ExifTool Forum

ExifTool => Archives => Topic started by: Archive on May 12, 2010, 08:54:19 AM

Title: Wrong ISO value when using -n option
Post by: Archive on May 12, 2010, 08:54:19 AM
[Originally posted by wobaa666 on 2008-04-09 19:14:25-07]

Hello,

Ive tried several images from Dpreview with exiftool and saw a stange behaviour with several images, here its ISO value.

Sample Image: Link to Image

When using exiftool(-k -ISO).exe the output is ISO: 200 (correct)
 but when using exiftool(-k -n -ISO).exe the output is: ISO: 9 (wrong)

All ohter Images I've tried have correct value with -n.

I'm wondering how the values where calculated using the -n parameter?

My concern ist, that I can't rely the correctness of the conversion done by -n.

Exiftool 7.23 used on windows

Jan
Title: Re: Wrong ISO value when using -n option
Post by: Archive on May 12, 2010, 08:54:19 AM
[Originally posted by exiftool on 2008-04-09 20:12:06-07]

For tags based on lookup tables, using -n will
give you the value on the left hand side of the lookup.

The specific Pentax ISO tag you mentioned is decoded with a
table.  See the ISO tag in
this
table
to see the lookup table.

For some tags I have buried the lookup at a deeper level
so the user doesn't have to worry about it.  This avoids
this problem, but reduces the control that the user has
to set a specific value in cases like this where different
values convert to the same ISO for different models.
However I am always open to opinions, and perhaps
I should be doing this differently.

- Phil
Title: Re: Wrong ISO value when using -n option
Post by: Archive on May 12, 2010, 08:54:19 AM
[Originally posted by wobaa666 on 2008-04-10 07:35:52-07]

Thanks, didn't even thought about that.

I use exiftool to fill a database with exif information. So the "original" value received with -n is in most cases what I intentionally want. Integer or Float values can be stored more efficiently than interpreted as string (e.g. MeteringMode).

So I don't know if it makes sense to look up values like ISO while don't look up other values (e.g. Flash). Who will decide which values to look up?

Perhaps a combination like -n -lookup ISO to explicit specify values to lookup can help. I'm not sure if it makes sense to give this option.

Anyway, thanks alot! Whenever strange values occur I will take a look at these lookup tables and check if it is the value I need. If not, I will handle this as special case using the lookup tables.

Regards, Jan