun to shoot fireworks. This was something that I had never tried to do before. Back in the days of film, you would have to take notes of all your settings for each frame of film so you could go back and look to see what turned out right and what turned out wrong. With Exif data, I can go back whenever I want to and see the settings that I used. This can be useful in sharing photos with others so they can see what settings you used.

For a simpler example, Exif data has the time & date that you took the picture. (Granted you need to make sure that your camera has this set correctly) Using this data can ease the way that you store your digital photos. You can organize them by date taken & even time taken.

Now that you have a basic understanding of Exif, how can you use it or even see it?

• Windows - right click on the actual image and choose properties. From the properties dialog select summary and your Exif data is shown.
• Mac OS X - this information may be viewed in the Finder by doing Get Info on a file and expanding the More Info section.

 

Now it isn't a great idea to edit the Exif information using the above methods as it could damage the Exif file, but it is good for viewing the info. If you feel the need to edit your Exif info, an editor made for that is the best bet. There are free editors out there for whatever platform you are running. By doing a simple internet search you can find tools that will work best for you.