EXIF reporting errors

Jtring · August 4, 2013

QBIC reported on the thread "Collage Landscape and other bugs" reported that

- Date timestamp in Photo Info popup shows date modified instead of date taken.

I compared information for several pictures on the legacy and new systems. I see the same thing QBIC did and see a second problem. For pictures that actually have fractional focal length like 82.8mm in the EXIF data, the new SmugMug reports 828mm. The decimal point got dropped. Likewise, I spotted 7.9mm turning into 79mm. Where there are no fractions there is no problem: 40mm remained 40mm.

So we've got at least two EXIF bugs:

- Misleading date information
- Wrong focal lengths

Anyone spot anything else?

Jim Ringland

cameronks · August 4, 2013

One problem I've noticed is smugmug uses the file's "Creation Date" rather than the "Date Taken" to display in exif.

This is a problem if you use iPhoto. For example, if you edit a photo even in the slightest amount, iPhoto will export a new "version" with a brand new creation date. The original Date Taken is preserved in the file, but smugmug doesn't use it.

The result is there is no way to sort photos in sequential order within smugmug as an iPhoto user.

Jtring · August 4, 2013

From reading other threads, I gather it is best to point to an example when highlighting bugs. See the first picture in my gallery http://jtringl.smugmug.com/TouringNaturalPlaces/Pt-Lobos-State-Reserve/. On the sandbox site (visible only to SM support) the value in the date field in the info box corresponds to the value in the date modified field on the legacy site. More amusingly, the focal length for this first picture is 10.701mm on the legacy site and 10701mm on the sandbox site. That would be quite a lens!

Jim Ringland

tsk1979 · August 5, 2013

I am getting wrong date in EXIF too!. Where is the date taken field???

ablichter · August 5, 2013

tsk1979 wrote: »

I am getting wrong date in EXIF too!. Where is the date taken field???

I checked some of your images: some do not have EXIF or XMP data embedded and by this no date taken field.
In this case upload date might be taken.

An example: http://tinyurl.com/m8mb8an in Yosemite 2009 I found some other.
Use this little helper -> http://regex.info/exif.cgi Drag it to your button bar and let it run when viewing an image.

ps
your website is broken -> http://www.tanveer.in

tsk1979 · August 7, 2013

Yup website in flux, need to fix that.
As for the pics, all pics with proper exif data have proper data
Check out first few images of
http://tanveer.smugmug.com/Travel/Europe-2011/TSR/i-dg5NrNM

Dates are all wrong! Its taking date modified though original files have Date taken

ablichter · August 7, 2013

tsk1979 wrote: »

Yup website in flux, need to fix that.
As for the pics, all pics with proper exif data have proper data
Check out first few images of
http://tanveer.smugmug.com/Travel/Europe-2011/TSR/i-dg5NrNM

Dates are all wrong! Its taking date modified though original files have Date taken

Yepp, there is a bug in SM too.

All images taken by Cams have an EXIF record. And yes, those in the 2011 gallery do have valid EXIF records.
Check out with the tool I mentioned.

But as said there are some, for example they from the Singapore Night Safari have none, nor do they have an embedded color profile or camera info. Might be you have used a program which have stripped Metadata or they are scans. And as said I found more in other galleries:

southeasternphotography · August 7, 2013

EXIF button is javascript???
Looks like a great utility. I went there and it says drag the button to your button area. While just on his page, I clicked and dragged the EXIF button about an inch or so. During the drag, a box opens up with text in it that has the word "javascript" in it. So, I guess this would work for the legacy system but not the New system. If true, then that's really a shame as the utility seems GREAT! Am I wrong? This would be so sweet for our customers who want to easily know more about the image data (yeah, there are other ways but this is so neat).

Also, wondering exactly how you get this utility into your button area (legacy). And then you just view an image (like the larger image on the right when using SmugMug theme) and click the menu button EXIF and it opens up a popup window with the exif data? That would be very cool. This is explained but I am apparently not getting it

.

Thanks Ablichter for the tip and hopefully upcoming explanation!
Your "keyword" nemesis, Troup Nightingale:D

EDIT: Caught a blurb on his site where there may be a link to his site to use his "online" exif routine. Maybe this could be used in the New SmugMug?

EDIT2: Hmmmm went to his site and ADDED his routine to Chrome. Didn't quite work the way I thought; but I did get it to work by having to select an image first. Did not work with New SmugMug 'cause you are suppose to right click in Chrome to get to it. The right-click protection scheme takes priority. Probably if I play more, I might figure it out. On the other hand it offers data and even tries to figure out depth of field for the taken image plus more.

ablichter · August 7, 2013

southeasternphotography wrote: »

Looks like a great utility. I went there and it says drag the button to your button area. While just on his page, I clicked and dragged the EXIF button about an inch or so. During the drag, a box opens up with text in it that has the word "javascript" in it. So, I guess this would work for the legacy system but not the New system. If true, then that's really a shame as the utility seems GREAT! Am I wrong? This would be so sweet for our customers who want to easily know more about the image data (yeah, there are other ways but this is so neat).

Also, wondering exactly how you get this utility into your button area (legacy). And then you just view an image (like the larger image on the right when using SmugMug theme) and click the menu button EXIF and it opens up a popup window with the exif data? That would be very cool. This is explained but I am apparently not getting it.

Thanks Ablichter for the tip and hopefully upcoming explanation!
Your "keyword" nemesis, Troup Nightingale:D

EDIT: Caught a blurb on his site where there may be a link to his site to use his "online" exif routine. Maybe this could be used in the New SmugMug?

For your EDIT: nope, don't think that can be used.

Yepp, its a great tool, it shows even a map when geodata are present.
Okay I try to explain but I fear it works with Firefox and Safari only (but at least FF still is the better browser anyway):

You drag it to the menu-bar or what ever it's called, Button-bar and it gives you a bookmark. After that you go to a website and open an image (SM -> in lightbox, 'cause there should be only one image visible). Than click the bookmark. It will grab the image via its link, loading it, extract the Metadata and displays the results in another browser tab or window.

When you stick to IE you need to give in images URL manually.

It has nothing to do with the technology used by the website (JS), as it runs on your computer and just fetches the displayed image.

For right-click protected images you might get no results, because it will fetch the so called spacer.gif (an overlay). Here you have to find out the URL of the image and paste it in the bar to the upper left. You can examine the full image URL with the Web Developer Extensions (AFAIK only for FF) or better with the Web Developer add-in, the green mark in the attachment.
Try it with the link provided in the attachment (since its not really readable, its http://joerglingnau.smugmug.com/Animals/Amphibians/i-NQmBWQK/0/XL/_MG_0632-XL.jpg ) or upload an own image.

Another great tool is Exiftool he mentioned on his site (and Exiftool GUI), just in case not known yet.

For your EDIT2: you are to quick ;-)

My EDIT1: works good and as meant in Chrome.

tsk1979 · August 7, 2013

ablichter wrote: »

Yepp, there is a bug in SM too.

All images taken by Cams have an EXIF record. And yes, those in the 2011 gallery do have valid EXIF records.
Check out with the tool I mentioned.

But as said there are some, for example they from the Singapore Night Safari have none, nor do they have an embedded color profile or camera info.

That singapore gallery is from before the time Smugmug started showing exif in display copies. So my older galleries do not have exif in display copies.
About the bug in SM, is there a fix planned?

ablichter · August 7, 2013

tsk1979 wrote: »

That singapore gallery is from before the time Smugmug started showing exif in display copies. So my older galleries do not have exif in display copies.
About the bug in SM, is there a fix planned?

Ah okay, that explains it. Just mentioned it, so you not accidentally took an image with no EXIF.

I strongly hope they will fix this bug including a feature to rescan Metadata and extracting the right dates. They can't leave that IMHO.

tsk1979 · August 8, 2013

I am not seeing any acknowledgement of this issue. Maybe I missed a post by smugmug support somewhere? This is a critical issue!

ablichter · August 8, 2013

tsk1979 wrote: »

I am not seeing any acknowledgement of this issue. Maybe I missed a post by smugmug support somewhere? This is a critical issue!

They just don't. As with lots of others bugs. But it is obvious and was reported and acknowledge by others.

mbonocore · August 8, 2013

Yes, sorry for not being able to chime in here. But this is the developers hands.

tsk1979 · August 8, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Yes, sorry for not being able to chime in here. But this is the developers hands.

Thanks. Is there any timeline available to when this will be fixed?

mbonocore · August 8, 2013

tsk1979 wrote: »

Thanks. Is there any timeline available to when this will be fixed?

Not yet. It is 4am here, so no one for me to talk to....but I will be in HQ tomorrow and I will see if I can get some more information.

tsk1979 · August 8, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Yes, sorry for not being able to chime in here. But this is the developers hands.

mbonocore wrote: »

Not yet. It is 4am here, so no one for me to talk to....but I will be in HQ tomorrow and I will see if I can get some more information.

Thanks for your support!

cameronks · August 8, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Not yet. It is 4am here, so no one for me to talk to....but I will be in HQ tomorrow and I will see if I can get some more information.

Can they please add EXIF metadata to Videos while they are at it?

Darter02 · August 8, 2013

Odd Time Stamp Behavior
Ok, I unveiled, and when my wife reviewed my site she suggested I change the profile pic on Blogger.

I sort of use my site as a catalog at times. When I need a photo, and I know it's one I've reprocessed, and uploaded to the new site (I'm currently redoing 2007 to 2010) I always go there to find the date I shot it.

For instance, say I want a certain photo of a deer. I know it's on Smugmug, so I go to my site, to my Wildlife gallery, look at the photo, check the Info, and get a date. I now know what folder it's in as I save ALL my photography by YEAR --> Month --> Day in folders. It's simple that way.

So I go into my site, to the gallery of photos of me. Look for the one I want, check out the dates...

and...

What the?? (notice I didn't swear)

A. is the name of my images. I've found that affter years of shooting almost every single day it helps to just use a renaming action that uses the actual date of the shoot. NO chance of having two different images in the archives with the same name...

B. Must be the date I may have processed the RAW. I have no idea, with the except for the past week, I process files EVERY DAY. In this instance it paid off as I was able to find the file using it's name to upload it with out just clicking around.

C. WTF?? How does it get a date from even before I owned a MrK II?? Or maybe I did own one, but what is this date?

cameronks · August 8, 2013

I've had weird EXIF Date problems too, to the extent that I have an email thread with 4 different Heroes who either said it was iPhoto that was the problem, or that it was working as intended.

I also have one photo that shows a modified date *after* the upload date (as verified by a Hero).

devbobo · August 8, 2013

Ron,

Can you give me a direct link to the image to take a closer look ?

Thanks,

David

Darter02 · August 8, 2013

devbobo wrote: »

Ron,

Can you give me a direct link to the image to take a closer look ?

Thanks,

David

Sent PM.

mbonocore · August 9, 2013

Darter, this is outlined in the Bug report Here. I am going to merge the threads and keep the redirect for 1 week.

Thanks!

tsk1979 · August 9, 2013

Is there a bugzilla kind of bug tracking system in use for smugmug. That would be really useful in keeping track of bugs and fast turnaround.

mbonocore · August 9, 2013

tsk1979 wrote: »

Is there a bugzilla kind of bug tracking system in use for smugmug. That would be really useful in keeping track of bugs and fast turnaround.

I am working on trying to put together a public doc.

devbobo · August 9, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Darter, this is outlined in the Bug report Here. I am going to merge the threads and keep the redirect for 1 week.

Thanks!

No, I've downloaded the original file in Darter's case and it's definitely the image that is incorrect...

Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal Ascii 20 2013:06:16 13:45:39
Exif.Photo.DateTimeDigitized Ascii 20 2011:02:11 09:50:40

Darter02 · August 9, 2013

devbobo wrote: »

No, I've downloaded the original file in Darter's case and it's definitely the image that is incorrect...

Exif.Photo.DateTimeOriginal Ascii 20 2013:06:16 13:45:39
Exif.Photo.DateTimeDigitized Ascii 20 2011:02:11 09:50:40

Ok, the 16th is indeed the day I took the photo. On the image I posted, "A" is the name of the file in which I included the date.

The eixif "DateTimeOriginal confirms that.

At "B" you'll see the site is telling me it was taken on the 20th. Perhaps that is the day I created the JPG. I'd expected that date to be the 16th when I looked on the site. That is supposed to be the date of the Original Date Taken right?

<xmpMM:History>
            <rdf:Seq>
               <rdf:li rdf:parseType="Resource">
                  <stEvt:action>saved</stEvt:action>
                  <stEvt:instanceID>xmp.iid:A321A45617DAE21182EBB19AC824CFD5</stEvt:instanceID>
                  <stEvt:when>[COLOR="DarkRed"]2013-06-20[/COLOR]T21:08:12-05:00</stEvt:when>
                  <stEvt:softwareAgent>Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 6.7 (Windows)</stEvt:softwareAgent>
                  <stEvt:changed>/metadata</stEvt:changed>
               </rdf:li>

As for "C," I have no idea what that is set to 2011.

ablichter · August 9, 2013

"B." Date is the EXIF create or modified date of the file - it should change with every change you write to it, f.e. when embedding keywords.

SM takes the B. as CreateDate at the moment, which is considered as a bug.

For your "C." date is to say, that some software must have messed this date up because it (2011:02:11 09:50:40) is to find on others images (not only) in your "Me" gallery as well.

Exiftool (there is a GUI) can equalize all others EXIF dates to the "DateTimeOriginal" in batch mode. But IPTC "Date Created" might stay on 2011, unless you use Exiftool on command line or another tool which writes it from changed "EXIF DateTimeOriginal" to IPTC and XMP fields with one run.

Ferguson · August 11, 2013

Any update?

mbonocore wrote: »

Not yet. It is 4am here, so no one for me to talk to....but I will be in HQ tomorrow and I will see if I can get some more information.

Is there any update to this? I just had it take a whole different complexion on for me.

JF's plugin uses date/time to synch up photos (in the plugin extra). I had numerous cases where photos were disconnected after the unveil (for reasons a bit unclear), ran it -- and now it can't synch because the date/times are different.

Really needs fixing guys -- "recent" displays are wrong also of course.

This has subtle but significant impact beyond just what's on the info display.

fankle · August 11, 2013

EXIF stripped when uploading from iPad
Hello,

I'm liking new the new SM a lot, and was very pleased to see I can now upload directly from my iPad using the regular website rather than rely on the CameraAwesome app.

However when I upload using the website each image is just called "image.jpg" and all the EXIF seems to be stripped away.

To demonstrate I uploaded 5 pictures through the website and then the same 5 through the app into
http://fankle.smugmug.com/LivinginScotland/Gullane

The first 5 have no EXIF and the second have it as I would expect.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Alison

mbonocore · August 11, 2013

We are still looking into the Exif data issue, but these new examples help alot. Thanks!

EXIF reporting errors

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