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Anonymous
April 19, 2017
Answered

Reading my flash metadata

  • April 19, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 3409 views

Hello everyone. Recently I have been shooting with flash a lot. Now I can see the exposure of my flash in the camera screen but when I upload my photos to lightroom

it says that the flash has fired but it does not tell me the exposure at which the flash fired (i.e. -2, -1, 0, +1 etc.). Its been a little frustrating as I have yet to find something to read th eflash. I even tried bridge and all it says it cumpolsery. Would really appreciate any help I can get. Thank you.

      Correct answer johnrellis

      Unfortunately, the EXIF metadata standard, used by virtually all camera manufacturers, doesn't have a field for storing flash exposure compensation.  So many cameras store it in manufacturer-specific, proprietary fields in the "MakerNotes" section of the photo metadata.  As a general rule, LR doesn't read or display such proprietary fields.

      There is a command-line tool, ExifTool, that can read these fields, but it's quite inconvenient to use. There used to be a plugin, Exif Meta, that would display the fields within LR (using ExifTool under the covers), but it is no longer available.   The Data Explorer plugin lets you group selected photos by the value of manufacturer-specific flash exposure compensation, and the Any Filter plugin lets you filter by specific values.  But neither is nearly as convenient as simply having the ability to see the field value in the Metadata panel.

      1 reply

      johnrellis
      johnrellisCorrect answer
      Legend
      April 19, 2017

      Unfortunately, the EXIF metadata standard, used by virtually all camera manufacturers, doesn't have a field for storing flash exposure compensation.  So many cameras store it in manufacturer-specific, proprietary fields in the "MakerNotes" section of the photo metadata.  As a general rule, LR doesn't read or display such proprietary fields.

      There is a command-line tool, ExifTool, that can read these fields, but it's quite inconvenient to use. There used to be a plugin, Exif Meta, that would display the fields within LR (using ExifTool under the covers), but it is no longer available.   The Data Explorer plugin lets you group selected photos by the value of manufacturer-specific flash exposure compensation, and the Any Filter plugin lets you filter by specific values.  But neither is nearly as convenient as simply having the ability to see the field value in the Metadata panel.

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