Database Fields

[Steven Donahue]

I have a few questions about some of the photograph detail fields.

1. Shutter - Why do I have to multiply my shutter speed by 10 to get it show up correctly in the public exhibition? For example, if I shot at 1/1000, I would have to enter 10000 in the Shutter field to get the correct value in the public exhibition.

2. Zoom - I assume this is the actual focal lenght used for that particular image. Is this correct? Example: If I use a 50mm prime lens, I would enter 50 in this field?

3. Focus - What is this field used for? Should the values be AF and MF? What a about things like AI Servo, One-Shot, etc? Is that what this field is for?

Thanks!

[Pekka]

Steven Donahue wrote:
I have a few questions about some of the photograph detail fields.

1. Shutter - Why do I have to multiply my shutter speed by 10 to get it show up correctly in the public exhibition? For example, if I shot at 1/1000, I would have to enter 10000 in the Shutter field to get the correct value in the public exhibition.

Good you mentioned that, I forgot to tell you about it.

In order to get shutter speeds stored into database so that sorting and searching would be possible (impossible to use fractions in database, because there is no data type to handle it properly with integers), I added a 'shutter unit' value to shutter speeds have . It goes like you noticed:

1/4000 = = 40000 + shutter unit value '1/100'
1/640 = 6400 + shutter unit value '1/100'
1/100 = 1000 + shutter unit value '1/100'
1/20 = 200 + shutter unit value '1/100'
0.3s = 0.3 + shutter unit value 's'
1s = 1 + shutter unit value 's'
20s = 20 + shutter unit value 's'

2. Zoom - I assume this is the actual focal lenght used for that particular image. Is this correct? Example: If I use a 50mm prime lens, I would enter 50 in this field?

Yes. Zoom value is what EXIF data reports to lens zoom setting at moment of shutter release, in primes it's primes' focal lenght, and in zooms it might be reported correctly.

3. Focus - What is this field used for? Should the values be AF and MF? What a about things like AI Servo, One-Shot, etc? Is that what this field is for?

That field was meant for lens focus distance EXIF data. But it may well be focus type, too (perhaps that's better because most lenses report very odd focus distances).

Thanks for asking,

Pekka