exif information for Panasonic Live View Composite Mode

[Fodoh]

Hello all,
first of all I want to thank Phil for his great tool. I use it a lot.

My Panasonic Lumix G91 has a feature called Live View Composite. It merges pictures together, but not all information, only the bright information. This is useful for long exposure in the night, like fire works or cars. Here is the description from Panasonic (this shall not be seen as an advertisement, just as explanation in case you're interested in more details or my explanation is not understandable):
https://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-camcorders/lumix-expert-advice-learn/lumix-expert-advice/using-live-view-composite.html

When I looked at my pictures, where I've used this feature to create them, I was wondering how long the total exposure was. Looking at the exif information via exiftool I see that the exposure time listed is the exposure of a single image and not the total exposure of the merged image.
By comparing the exif information of test images where I noted the number of merged images I found out that this number is equivalent to the Panasonic makernote 0x0076 which is translated to "HDR Shot".

This post
https://exiftool.org/forum/index.php?topic=9453.msg48912#msg48912
suggests to set the value of 3 for 0x0076 to HDR on. I assume this is due to the effect that, at least at my G91, takes 3 images to merge an HDR image.

Instead of using 0x0076 as a criteria for HDR being activated I suggest to use only the makernote 0x009e "HDR" to detect HDR and rename 0x0076 to something like "number of merged images".

- Fodoh

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Fodoh,

Thanks.  Given that tag 0x0077 is called BurstSpeed, how about renaming this to BurstCount?

Or maybe that could be confused with other burst modes such as exposure bracketing.  What tags are involved with bracketing shots for your camera?

- Phil

[Fodoh]

Hi Phil,
in the case of Live View Composite Mode 0x0077 "BurstSpeed" is 0.

Here an example image, original camera JPG, taken with Live View Composite Mode:
https://fodoh.info/media/Langzeitbelichtungen/index.html#img=_1010033.JPG
5 pictures each with 6 seconds exposure have been merged to a total exposure of 30 seconds.

Live View Composite Mode has:

Code Select Expand

Bracket Settings               : No Bracket
Burst Speed                    : 0

Here an excerpt of various bracketing modes of Lumix G91 and Lumix G9:

Exposure bracketing:

Code Select Expand

Burst Mode                     : Auto Exposure Bracketing (AEB)
Bracket Settings               : 5 Images, Sequence -/0/+
Burst Speed                    : 0
Sequence Number                : 1 to 5
Timer Recording                : Off

White Balance bracketing:

Code Select Expand

Burst Mode                     : White Balance Bracketing
Bracket Settings               : No Bracket
Burst Speed                    : 0
Sequence Number                : 0
Timer Recording                : Off

Focus bracketing:

Code Select Expand

Bracket Settings               : No Bracket
Timer Recording                : Focus Bracketing
Focus Bracket                  : 47
Sequence Number                : 47 (starting with 1)
Burst Speed                    : 0

In all the cases BurstSpeed is 0, thus I suggest to keep the name.

Please let me know in case you want the raw / jpg files.

- Fodoh

[Phil Harvey]

Thanks.  What is the value of 0x76 for exposure bracketing?

-Phil

[Fodoh]

0x76 is 0 for exposure bracketing.
Exposure, focus and white balance bracketing do not merge images - 0x76 is 0.
HDR and Live Composite View merge images - 0x76 is > 0.

- Fodoh

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Fodoh,

Thanks.  I wanted to confirm that this was the number of composite images and not the number of images in the burst.  So BurstCount isn't right.  I like your suggestion of using the word "merged".  How about MergedImages?

- Phil

[Fodoh]

Hi Phil,

I'm perfectly fine with "MergedImages". Thank you for your outstanding support - both in quality and speed.

- Fodoh

[Phil Harvey]

Great.  I'll add this in 12.68 which I plan to release within a few days.

- Phil