Adding lens, aperture, and focal length with exiftool

Posted: Mon May 09, 2011 5:28 pm

While some cameras provide a feature to input data about older manual lenses, not all do. If an individual is so inclined to add this metadata to the original NEF (RAW) file here is some information.

For exiftool a sample command line would be something like:

Code:

exiftool -overwrite_original -Lens="35 mm f/2.0" *.NEF

The following example shows how I may use exiftool for my 50mm which would write the lens name, the aperture in 2 locations (the FNumber is what is seen by Nikon Capture NX2 other applications may use ApertureValue) and the focal length of the lens.

Code:

exiftool -overwrite_original -Lens="Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 Ais" -ApertureValue="1.4" -FNumber="1.4" -FocalLength="50" *.NEF

Note

Code:

exiftool -Lens="Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 Ais" -ApertureValue="1.4" -FNumber="1.4" -FocalLength="50" *.NEF

Using the above code would rename the originals to name.NEF_original for automated backup. This would provide the following inside the directory

name.NEF-original -----> Your original file renamed
name.NEF -----> Your new exiftool modified file.

I recommend backing up your images manually and removing them from the directory temporarily.