Panasonic serial number

[handvprice]

I have pictures from two identical Panasonic DMC-ZS3 cameras. I know the serial numbers on the camera exteriors for both, which is the same as what was on their boxes. By comparing the hex of pictures from them, I can see the camera's serial number in ascii, but don't know how to see find that field in the exiftool output. I'm not talking about the "Internal serial number", which exiftool does report, but rather the "box" serial number. In the Panasonic section of the exiftool tag names, I see several pertaining to serial numbers, but don't know how to output the correct portion. Any suggestions on how to "invoke" the weirder tags? Photos attached, one has a serial number starting with P1, and one starting with P2. TY.

[StarGeek]

Can you be more specific as to what the box serial number is?  Is it the full name of the file?  At what offset do you see this?

I looked though both of those files with a hex editor looking for P1 in the first file and P2 in the second file but I couldn't find anything that looked like an ASCII string of characters/numbers in either file.

[Hubert]

I know the serial numbers on the camera exteriors for both, which is the same as what was on their boxes. By comparing the hex of pictures from them, I can see the camera's serial number in ascii, but don't know how to see find that field in the exiftool output.

A few random observations from a fellow Panasonic owner...

As far as I can see, almost all of the SerialNumber tags in the Panasonic tags page relate either to high-end Leica cameras or to interchangeable lenses. The only tag returned for my two Panasonic cameras for which I have the box/body serial numbers (a GX9 and a TZ40) is -internalserialnumber, which as you say doesn't match the printed version. Indeed, that reference specifically says:

this number is unique, and contains the date of manufacture, but is not the same as the number printed on the camera body

A quick search with a hex editor on images shot with both of my cameras doesn't return anything resembling the 'external' numbers, so unless you can reveal these numbers for your two cameras, trying to find out how they're encoded in your images is, I would imagine, like looking for a needle in a haystack when you don't know what a needle looks like 

[Hubert]

I'd also add that the filenames of the two uploaded images appear very similar to standard Panasonic out-of-camera .jpg file names (ie P followed by seven digits), and don't seem to correspond to Panasonic camera serial numbers.

In my experience, Panasonic box/body camera serial numbers have a combination of letters and digits, often starting with two letters. Are these file names definitely the serial numbers on your cameras?

[StarGeek]

The filename was just a guess on my part.  If they look like normal filenames from the camera, then that's probably correct.

When I was searching through the files with the hex editor, I never found an occurrence of P1/P2 that was not followed by non-ASCII characters within 2-3 characters.

[Hubert]

The filename was just a guess on my part.

Not an unreasonable assumption though, given the OP:

Photos attached, one has a serial number starting with P1, and one starting with P2.

[handvprice]

Sorry, my error confused everyone! The "box" camera serial numbers (i.e., literally from the box the camera came in, also found on the sticker on the base of the camera) are F5909 and 8 more digits for the pictures starting P1... and F6009 and 8 more digits for the picture starting P2. These serial numbers are in the metadata at hex position 00002762 in P1 and 00002766 in P2.

(The filenames are as the photos came out of the camera, nothing changed.)

[StarGeek]

It's the InternalSerialNumber, only exiftool is formatting to a human readable format.  Add the -n (--printConv) option to get the raw data

Code Select Expand

======== Y:/!temp/aa/Panasonic/P1030858.JPG
---- Panasonic ----
InternalSerialNumber            : F590910210266
======== Y:/!temp/aa/Panasonic/P2040447.JPG
---- Panasonic ----
InternalSerialNumber            : F600912070549�.
    1 directories scanned
    2 image files read

By adding -v (-verbose) option, specifically, -v3, exiftool will show you the hex dump

Code Select Expand

  | | | 13) InternalSerialNumber = F590910210266
  | | |     - Tag 0x0025 (16 bytes, undef[16]):
  | | |         2762: 46 35 39 30 39 31 30 32 31 30 32 36 36 00 00 00 [F590910210266...]

...

  | | | 13) InternalSerialNumber = F600912070549..
  | | |     - Tag 0x0025 (16 bytes, undef[16]):
  | | |         2766: 46 36 30 30 39 31 32 30 37 30 35 34 39 00 ad 1a [F600912070549...]

[Hubert]

I'm speculating here, but it's possible that for your DMC-ZS3 cameras at least, the internal and external serial numbers are identical.

The camera model in question was introduced in 2009. It's feasible that at the time, Panasonic used the same sequence of characters for both the internal and external serial numbers. However, with the two newer Panasonic cameras in my physical possession (a TZ40 from 2013 and a GX9 from 2019), it is certainly the case that the internal numbers do not match the external numbers.

I suppose the only way to check which other Panasonic cameras, if any, have identical internal and external serial numbers, would be to snag a physical example of each camera, take a few shots and compare. Not a project I would care to undertake when the Meta Information Repository at https://www.exiftool.org/sample_images.html contains files from 461 different Panasonic cameras  .

As a side note, there's also a discrepancy in the format of the internal numbers from model to model over time, evidenced by the fact that for internal numbers beginning with an alpha character followed by two digits, ExifTool performs a print conversion:

======== /Users/hubert/downloads/panasonic/PanasonicDMC-ZS3.jpg
Internal Serial Number          : (F61) 2009:01:16 no. 0126

whereas for internal numbers beginning with three alpha characters (newer models including GX9, and some others in the repository) it doesn't:

======== /Users/hubert/downloads/panasonic/PanasonicDC-GX9.jpg
Internal Serial Number          : XGL1801110060

Both these examples are from the Repository, and I see the same discrepancy with my own cameras.

[Hubert]

I'm speculating here, but it's possible that for your DMC-ZS3 cameras at least, the internal and external serial numbers are identical.

That said, though... I've since looked at images of several DMC-ZS3s for sale on Ebay where the external number is visible, and on neither of them is that number formatted in the same way as the standard Panasonic internal number returned from your images, my images and the images in the Repository.

Again, they are in a standard format: two letters, followed by a single digit, followed by two letters, followed by six digits. (For example EN9JG021256 and EN9GE002712).  They don't in any obvious way encode a date of manufacture, and they don't match the format of the internal numbers.

Are you able to upload a link to images of your cameras and their boxes?

[handvprice]

TY for the explanation, StarGeek, and for all the other inputs.

[Phil Harvey]

As a side note, there's also a discrepancy in the format of the internal numbers from model to model over time, evidenced by the fact that for internal numbers beginning with an alpha character followed by two digits, ExifTool performs a print conversion:

======== /Users/hubert/downloads/panasonic/PanasonicDMC-ZS3.jpg
Internal Serial Number          : (F61) 2009:01:16 no. 0126

whereas for internal numbers beginning with three alpha characters (newer models including GX9, and some others in the repository) it doesn't:

======== /Users/hubert/downloads/panasonic/PanasonicDC-GX9.jpg
Internal Serial Number          : XGL1801110060

Both these examples are from the Repository, and I see the same discrepancy with my own cameras.

Thanks.  I'll fix this in ExifTool 12.32

- Phil

[Hubert]

  Thanks Phil!