William Matheson (nova_one) wrote,
William Matheson
nova_one
  • Location: Bedford, NS
  • Mood: pleased

Camera Odometer

I just discovered that my camera embeds a field called "Image number" in the metadata that goes with each and every photo. The metadata in general is an invaluable source of information, without which I'd literally get lost - the only reason the Ukraine photos from 2005 are so accurately organized is that I had the metadata to back up (and often correct) my guesses. (It's also shown me that I often forget to reset the camera's clock when I switch time zones or go on and off summertime, but the fact that I was so bad about changing it made it possible for me to extrapolate what time it really was.)

But now thanks to the "Image number," I now know exactly how many pictures (okay, about 0.5% are probably video clips) I've taken. The auto-generated filenames can't be trusted over a period of time anything close to the life of the camera, and I've gone through "9999" and back to "0000" a few too many times to get a bead on that anyway. What's even better is that the count survives the tiny clock / settings battery being ejected from the camera, as once happened to me on the sidewalk outside Edmonton International Airport after I'd extracted myself from a cab and I bent over with my camera bag still unlatched.

My very first photo was taken on March 5th, 2004, just after noon. Now I remember, I was permitted to open up the camera when it arrived, to set it up and see if it worked. Then I had to put it back in the box, since it was my graduation present. I picked up the camera for its fifth shot on May 21st and never looked back.

Count as of October 21st, 2007: 28,913

Not bad for a camera that came free with a printer Mom got off The Shopping Channel.
Tags: camera, gifts, metadata, odometer, photos, pictures
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