Focal length database ????

[whiteflyer]

Is there any software out there that will scan through all my images and give me some sort of list/chart/graph of the focal lengths I use.

I'm looking to get a new lens and would like to check how often I shoot from 17 to 24 mm and from 70mm upwards, but I don't want to manual check every image myself.

Oh I'm using Canon in RAW

[Jimmy_Lemon]

ooo good question - will be interesting to see if anyone knows of anything :)

[mij]

If you use a Mac or Linux and have exiftool installed then I have a very slow BASH script that will count the number of shots taken at each focal length and give a rough percentage.

Strange thing is I never had one before reading this thread. Hmm. Anyway it produces a list like the following:

Scanning /Volumes/PHOTOS_IN...
Collating 5871 files...
.0mm : 1 (0%)
10.0mm : 164 (2%)
11.0mm : 7 (0%)
12.0mm : 16 (0%)
13.0mm : 2 (0%)
14.0mm : 18 (0%)
15.0mm : 1 (0%)
16.0mm : 7 (0%)
17.0mm : 792 (13%)
19.0mm : 93 (1%)
20.0mm : 74 (1%)
21.0mm : 39 (0%)
23.0mm : 102 (1%)
25.0mm : 85 (1%)

A bit worrying that one of my files has a 0.0mm focal length in the EXIF. Weird.

To use it though, just download the script (http://jotbin.com/files/ph/files/flengths), run it with the directory containing your photos as a parameter (or root if you want it to scan everywhere), then wait a real long time while it works everything out. It only checks Canon CR2 or CRW files.

Michael.

[Panzerbjorn]

Adobe Lightroom let's you do this. Once you've imported all you pictures you go to find and then it's in a drop down menu

Panzer

[whiteflyer]

Now you've mentioned Lightroom I think you can so the same sort of thing in Adobe Bridge CS3

[Marcel]

Yup I believe you can, Lightroom and Bridge :)

[whiteflyer]

I've made a little graph of focal lengths since I got my camera last July

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q142/whiteflyer/focal-graph.jpg

[Blackvault]

Yup I believe you can, Lightroom and Bridge :)

Lightroom will only break it down as far as what lens was used, it doesn't give you the exact focal lengths like mentioned in mij's post.

Blackvault

[iriches]

The Canon Zoombrowser software will export EXIF information from selected RAW files to a text file. You select the images, then choose File, Export, Export Shooting Properties.

It's a bit of a fiddle, but I can then analyse the text file in Excel to come up with a list of focal lengths.

Here's the result of my most recent shooting:

15-24 mm 70
25-34 mm 23
35-44 mm 37
45-54 mm 45
55-64 mm 7
65-74 mm 5
75-84 mm 3
85-94 mm 1
95-104 mm 0
105-114 mm 1
115-124 mm 1
125-134 mm 1
135-144 mm 36

I have 15-30mm, 50mm and 35-135mm lenses. It's clear that my 35-135 tends to get used at one extreme or the other...

Ian

[mij]

I have 15-30mm, 50mm and 35-135mm lenses. It's clear that my 35-135 tends to get used at one extreme or the other...

Apparently I am the same with my 17-70mm lens, nearly 40% of my shots are at one of those two extremes. I even modified my script to group by lenses so I could confirm the 70mm ones were with this lens rather than a 70-200/300mm.

Not something I have thought about before but it is interesting to see how I use my lenses. Was wondering whether to get a 55-200mm as a light cheap telephoto I could carry around in the bottom of a bag, and it seems I would probably make more use of it than the 70-300mm.

Michael.

[whiteflyer]

If you save your images in jpeg then I have found just the thing ExposurePlot (http://www.wega2.vandel.nl/) It will give you a graph of focal length use (real or 35 mm equivalent), ISO, aperture and shutter speeds. You can also see the results in times used or as a percentage.

http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q142/whiteflyer/Untitled-1.jpg

[Chuckurbarla]

[QUOTE=whiteflyer;262016]If you save your images in jpeg then I have found just the thing ExposurePlot (http://www.wega2.vandel.nl/) It will give you a graph of focal length use (real or 35 mm equivalent), ISO, aperture and shutter speeds. You can also see the results in times used or as a percentage.

What a super little program! Thanks Whiteflyer :clap:

[Dave P]

This is a very interesting site.
I have bookmarked it for future use.
Thanks whiteflyer :thumbs:
:canon: