EXIF Data

This might not be the first setting that you check out when you are starting out in photography but this is as important as all the basic things in order to produce amazing photos. Here are the different uses for EXIF data of your captured images:

1. To understand the basics

Exif Data means ‘Exchangeable Image File’ data. This contains all the basic information about your image. All of the images that gets captured and stored in any of your storage drives have an Exif data counterpart. This data is important to know the properties of the image that you take. Understanding the properties of the images can give you a better view of how big the resolution is or how much the exposure was originally and so on and so forth. The Exif data can be accessed easily from the camera, from the laptop or computer. You just have to open the image file and either open the settings or properties using the camera or right click on the image using a laptop or computer. The Exif data is easy to locate and take note of.

2. To take note of the information

The Exif data contains the basic properties of an image. Some of these basic properties that can be easily viewed in a camera are the dimensions, device make, device model, color space, profile name, focal length, exposure time and the date that you last opened the file. The dimensions determine the size of the image in height and in width. The device make states the brand of the camera used to take the shot. The device model is the type of the camera used. The color space states the type of filter applied in the shot like RGB. An example of the profile name is “Camera RGB Profile”. The focal length includes the amount of focus used to capture the photo. The exposure time dictates the length of time that was used to properly brighten the photo. The Exif data is much more detailed when you view it form a laptop or the computer. The image settings will now include properties such as orientation, x resolution, y resolution, resolution unit, date and time, f-stop, exposure program, ISO speed ratings, version, components configuration, shutter speed and aperture value. If you are a beginner in the photography world, it is important for you to study these properties in order to fully familiarize yourself in the setting s of your camera and how these settings will affect the quality of your images. This is where you will learn that tweaking and adjusting one setting to another can lead to a totally different photo.

3. To guide in captioning

There are times that photographers share their images online or to the public and in captioning the images, some of their basic properties are required to be jotted down to give the audience a better knowledge of the image. These properties can be easily copied from the Exif data.

4. To help in post-processing

The properties that are given out from the Exif data can help you post-process your images. Take for example the resolution or the dimension property. If you know the range of the dimension of your image, you know how much the resolution can be stretched. If you want to crop the image to just use the smaller part of the image, the resolution can give you a better view of how much you can crop without distorting the quality of the photograph because if you crop too much of the photo, there is a chance that the part left can be blurry or highly pixelated. A photographer should know how to use the Exif data to manipulate images.