Adding EXIF to film scans

[jmahto]

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I don't bother with recording the aperture and shutter time for each exposure because I've never found it to be particularly useful or important to save. Camera, lens, etc, are the key things I want film camera exposures to have associated with them. 

 

I don't change lenses very often, when I do and I'm using an uncoded lens on digital, or a film camera, I take an exposure noting the lens I have fitted. I use EXIFtool and script it to jam in the EXIF data. Easy. 

I would agree with you for general shooting, however there are times when I am testing something and I would like to record the settings/comments etc. For example, I recorded comments for my first test roll through my newly acquired M2 in a filmrolls app (which is lacking the export part) and it helped me (I think) to narrow down the cause of the light leak that I am experiencing. This is why a better designed app that requires minimum overhead is welcome. For now I am happy with PhotoExif app. I shot half a roll today while strolling today in Big Basin park and could record as I went along in the app. Did I mention that I am loving M2

 

[jmahto]

I'm looking forward to your findings.

It will take couple of weeks before I get this roll wrapped up. Today I used it for half the roll while light hiking/shooting and only annoyance is taking out the phone. The app is super fast to record and you can add the info later if you miss it (only geo will be wrong, rest every thing is editable). I missed recording few shots and remembered later. After recording the info for missing ones with approx time, it placed it in correct frame sequence. The app looks like top view of M2 and is super easy. It is not for someone shooting lots of frames in short time though. For my usage (18 frames in 3 hours) it was ok.

 

I will update this post after I get the loop closed.

Edited July 2, 2018 by jmahto

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[jmahto]

Well, the app PhotoExif didn't work for me because I realized that it's desktop app is only for Mac and I am currently a Windows user. Therefore no idea whether it is good or not.

 

Disappointed, I went back to the first app that I looked at (Filmroll) which only helped record the EXIF as you shoot and provided XML export file. Missing the last mile (of applying EXIF to file based on info collected). I found my dusty programmer hat and wrote a Python desktop program to read that file and apply the EXIF using the Exiftool utility. I had bit of struggle in adding GPS data (Filmroll recorded it too in its XML file) but now it works. Everything works. The EXIF in file now not only has lens/camera/exposure information but also has descriptions (that I wrote while recording the shot in Filmrolls app) and GEO.

 

Pretty sweet!

 

It works beautifully. I point it to a directly where my scanned files are kept and it applies the EXIF from exported XML file one by one to the picture files. I have add control to skip files, duplicate EXIF from prev file or skip XML frame. This allows me not to worry about accurately capturing EXIF for every shot. As long as they are in order, it works even if something is missing in between.

 

If you are interested, then drop me a PM and I will share the Python script. All you need is to install Python and Exiftool. Although it is written for Windows, it will work for Unix (may be newline character need to be changed in Exiftool comand, that's it). If you are programmer kind then have fun.

 

Screenshot. LR grid view and my app's output. It is easy to check (and adjust) which picture matches which frame in XML:

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Closeup of matching output. Once you are satisfied by the match, simply run it in EXIF fix mode and it will update the EXIF. In LR you simply need to read metadata from the file.

Edited July 7, 2018 by jmahto

[jmahto]

I noticed that Photoexif app has csv export as well. I should be able to write a reader to that as well using my above Python program as base. If that works (it should) then I will prefer Photoexif app since I like it's UI. Must easier to record as you shoot.

 

What I am noticing that the slow nature of film photography allows us to record text as you shoot. This evening I took three pictures and I can add my comments about them leisurely in the mobile app. This will eventually go to digital image's description section. Much better than what can be done with digital (since we shoot so many so fast).

[Bart D]

Thanks for your feedback.

 

I'm in the reverse situation 

android phone (from work) and mac.

My wife since recently uses an iPhone though. Perhaps she'll let me borough it 

 

I'm glad you found the ui of the app good.

 

I was originally looking into this for use with adapted lenses on Sony a7 as well but I solved that with a 'camera app': lens compensation.

So that only left the occasional film I use - a few per year.

[jmahto]

Thanks for your feedback.

 

I'm in the reverse situation

android phone (from work) and mac.

My wife since recently uses an iPhone though. Perhaps she'll let me borough it

 

I'm glad you found the ui of the app good.

 

I was originally looking into this for use with adapted lenses on Sony a7 as well but I solved that with a 'camera app': lens compensation.

So that only left the occasional film I use - a few per year.

Yes. Photoexif UI is much better than Filmroll.

 

BTW, today I ported my desktop python script for Photoexif csv export as well. Now I can run it on Windows.

 

I haven’t yet seen it’s Mac desktop UI but I bet my desktop script is more flexible in matching pictures to recorded info if one is not disciplined in using mobile app (I forget to record all shots). My script also allows for EXIF copy from one pic to others (imagine multiple pics taken with exposure but recorded only once in app).

 

I am all set.