I think this has been brought up before, but can we add 'focal length' to the image information we enter when uploading a photo?
Also, for DPC Prints, would it be possible to add a line for us to fill in that is 'Copyright Information'. The content of this line could be printed on the back of the photo along with the title and 'Challenging Technologies, LLC'.
If we were dealing with only "direct from the camera" shots, focal length might be useful. But as soon as you perform any sort of cropping, the focal length is no longer valid.
As far as printing additional information on the back of prints ordered from DPCPrints, adding more lines isn't an option; what you see on the back is all the printable space available. It has been suggested to replace the photo title with a copyright instead.
In terms of automatically parsing EXIF, most people do not include EXIF data in their "web-sized" submissions. Photoshop's "Save for web..." feature specifically discards EXIF and color profile information normally present when you do a "Save as..." in order to reduce file sizes. When people upload an original for validation purposes, the Site Council does get to see a plethora of information about the shot with a click of the mouse.
If we were dealing with only "direct from the camera" shots, focal length might be useful. But as soon as you perform any sort of cropping, the focal length is no longer valid.
I think even with cropping knowing what focal length the picture was taken at is still very useful. Focal length effects more then what is in the picture, it effect perspective and how objects in the picture relate to one another. I often wonder what focal length a particular picture was taken at.
The problem I do see with including the focal length is it has different meaning depending on the type camera used. 35mm DSLR lens focal length are different then the single lens digital camera but since the type of camera used is included I think it would still be useful.
well, you can tell your photo browsing software how to interpret the exif focal length data - thats what i have done, so if you have numerous camera with different crop factors you can set up profiles for each camera, and the software will know which profile to use by the rest of the exif data.
ulead photo explorer is what i am using..
and it is true a longer focal length smushes things together more than a short one, and DOF is affected whether or not you crop the image.
so that information is potentially useful even on a cropped image.
i tend not to crop too many of mine - or maybe just slightly.
lately i have been trying to post the lense used, and focal length, tripod or not - in the image details area...
I do still think copyright info being printed on the back of DPCPrints photos would be good...
But the copyright would have to indicate the photographer's name or business, not DPC's business name. DPC does not hold any copyright in the images, but has instead a limited license to use them.
