Question on Canon IDs Mark III - Digital Camera Shooting Information

[PhotoChief]

Can this Digital Camera Shooting image/scene information be downloaded somehow to a spreadsheet format, Such as an Excel Spreadsheet?

I have a new digital camera (Canon 1Ds Mark III). I have also developed an Image File System for film and digital images and would like to preserve the data captured by my new camera on each frame as part of this file data system.

[Frog]

I just hover the cursor over my photos and the exif data is shown. This only applies to digital though.

[SmartWombat]

The EXIF information can be extracted by software, so you probably could put it in a spreadsheet.

I googled EXIF EXCEL and found several ActiveX controls that you could use if you're going to automate it and write your own VBA programs to put the data into spreadsheets.


I'm a programmer and I've decided not to bother, I use Lightroom and Thumbs Plus to organise and view my photos.

Both programs use databases and there are utilities available to read those databases and extract data from them. But why bother? Lightroom does what I need.

[PhotoChief]

SmartWombat

I use FileMaker Pro for my photo file data base. However, I need to upload to a mysql data base on my web site. I Presently go from FMP to Excel SYLK then to programmer who uploads to MYSQL data base.

Does this make sense to you? Can you offer suggestions on getting the camera data programmed to go into my FMP data base?

Thanks

PhotoChief

[drg]

SmartWombat

I use FileMaker Pro for my photo file data base. However, I need to upload to a mysql data base on my web site. I Presently go from FMP to Excel SYLK then to programmer who uploads to MYSQL data base.

Does this make sense to you? Can you offer suggestions on getting the camera data programmed to go into my FMP data base?

Thanks

PhotoChief

If you are running an Apple environment, I'm not going to be a great deal of help other than:

1. You will need Aperture (best/worse choice) as a front end to the FMP data base. Otherwise you or a programmer will wind up reinventing the world. There is an APERTURE link module available for FMP.

2. FMP needs very expensive hard ware to function with even modest databases with all the network/server/enterprise functionality enabled. A large file camera, like any of the 1D series and even the 5D's will generate big databases, even if indexed. One has a tendency after a time to shoot lots of similar photos, or tag, keyword, and index them in ways that generate large files. [see below ]

3. What you describe as a workflow sounds incredibly redundant when Lightroom or Aperture are built to sort images without external functionality.

4. Should you need the Verification functions of the Canon files (to prove which camera they came from and were not 'tampered' with) FMP doesn't support that 'legally'. At least as of April/May or 2007. [see below]

5. ADOBE Lightroom, quirks and all, includes SQL definitions (not easily accesible in 1.xx vers) but it is there.

6. You are still going to need a RAW translator and editing functions that are not the realm of a DB application.

The 'below' -

Two+ (start 3-01-2006) years ago in deeply researching this whole topic, a number of vendors were trying to sell the next and latest image databases and 90+% didn't have any concept of what they were doing. Most said they'd implement whatever was required, but they didn't all take into account time, licensing costs, etc. The best case solution we (Photos by CD Price) decided upon still wound up with major bugs after so many thousands of images. The reason that the major imaging users (Xerox, HP, Insurance companies, banks and financial institutions) maintain some of the staff they do is, that this is not a 'simple' process.

The other question is, if you don't need compatibility with someone else's environment, why go in this direction? If it is a specified work requirement, those who generated the documents should be responsible for providing the interface implementation or at least support for this line of question.

Finally, with Aperture or Lightroom the tools to directly upload to a website are built in to the product and it is a visual environment. There's little or no need for continuing third party support as long as the option or one of these two packages will work for your needs.

With the investment ($10,000 or more) you have in camera gear, I would hope you would prefer to be out making pictures than sitting in front of a computer, Look whose talking!

Best of luck and let us know what else we can do to be of assistance.