Pentax DSLR EXIF Data in Different Programmes

McGregNi · 2015-02-25T01:11:33+0000

This diverts the EXIF discussion that has been ongoing in the thread about the K3 .... I am conscious that we don't want that thread to be overtaken any more by complex exif discussions, but I do think it is an important topic to explore, so here's a new place to do that! We've seen confusing data reported by other members such as 'hard' settings for contrast and sharpness, 'normal' for metering mode. I do not see these descriptions as matching or relating to any Pentax camera settings, but there has been some debate about that! Also it was said that Photoshop will report all of the Pentax metadata. So, just to round off this little diversion into the world of exif reporting in different programmes, I've loaded one of my K7 DNGs into Photoshop and also into Pentax Digital Camera Utility to compare the usefulness of the information ..... 1) Photoshop .... here I used the file menu, 'file info' option and this opens a dialogue with a group of sub-options on the left ... the botton of these is 'advanced', and this opens on the main part of the dialogue a number of sub-groups of data collections. The first of these is titles 'http://ns.adobe.com/camera-raw-settings/1.0/' Here I find the following items of interest .... Temperature 6050 Tint +15 Exposure +1.50 Shadows 25 Brightness 59 Contrast +48 Saturation 0 Sharpness 25 Now, none of these has much immediate significance to me.... apart from the colour temperature and exposure they don't equate to any obvious known direct camera settings . Now, I have an old version of Photoshop, so I also opened the file in Photoshop Elements 8, which has a later version of Camera RAW (updated well after the K7 was released), and I found exactly the same settings as listed above for Phtoshop CS2 within the 'advanced' section. However, here in this later version of Photoshop Elements there is an additional 'Raw Data' tab within the file info dialogue, and here I found the following : Contrast 1 Saturation 2 Sharpness 2 These clearly make more sense as camera settings, although this list of data did include a lot of other rather baffling fields, such as ' Exposure Mode 1, White Balance 1'. Now the same DNG opened in PDCU .... Here I have : Metering Mode - Multi Pattern White Balance - Daylight Fine Tune AB - Amber 5 Exposure Compensation -1.0 Autofocus Mode - Single AF Autofocus Area Mode - Automatic Saturation - 1 Hue - 0 High / Low key adjust - -1 Contrast - -1 Contrast Highlight --2 Contrast Shadow - 1 Sharpness - 3 Fine Sharpness - 2 Shake Reduction - Enabled Now clearly, this list is more what we need . These settings are directly a report of the actual camera settings using the exact same numerical values or word descriptions. Even the three understandable photoshop values (contrast, saturation, sharpness) do not match the PDCU figures, and there is no further intelligible information amongst the jumble of data listed in the PS file info dialogue. So, I can only conclude from this little test, that my earlier assertion that PDCU is the only programme to correctly report all of the Pentax camera settings is true ..... I can not find any meaning to much of the Photoshop file info, nor to the generic type like windows properties that reports things like 'hard' or 'normal'. So, am I right ..... is the only way to get reliable and accurate data reporting from Pentax DSLRs to actually use PDCU ? ?

Pentax Digital SLRsPentax Digital SLRs

Add Comment

McGregNi McGregNi

5986 posts
14 years
Surrey,
England

Posted 16/03/2015 - 16:02 Link

Well that sounds great, thanks, good job! My main focus on promoting threads like this is to further general awareness and to gain a more common basis for our discussions about the actual photography and equipment, settings etc. It seemed clear enough to me that in the context of checking the EXIF data in order to understand exactly what settings had been used, that we had a problem! If there is a practical solution like you have arranged then that is an even better outcome!

Is this just for the K3 exif, or will the updated Exiftool also now display the correct custom settings from earlier models, like the K7 etc ?

My Guides to the Pentax Digital Camera Flash Lighting System : Download here from the PentaxForums Homepage Article .... link
Pentax K7 with BG-4 Grip / Samyang 14mm f2.8 ED AS IF UMC / DA18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AL WR / SMC A28mm f2.8 / D FA 28-105mm / SMC F35-70 f3.5-4.5 / SMC A50mm f1.7 / Tamron AF70-300mm f4-5.6 Di LD macro / SMC M75-150mm f4.0 / Tamron Adaptall (CT-135) 135mm f2.8 / Asahi Takumar-A 2X tele-converter / Pentax AF-540FGZ (I & II) Flashes / Cactus RF60/X Flashes & V6/V6II Transceiver