To show EXIF or not?

EyeCake

I am an amateur photographer who enjoys not only taking pictures but also viewing other great photos from other photographers from all around the world and hopefully pick up a few good ideas and tips along the way.
I mostly use Flickr and when I see an interesting shot will often scroll down to see what camera or lens was used or maybe the shutter time or aperture.
The majority of people seem happy to share this info. Learning is about sharing ideas and information.
My question is what are the people who share photos but not information afraid of losing or giving away?

DaireQuinlan

It's questionable that it's of any value really. Knowing what shutter speed or what aperture or what iso some shot was taken at in a particular place and a particular time isn't really that useful a piece of information. Everything is in flux. Every exposure is different.

What lens or What camera is even more irrelevant, and it just feeds into the notion that gear is in some way important. "Oh if only I had that camera or that lens then I could take that shot, but I only have the kit lens" etc etc etc.

Also it's annoying. I started putting details into the description of my shots on flickr because people were at me the whole time. In some cases actually getting annoyed that I didn't have EXIF available, as though I owed them something. In short, people are weird.

CabanSail

I can see the interest in EXIF but I also mainly agree with Daire above.

If it's a technical shot then the details may have some importance but often it just adds confusion. You should be able to work out the exposure settings which matter by looking at the image itself.

magicbastarder

if you want to ape a shot, then yes, it would be good to have the info. but it adds nothing to the enjoyment of looking at it.

Tiriel

If you use Photoshop and your default import from raw is 16bit, when you save for web as a jpeg it doesn't save the exif data. You need to first switch to 8bit and then save as jpeg. Something I realized I was doing wrong.

MysticalRain

I find EXIF data useful. Photography is after all a blend of technology and art, so knowing some of the technical details of how a picture was created can be helpful (more so to beginners perhaps than established photographers) e.g. if you are trying to figure out the exposure settings of an astrophotography shot, the GPS coordinates of where the shot was taken, or the model of lens used in a shot that had really nice bokeh.

I’m not sure why people don’t share EXIF data. It could be privacy concerns, or paranoia about having their techniques aped by other photographers.

DaireQuinlan

MysticalRain wrote: »

I’m not sure why people don’t share EXIF data. It could be privacy concerns, or paranoia about having their techniques aped by other photographers.

Or they're not bothered. Or they want people to concentrate on the shot itself and not some irrelevant technical details. I keep development details in my tags on flickr, but that's to help remind myself how I did something if I want to repeat it in the future, it's not there for anyone else's benefit.

MysticalRain

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Or they're not bothered. Or they want people to concentrate on the shot itself and not some irrelevant technical details. I keep development details in my tags on flickr, but that's to help remind myself how I did something if I want to repeat it in the future, it's not there for anyone else's benefit.

Well they obviously were bothered if they went into the settings in their account to change the default privacy settings for displaying EXIF data.

DaireQuinlan

MysticalRain wrote: »

Well they obviously were bothered if they went into the settings in their account to change the default privacy settings for displaying EXIF data.

Assuming you regard the entirety of the photographic world as being contained in flickr then yes, that is true.

MysticalRain

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

Assuming you regard the entirety of the photographic world as being contained in flickr then yes, that is true.

Why make assumptions? It's not as if Flickr is the only photo sharing platform that allows people to do that.

pixbyjohn

I think 500px always shows the Exif data.
A few people I know don't wish to show their Exif because they don't want to advertise the expensive gear they use.

EyeCake

pixbyjohn wrote: »

I think 500px always shows the Exif data.
A few people I know don't wish to show their Exif because they don't want to advertise the expensive gear they use.

The default setting on most photo sharing sites is to show the EXIF data so it has to be turned off deliberately. This also goes for 500PIX It is certainly not something I would look at in most photos I look at but occasionally I would like to see what settings were used.
I suppose a question for another day would be what do people hope to get out of putting their pictures on public photo sharing websites?

Deadlie

EyeCake wrote: »

I am an amateur photographer who enjoys not only taking pictures but also viewing other great photos from other photographers from all around the world and hopefully pick up a few good ideas and tips along the way.

CabanSail wrote:

You should be able to work out the exposure settings which matter by looking at the image itself.

The OP stated they were an amateur and enjoyed looking at EXIF to help them understand photography. How are they supposed to know the settings by looking at images at such an early stage?

I found EXIF data massively useful in my early days. It gave me an understanding of what others were doing and why. Case in point, 90+% of music photographers were shooting in Manual mode, with a minimum of 1/100 shutter speed. This allowed me to fix the issues I was having, by following their lead. I didn't understand that shutter speed mode was essentially useless, until I saw that others were not using it and sat down to work out why

There are some instances where it is absolutely useless though - off camera/strobist photography in particular, as the EXIF data shows only about 1/2 the story.

Still though, as a starting point for beginners, it's a pretty handy tool.

AnimalRights

When I started too I loved reading exif and I also still read exif on certain photographs I am interested in.

The J Stands for Jay

EyeCake wrote: »

I suppose a question for another day would be what do people hope to get out of putting their pictures on public photo sharing websites?

When strangers praise my pictures I feel special.

CabanSail

Deadlie wrote: »

The OP stated they were an amateur and enjoyed looking at EXIF to help them understand photography. How are they supposed to know the settings by looking at images at such an early stage?

EXIF can be useful BUT it is often adds more confusion. Rather than getting fixated on the values of Aperture, Shutter Speed, Focal Length etc. it would be better for someone starting out to work out what is important from the image itself. By understanding optics and exposure you will be able to determine the values used for an image. I am not saying that you will be able to say "That is f3.2 at 1/75th of a second through a lens set at 102mm" but you should be able to determine that it was probably a mid telephoto lens with a wide aperture and a normal shutter speed.
I recall a conversation with the late Bill Doyle who I was trying to get to give a talk. He had stopped talking to photographers as he was tired of the questions about what camera he used, which lens, how was it set. He said he did not remember or care, it was the image that was important and what it portrayed.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

I think the extra data is nice to have, but people shouldn't get bogged down on it. I like to see what lens people use and the capabilities of some low range cameras is amazing. I also find the ISO to be quite interesting. I don't focus so much on the shutter speed and apature.