What is EXIF Data and how do you use it? This article is about the Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) and the methods of reading EXIF Data from photographs.

Back in the film days, photographers were forced to carry a pen and a notepad with them to record important information such as shutter speed, aperture and date. They would then use this information in the lab, going through one picture at a time, hoping that what they wrote actually corresponds to the right image. It was a very painful process, especially for newbies that wanted to understand what they did wrong when an image didn’t come out right. Nowadays, every modern digital camera has the capability to record this information, along with many other camera settings, right into the photographs. These settings can then be later used to organize photographs, perform searches and provide vital information to photographers about the way a particular photograph was captured. This stored data is called “EXIF Data” and it is comprised of a range of settings such as ISO speed, shutter speed, aperture, white balance, camera model and make, date and time, lens type, focal length and much more.

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