Reconyx Camera makernotes - Ambient temp probs

[bnp47]

Hi

I am new to this forum and wish firstly to thank you very much for this fantastic tool.

I think I may have found a small bug that occurs when reading temperatures from the Reconyx camera's Makernotes: when the temperature is below zero, ExifTool gives a wildly large number. For instance an ambient temperature of -1 is given as 65535! This prob appears when reading either the AmbientTemperature or the AmbientTemperatureFarenheit tags from the MakerNotes. The root would seem to be that in conversion from binary the first bit is not read as a sign bit. So x'FFFF' should = decimal -1. Thus -ve temps appear as 65536 degrees too warm....

Here are the MakerNotes from the attached murky pic which shows ambient temp as -23 C :

---- MakerNotes ----
MakerNoteVersion                : 0xf101
FirmwareVersion                 : 3.0.1
FirmwareDate                    : 2010:05:18
TriggerMode                     : Motion Detection
Sequence                        : 2 of 5
EventNumber                     : 7
DateTimeOriginal                : 2011:01:13 17:53:27
MoonPhase                       : First Quarter
AmbientTemperatureFahrenheit    : 65527 F
AmbientTemperature              : 65513 C
SerialNumber                    : H600BD05002562
Contrast                        : 128
Brightness                      : 0
Sharpness                       : 32
Saturation                      : 0
InfraredIlluminator             : On
MotionSensitivity               : 100
BatteryVoltage                  : 5.77 V
UserLabel                       : EAST

Once again thanks for this tool - we are using this to aid in Wildlife research in Canada, and negative temps can prevail here!

Regards, Jon

[bnp47]

I forgot to mention:

O/S: Window 7 (also happens on XP)
Ver: 8.67 (also happens on 8.45)
ExifTool is being called from VBA code behind MS Access database

Jon

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Jon,

Thank you for reporting this bug.  All of my previous Reconyx samples were from Africa, so I didn't notice this problem.  But being a fellow Canadian, I can certainly sympathize with your negative temperature problem.

It is fixed in ExifTool 8.68, now available from the ExifTool home page.

- Phil

Edit: P.S. It is a treat to have such a complete bug report including a sample image.

[bnp47]

Phil - thank you for this fix. I am amazed that a fix has been made and a new version of the software supplied in less than 12 hours since the bug was reported! You are AWESOME!!

If you are ever passing thru Banff be sure to drop me a line...

Jon

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Jon,

You're welcome!  And thanks for the offer.  I haven't been through Banff in about 35 years now... maybe it's about time I went back.

- Phil