Published May 31. 2006 - 17 years ago
Updated or edited Aug 8. 2015

WHAT THE ...!!!

Dear Sirs at the GFF Staff,

I'm not a Hacker or any kind of computer genius, but I was thinking there was no way to get impressed with anything I could notice while "traveling" on the Web, since...

...Since I saw the technical data below the pictures sent by the visitors of GFF. How could you do that? How could you know if the picture was taken on a determinate camera, with an specific ASA, certain diaphragm aperture, and at a determinate speed?

Well, if you tell me there is a software capable of knowing that info of the digital photographs, I can understand it, but...

... How can you do that with analog pictures taken on conventional cameras, developed and transfered to paper, and then scanned, maybe fixed on Photoshop, converted to JPEG and transmitted (encrypted) by the Web?

I don't know what technical argument are you going to tell me, I'm sure I will be still beleiving it's magic!!

Bye sorcerers!!

Carlos

Martin Joergensen's picture

Re: WHAT THE ...!!!...

[quote:99ff3d7814="CARLOS"]...Since I saw the technical data below the pictures sent by the visitors of GFF. How could you do that? How could you know if the picture was taken on a determinate camera, with an specific ASA, certain diaphragm aperture, and at a determinate speed?

...

... How can you do that with analog pictures taken on conventional cameras, developed and transfered to paper, and then scanned, maybe fixed on Photoshop, converted to JPEG and transmitted (encrypted) by the Web? [/quote:99ff3d7814]

Carlos,

There isn't much magic in that.

The trick is called EXIF, which is short for [url=http://www.exif.org/]Exchangeable Image File Format[/url].

EXIF-information can be embedded in any image file - also ones taken with analog cameras on film and later scanned. You just type it in in your editing or scanning program. Modern digital cameras encode the images automatically and some programs transfer the data all the way to the end, to the web picture.

Our software does no magic at all. It just looks for that EXIF information, and if present, interprets it and prints it under the image. We don't create or construct anything, but just read what's in there.

So much for the magic...

Martin

CARLOS's picture

Martin,...

Martin,

I must admnit I have a wide concept of "Magic", Flyfishing is magic for me, a nice cast too, the landscapes or the "fish tails" of GFF galleries are also magic, a great website as yours is it too, so you are magicians!!

But in the meanwhile, this is black magic:

I made a picture in the middle of nowhere with a red analog camera. Then I sent the film to get developed. After all my family and my friends saw the pictures, I gave them to a guy who works with me (My job is in a Prepress and Printing service) who scanned the pictures (I can swear he doesn't know what camera I had, or when I took the photo... well, I didn't know too, for me was just a red Canon that I have for many years in my fishing bag waiting for the right moment). Then, the picture was compressed (I guess), and sent by the web to GFF, and that is the magic:

1. For me is enough to see the picture placed on a website (The fish is still fresh, the mud is still wet, there are no flies surrounding...)

2. But this is too much:
Below the picture appears:

Camera manufacturer Canon
Camera model Canon PowerShot A300
Exposure time 1/640 s
Lens focal length 5 mm
Lens aperture f 3.6
Date and time of original 2004-12-05 15:07

Aren't you sorcerers? (Or, aren't your software something like a witch pot?)

Great anyway!

Martin Joergensen's picture

2. But this is too much:...

[quote:b9b77f01a4="CARLOS"]2. But this is too much:
Below the picture appears:

Camera manufacturer Canon
Camera model Canon PowerShot A300
Exposure time 1/640 s
Lens focal length 5 mm
Lens aperture f 3.6
Date and time of original 2004-12-05 15:07

Aren't you sorcerers? (Or, aren't your software something like a witch pot?)

Great anyway![/quote:b9b77f01a4]

Carlos,

Whatever happened I don't know, but your image contains precisely the EXIF-information, which is shown on our page.

I gather that the picture is [url=http://globalflyfisher.com/pix/display.php?code=e9abae47d7878&submitter=... one[/url], which has the information below it in the gallery.

Below is a screen dump of the same image from Photoshop, where the picture info is exactly the same and to underscore the fact, I have also tried an [url=http://regex.info/exif.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fglobalflyfisher.com%2Fpix%2F... EXIF tool[/url].

I don't know how it got in there. I didn't put it in there and neither did our system. It probably is in your original scan. How this could be accomplished I don't know, but EXIF-information can be edited into the picture or inherited from another image by being pasted onto it. You can try a similar tool on your original file. [url=http://www.opanda.com/en/iexif/index.html]Opanda Exif[/url] is available for free download.

As I said: I have no idea what happened.

Martin

CARLOS's picture

Thanks Martin!...

Thanks Martin!

Great EXIF course, now I can speak propperly about that.

Thanks!

Carlos.

.

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