exiftool Examples

Following is a collection of real exiftool commands that I’ve used, along with explanations of what each does. exiftool is a command-line utility that provides very powerful EXIF reading, writing and searching capabilities.

I’m writing this down because I often spend a lot of time reading through exiftool documentation to find out how to get something done, just to forget it within hours. All of these examples work on a Unix shell environment like ZSH on MacOS or the various Linux shells.

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D7100 and AF-P DX 70-300 VR on an Airshow

Aero India is a biennial air show that takes place on an airfield on the outskirts of Bangalore. As per Wikipedia, it’s the world’s largest air show after the one in Paris. I first came to know of it when a friend of mine armed with a Nikon D70s and a non-VR 70-300 f/4-5.6 came back with some fabulous shots way back in 2007. Ten years later, I got to visit the show with a Nikon D7100 and an AF-P DX 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G VR.

AF-P DX 70-300 VR on D7100

You might already be aware of the fact that AF-P lenses don’t play nice with older cameras like the D7100. I had the choice of mixing and matching between D7100, D3300 bodies and AF-P 70-300 VR or AF-S 55-300 VR. Having tried out all four combinations, I settled for D7100 and AF-P 70-300 VR. Wondering why? Here’s why:

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AF-S Nikkor 20mm ƒ/1.8G on DX

Early this year, I acquired a used 20mm ƒ/1.8G Nikkor lens. I only have DX bodies and the 20mm works more like a wide-normal prime than an ultra-wide, as on FX.

Inauris Aurea | D7100 + AF-S Nikkor 20mm f/1.8G ED
20mm ƒ/1.8G Nikkor on a D7100. It’s big.

Why use 20mm ƒ/1.8G? on DX?

I had long wanted to have a small, fast 24mm prime for my DX bodies. While the 35mm ƒ/1.8 DX is compact enough, I don’t like it that much. The FoV (51mm FX equivalent) is too narrow for general photography and too wide for portraits. I do most of my portrait work with a 50mm ƒ/1.8G, so I need something to cover the wider end.

The 20mm is not a bad option. Its 30mm FX equivalent FoV actually matches that of some very popular smartphones, which is what I intended this lens for – having a smartphone camera equivalent with much superior image quality.

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Nikon D750 + 20mm f/1.8G Nikkor

A few days ago I got the opportunity to try out a Nikon D750, along with the new 20mm f/1.8G Nikkor lens. It wasn’t the best of times for trying out new toys for me, because of which I couldn’t get any presentable shots. I still got some shooting to do with it and I would go ahead to include those non-presentable shots anyway.

Nikon D750 with 20mm f/1.8G Nikkor
Nikon D750 with 20mm f/1.8G Nikkor

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Carrying Cameras

The Problem

One of the big issues I face while photographing outdoors is that of having to carry a big 1.5 kg camera, and usually additional lenses and accessories weighing another 1-2 kg, all the time while out shooting for the day. The default carrying solution – neck strap – has a couple of disadvantages:

  1. It’s extremely tiring for the neck muscles
  2. It’s very fiddly, and gets in the way too much

Most of you might already have faced problem #1. Problem #2 is something you might not realise, until you start shooting without the camera strap. I let my cameras go without the strap a couple of years ago, and now I can’t even think of having to shoot with the strap on the body.

For quite some time, I used to carry the camera in an unzipped LowePro AW Rezo 140 (discontinued) camera bag. It solved the problem of fidgety handling, but my neck still complained. Continue reading “Carrying Cameras”

Farewell, Photography

Update: I couldn’t stay away for long. That, and I conquered the sharpness gremlins plaguing my experience with the heavily used AF-S DX 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G VR.

Farewell, Photography

We had a good thing going for eight years or so, but it’s time now to bring it to a halt.

Back when I started, I had no dearth of time to give to myself and I had no one but myself to spend money on. It was meant to be all for fun, nothing serious.

Somewhere along the way, things became different. I still find some time but can’t give it to myself without some sense of guilt being felt or implied. I still have money but spending it on something that no one other than me values doesn’t seem to be sensible any more. The fun is still there but seriously, there’s too much disappointment to make it worthwhile.

Back when I started, digital cameras used to be rubbish. It took the right kind of knowledge and tools to make a picture look good. But if you had the right equipment and knowledge and tools, your photo could stand head and shoulders above the average in terms of IQ (Image Quality). That alone used to bring about a sense of achievement. Now though, you can’t achieve anything noticeable with just a good camera and a computer because digital cameras have matured. They all make stellar pictures compared to what the average camera captured in the previous decade.

Now that’s a really good thing for photography in general. It’s become more accessible to everyone and the general quality of photographs is increasing every year. Having access to a camera on the phones is also giving a lot of people a lot of practice. But herein lies a problem. Being a photography/camera buff today is like being an audiophile in the 80s – back then, good sets of

speakers used to be rare and very expensive. Now the average consumer-grade speakers can reproduce a pin drop to a thunderous explosion with equal clarity and there are credentials – THX, Dolby, what-have-you – to help recognise their capability. You don’t need to be an audiophile to find a good sounding set of speakers. Just get a middle-of-the-price-range set with some fancy stamps and 495 of 500 of your friends will approve of it.

Now you might be thinking, hang on a minute, that analogy is bunkum. An audiophile doesn’t create music, he just consumes it. A photographer on the other hand creates something. True, that, but only to an extent. There are two types of photographer. One who shoots what he sees, and the other who makes something worth seeing. I would be monumentally dishonest if I, for a moment, claim that I am a photographer of the latter type.

So, all said and done, my photographs are only as good as my equipment and what I shoot.

And that’s a big problem.

If I need my pictures to improve I’d either need to improve my equipment or I’d need to find something better to shoot. Now, I have two class-leading cameras (Sony RX100, Nikon D7100) so I am quite far down the curve of diminishing returns. Yes, my pictures would look better with a Nikon D800 and 16-35mm f/4 Nikkor or a Sony A7r with 24-70mm f/4 ZA or some such combination of full frame body with an exotic lens. But how many of my 500 friends be able to tell the difference? 5, I reckon.

So, let’s look at the other bit – what I shoot. Unfortunately for me, I don’t find anything that I shot in the last 6 years worth hanging on my walls. I’m just guessing here, but I think it’s because I’ve only shot common tourist locations in India. India is great, it’s beautiful and colourful and… for me, it’s all the usual stuff. People like photographs of stuff that’s different from the usual. I still find pictures that I clicked 7 years ago in California or 6 years ago in London to be better than anything else that came after that.

All in all, we’ve come to a point where I am thoroughly unimpressed with my photographs and I have no more willingness to throw the requisite time or money at it.

Not at this time.

And that’s not OK, because I can’t bear with myself doing a half-assed job of it, on and on and on.

So I must stop.

Sensor Format Blind Test

TL;DR

Rank the four shots below from best to worst. Mention the position as top-right, bottom-left, etc. Submit your ranking as a comment.

Sensor Format Blind Test
Rank the above images from best to worst. Mention positions as top-right, bottom-left, etc.

The Fuss

These are interesting times for camera enthusiasts. Digital cameras have advanced to a level where most cameras are capable of  publication quality snaps and you don’t even need to carry a camera to take good pictures, thanks to smartphones.

One big debate this has fuelled is regarding the importance of sensor size now. Some people believe, as they always have, that bigger is better and a full-frame sensor will always win.

Some people believe that beyond a certain threshold (1/1.7″? 1″? 4/3?) sensor size becomes irrelevant because the rules of equivalence (same DoF, same shutter speed, same FoV) dictate that all sensors will be operating in a similar fashion since they’re seeing the exact same amount of light, for the exact same amount of time.

Furthermore, it is argued that most pictures are never going to be printed and hung on walls. Instead, they will be viewed on phone, computer or TV screens at a nominal resolution of, currently, 2MP (HDTV resolution) or in future, 8MP (4k TV resolution). At such resolutions, minor differences in image quality become immaterial.

To find out how deep the shade of grey is between the black and white of FF supremacy vs. FF irrelevance, I’ve devised a simple test. The image you see above/below is a PNG screenshot of DPReview’s Studio Comparison Tool, loaded with camera test shots from cameras with different sensor sizes. I have chosen the web resolution from the tool to match the “common use” scenario, i.e., sharing pictures on the web.

Now, can you rank these shots from best to worst? Mention the position as top-right, bottom-left, etc. Submit your ranking as a comment below.

Sensor Format Blind Test
Rank the above images from best to worst. Mention positions as top-right, bottom-left, etc.

Once I have obtained enough responses, I’ll publish a summary and also reveal the link that will load this very comparison in DPReview’s Studio Comparison Tool, thereby revealing the cameras chosen.

Thanks in advance for participating!

Update: The poll is closed and the results are out!

Six Months with Nikon D7100

It’s been more than six months since I have had a Nikon D7100 for my own and I have been thinking of writing down my thoughts about the camera. However, these six months with the camera have been a bit of an up-and-down journey and it’s only now that I feel like I know the camera enough to write about it.

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