# Exif editing help please.



## Valvebounce (Aug 13, 2017)

Hi Folks. 
I am trying a bit of time lapse photography and have created a problem! I set the aperture on the lens then disconnected it by a slight turn (following advice I had seen or been given before) to reduce mechanical wear on the iris mechanism. 
I now find that I need to add the lens type, lens model, aperture, focal length (and maybe focus distance?) to the exif so that I can have the automatic lens corrections in DxO. 
Well I have been putzing around for the last several hours in ExifTool (too terrified to do anything as I have no clue about working in code!), ExifToolGUI, GUI2 for ExifTool and tried Gpicsync too as it has an exif reader / writer (ExifTool?) in it. 
Did I have an install issue with GUI2 as I had a whole raft of warnings the first time it opened about missing files, the one that I remember being a .ini file? After closing and re-opening from the shortcut as per the install instructions there were no more messages. 
I don't know if the lens type is not changeable, it currently shows as Unknown (0) and despite being able to copy the info to clipboard from a reference shot before I disconnected the lens, I don't seem to be able to paste it back to the files which need it. 
With this being a time lapse I need a bulk editor as changing one file at a time is a non starter! 
I would be most grateful if someone who knows their way around any / all of these programs or another one that I can download (please don't say Lightroom as I have tried it and am not going down that road) would be able to help point me in the right direction. 

PC is Windows 10. 
Thanks in advance for any help. 

Cheers, Graham.


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## SecureGSM (Aug 13, 2017)

EXIF Pilot 5.1 - this EXIF tool is indispensable. Very easy to use. I hope it helps.

http://www.colorpilot.com/exif.html


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## Valvebounce (Aug 13, 2017)

Hi SecureGSM. 
Thank you for that, I guess I should have mentioned that I'm only just starting in to time lapse and am in no way certain that this will not be my last attempt at time lapse, I don't like the idea of hammering the shutter mechanism on my cameras. 
Based on this I was looking for a free or significantly cheaper $20-30 option, $80 seems a bit steep for something I may never use again if I don't continue doing time lapse. Individual editor is free, bulk add on is what costs. 

Cheers, Graham. 



SecureGSM said:


> EXIF Pilot 5.1 - this EXIF tool is indispensable. Very easy to use. I hope it helps.
> 
> http://www.colorpilot.com/exif.html


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## ethanz (Aug 13, 2017)

Adobe Bridge has an easy way to edit the exif. "Append or replace Metadata" under the Tools tab.


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## foo (Aug 13, 2017)

goes without saying, try this on a COPY of your files in a completely seperate directory to ensure you don't lose anything..

I start out with a directory structure like this:

/test
/test/src
/test/dst

copy a .CR2 file that has the lens data you want to copy across into /test/src copy all of your files that lack the EXIF data into /test/dst

then run exiftool something like this


```
exiftool -tagsFromFile src/src.CR2 -MakerNotes:LensType -EXIF:LensInfo -EXIF:LensModel -EXIF:FocalLength -MakerNotes:MaxFocalLength -MakerNotes:MinFocalLength -MakerNotes:FocalUnits -EXIF:ApertureValue -MakerNotes:MaxAperture -MakerNotes:MinAperture -MakerNotes:TargetAperture -MakerNotes:ApertureRange  dst/*.CR2
```

take note that I don't use windows... the above runs just fine on my linux system.

You will likely need to change the paths to use '\' rather than '/' and you may need to do stupid stuff like changing the last bit to be "dst\*.CR2" including the quotes. 

You may also need to ensure there are no spaces in any of the filenames or parent paths or else you can find yourself having to add extra quoting.. i.e. create the directory as C:\test\ rather than something under "My Documents". While windows encourages you to create\use filenames with spaces dealing with them at a command prompt can be tricky if you're not familiar with how it's done.

This should copy all of the tags named on the commandline from the src/src.CR2 file over to every CR2 file in the dst directory. On linux it also saves a *.CR2_original for all of them so that in theory you lose nothing. That said, I'd still just operate on a copy of your files as if it doesn't work or you need to add/remove some tags it's easy to just delete the contents of the dst directory and start over..

I've added the most obvious Lens, focal length & aperture exif tags, but it's possible that DxO looks for other things, you'd probably have to get exiftool to print the tags from the source file and compare that list to the tags from the other files to be sure you get everything that's missing


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## Valvebounce (Aug 13, 2017)

Hi foo. 
Wow, many thanks. I shall try that as soon as my PC finishes tying itself and the NAS box in knots running WinMerge to check for differences in my backup. 

Cheers, Graham. 



foo said:


> goes without saying, try this on a COPY of your files in a completely seperate directory to ensure you don't lose anything..
> 
> I start out with a directory structure like this:
> 
> ...


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