Annotation App and Phase One shift metadata

[mristuccia]

Hi everybody,

as someone of you already knows, some months ago I've bought a Cambo WDS technical camera which I use with my Hasselblad CFV-50c back and V lenses.
As soon as I've started using it, and also thanks to some interesting discussion in this forum, I've decided to develop an iPhone app which takes manual shots' annotations (lenses, iso, aperture, shutter speed, shift, tilt, ecc...) and is then able to export them into a data file.
I've also developed a companion desktop app which takes all those exported annotations and automatically matches and writes them into the EXIF/IPTC metadata of the images (RAW, TIFF or JPG) contained in specified folder. I'm almost finished with the first version of this solution. It works pretty well and flawlessly.

The desktop app gives the following options:

• write all the annotations into the IPTC "Instructions" field as a descriptive text.
• optionally write the annotations to the corresponding EXIF metadata (Iso, exposure_time, ecc...).

For the sake of completeness, even if I actually don't use any P1 hardware, I'd like to optionally transfer the shift annotations directly into the right metadata of the P1 IIQ/EIP RAW file. This could theoretically allow automatic shift corrections with C1 for people using the P1 IQ4-150 (and maybe other backs) with technical cameras different from the XT.

I've already found where the shift metadata are written, but right know I'm not sure on how to interpret the values. It seems that there is the rotation of the camera (or is it the back which rotates?) to take into account.

To discover this I would need RAW files coming from a P1 XT camera, the only one to my knowledge which is currently able to automatically write shift informations into the RAW file. So I'm here to ask if someone of you who owns a P1 XT would be so kind to take some test shots for me with right/left/up/down shifts on both landscape and portrait positions and send the produced RAW files to me.

I hope I'm not hurting anyone's sensibility nor infringing any P1 business/copyright/patents by trying to extend the P1 shift annotations to people using P1 backs with non P1 technical cameras.
If you think I'm doing so, please let me know and I will skip this feature implementation.

Thank you in advance.

Kind regards,
marco

 

[Alan]

For the sake of completeness, even if I actually don't use any P1 hardware, I'd like to optionally transfer the shift annotations directly into the right metadata of the P1 IIQ/EIP RAW file. This could theoretically allow automatic shift corrections with C1 for people using the P1 IQ4-150 (and maybe other backs) with technical cameras different from the XT.

Hi Marco, have you made any progress on this? I'm interested in a tool to enter shift metadata that C1 would pick up!

 

[mristuccia]

Hi Marco, have you made any progress on this? I'm interested in a tool to enter shift metadata that C1 would pick up!

Hi Alan,

thanks for the interest!
No one has helped me with the XT by providing some sample shifted files. Thus for now I'm not going to write shift metadata into the right exit fields, because I don't know which and where they are. If you happen to have some XT generated images with shift on both direction, please send the raw to me so that I can analyse them and find the right place to write the shift metadata into.

Besides this, my solution is almost done, it comprises two apps:

• One for iPhone which allows to take annotations for each shot in the field (f-stop, shutter time, focus distance, shift, tilt, etc...), with a useful "clone" option which allows copying the settings from a preceding shot to make it faster.
• One Java multi-platform desktop app which takes the export of the iPhone app and automatically writes the metadata into the RAW files by matching the image number. The desktop app uses Exiftool under the hood, so it is able to write metadata into the most popular raw types, including IIQ. Unfortunately Exiftool does not natively support EIP, so I started writing a bit of custom code to write metadata into it, but as I said I suspended this part because I find it difficult without some more specs and sample files.

I'm already testing it in the field and it works quite well. Being those apps very basic my intention is personal use for now. I use it with my Cambo WDS + CFV-50c + Hasselblad V lenses. I annotate everything, including shift data so that I can store them directly into the RAW file and all the exported TIFFs. I then use the Alpa tool to correct distortions on shifted lenses.

Maybe in the future if there will be some interest (I doubt) I can think of making the apps more robust and refined and making them available for everyone for a pair of dollars, just to recover the time spent developing them.

 

[mristuccia]

Hi Marco, have you made any progress on this? I'm interested in a tool to enter shift metadata that C1 would pick up!

Hi again Alan,

this night I worked a little bit on this topic. I managed to generate an IIQ file containing shift informations. So I've understood where the shift metadata are written.
I can confirm that the annotation of shift data is working for the IIQ files. The informations are correctly reported by C1 when the IIQ file is imported.
EIP remains unsupported for now. Will work on it when I have more time.

Best,
m/

 

[Alan]

I don't have an XT or IQ4150.

I'm currently entering shift data in Capture One. After thinking :loco: about it a bit, I'm not sure what the gain would be with such a utility. If manually entering the info, it probably doesn't matter if it's in C1 or in a separate app.

 

[gerald.d]

I don't have an XT or IQ4150.

I'm currently entering shift data in Capture One. After thinking :loco: about it a bit, I'm not sure what the gain would be with such a utility. If manually entering the info, it probably doesn't matter if it's in C1 or in a separate app.

Unless you're shooting tethered and enter the data into Capture One immediately after taking the shot, the gain is surely that you capture the data at the time of taking the image, only have to enter it a single time into a single application, and can bulk-load data for a whole day's shooting automatically at the press of a button?

Kind regards,


Gerald.

 

[mristuccia]

Unless you're shooting tethered and enter the data into Capture One immediately after taking the shot, the gain is surely that you capture the data at the time of taking the image, only have to enter it a single time into a single application, and can bulk-load data for a whole day's shooting automatically at the press of a button?

Kind regards,


Gerald.

That's exactly what my solution is intended for. I need to take notes in any case when I'm on the field.
Not only for shift data, also for all other metadata a manual lens cannot directly communicate to the back: aperture, focus distance, lens filters used, lens make, model and focal length, etc...
When I'm done with my shot session I export the annotations directly from the iPhone app by sending them to me via email, or by saving them into my cloud. When I'm back home I open the desktop app, point it to the export file, indicate the raw image folder and just press a button. Done!

For my personal needs it works quite well.

Regards,
m/

 

[Alan]

Unless you're shooting tethered and enter the data into Capture One immediately after taking the shot, the gain is surely that you capture the data at the time of taking the image, only have to enter it a single time into a single application, and can bulk-load data for a whole day's shooting automatically at the press of a button?

That's exactly what my solution is intended for. I need to take notes in any case when I'm on the field.
Not only for shift data, also for all other metadata a manual lens cannot directly communicate to the back: aperture, focus distance, lens filters used, lens make, model and focal length, etc...
When I'm done with my shot session I export the annotations directly from the iPhone app by sending them to me via email, or by saving them into my cloud. When I'm back home I open the desktop app, point it to the export file, indicate the raw image folder and just press a button. Done!

Now I'm catching on - that does sound good! For some reason I was only thinking of the desktop half of the strategy.

GPS coordinates would be handy to record as well, even if not used in Capture One.

 

[mristuccia]

Now I'm catching on - that does sound good! For some reason I was only thinking of the desktop half of the strategy.

GPS coordinates would be handy to record as well, even if not used in Capture One.

Alan that's a great hint. Will add it as well. Let's see where we end up.