data-plot-20100829.20.zip
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This plugin is somewhat of like a stripped down version of ExposurePlot, but without the coolness, except that this plugin integrates with your Lightroom catalog, which is sort of cool.
In the Library, select some images and invoke File > Plugin Extras > Plot Focal Lengths, and the plugin computes a plot of the 35mm-equivalent focal lengths used in the selected photos.
Tip: to work with all photos shown in the grid or filmstrip, select none and the plugin will automatically work with all of them. This is the same as selecting all except that selecting all suffers the side effect that Lightroom tries to compute an updated metadata display, a resource-intensive operation that can be easily avoided in this case.
The plugin also reports what percent of images were taken with a prime lens, the extreme wide or tele ranges of a zoom, or beyond the range of the lens (that is, a prime or zoom with a teleconverter). A focal length 1mm within the end of the range is counted as the end, so with a 70-200mm zoom, a shot at 70mm or 71mm is considered “most wide”, and at 199mm or 200mm, “most tele”.
It may be interesting to combine this with the “Lens” metadata item in the Library Grid filter, allowing you to generate the report on a per-lens basis.
Availability
This plugin is distributed as “donationware”. I have chosen to make it available for free — everyone can use it forever, without cost of any kind — but unless registered, its functionality is somewhat reduced after six weeks. Registration is done via PayPal, and if you choose to register, it costs the minimum 1-cent PayPal fee; any amount you'd like to add beyond PayPal's sliding fees as a gift to me is completely optional, and completely appreciated. For details, see my blog post titled Lightroom Plugin Development: Now With Added Encouragement. If you're interested in how I picked up a plugin-development hobby like this, see My Long Path To Lightroom Plugin Development.
Lightroom 3:
It's been a long and arduous road preparing for Lightroom 3, but it's finally out. My plugin registration system has changed for Lr3, for plugin versions released after Lr3 was released. Please see the registration page to understand the details before deciding whether to upgrade.
)| 20100829.20 | Made the revalidation process much simpler, doing away with the silly need for a revalidation file. |
| 20100822.19 | Assume any camera-model Exif with 'scan' in it is from a film/slide scanner, and treat as a full-frame size. |
| 20100820.18 | Discovered a bug in my plugin build system that caused horribly difficult-to-track-down errors in one plugin, so am pushing out rebuilt versions of all plugins just in case. |
| 20100814.17 | Added code to allow plugin revalidation after having been locked due to a bad Lightroom serial number. |
| 20100625.16 | Yikes, shaking out some more build issues. |
| 20100624.15 | Discovered a nasty build bug; pushing a new version in case it affects this plugin. |
| 20100624.14 | Oops, some of the new Lr3 collection stuff wasn't working... should be now. |
| 20100609.13 | This version can be registered in Lightroom 3. It can run in Lightroom 2 or Lightroom 3; it does not work in the Lr3 betas. It uses my new registration system when run on Lightroom 3, which avoids some of the silly issues of the old one. Please take care to note the details on the registration page: use of this version (or later) of the plugin in Lightroom 3 requires a new registration code, even if you had registered some older version of the plugin. |
| 20100518.12 | Added support for the Canon 550D/KissX4/T2i, which for some reason doesn't include the 35mm-equivalent focal length in its metadata |
| 20100516.11 | Update for the Lr3 beta. |
| 20100315.10 | Wholesale changes that attempt to honor the user's locale settings for numeric display (e.g. Europeans writing 3,14156 for pi). I've probably missed some spots, so let me know if you find some. |
| 20100312.9 | A few more UI tweaks. |
| 20100215.8 | Minor UI tweaks on Mac. Completely changed how the one-click upgrade applies the newly-downloaded zip file, in the hopes that it'll work for more people. Rather than unzipping over the old copy, it now unzips to a temporary folder, then moves the old folder out of the way and the new folder into place. Prior versions' folders are now maintained (with the version number in the folder) in case you want to revert a version; you may want to clear them out from time to time. Of course, it won't take affect until you try to upgrade after having upgraded to or beyond this version. |
| 20091205.7 | Minor internal debugging tweaks. |
| 20091022.6 | Added a bunch of standard sensor sizes to the "view in terms of" list, so you're not limited to the view of just the cameras you already have. |
| 20091022.5 | Added the ability to save the raw data to a CSV file, and the ability in the dialog to view the focal lengths in terms of any of the cameras used. |
| 20091022.4 | Added a first draft of some rudimentary support for Lightroom 3 Beta. See this important note about plugin support in Lightroom 3 Beta and Lightroom 3, including future plans for features and my registration system. |
| 20091018.3 | Doubled the size of the crop-factor database thanks to a library of images provided by exiftool author Phil Harvey. |
| 20091017.2 | Well, I didn't realize that some camera makers (e.g. Canon) don't populate the FocalLengthIn35mmFilm metadata item, so I built a database of camera crop factors (currently: 678 cameras) to compute the 35mm- equiv focal length myself. |
| 20091016.1 | Initial public release. |
Thanks Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
Thanks for making yet another plugin. This one does not work for me though. My Canon Kiss X2 seems not write Equivalent Focal Length EXIF data so when I select photos taken with the Canon I get a “no photos had 35mm-equiv focal-length data” message. Ones taken with my Panasonic DMC-FX9 do have the exif data and the plugin works just as you describe on those pictures.
Is it possible to use Focal Length exif data directly instead of the 35mm equivalent?
Thanks
David
That’s on the todo list, sort of. I think I’d build a database of camera sensor sizes, and compute the 35mm equiv. data myself. Or, have it revert to Focal Length if no images have a 35mm equiv… —Jeffrey
Ahhhhhh, great! Thanks a lot Jeffrey!
Hallo Jeffrey,
first I want to thank you for yor work.
Unfortunately none of my 14 used cameras seem to write 35-mm-eq to the metadata.
Like for David Dibben, the original focal-length-data would be ok for me.
Kindly regards from Germany
Juergen
Maybe I was a bit ambitious for a first go but I let it go on a 132,000 images and it returned results on about 6,800 of them producing the graphic.. followed by crashing lightroom. 95% of my shots were shot with Canon DSLR bodies and Canon EF lenses. LR is able to report on them so I know the data is there.
It says I have 39 different cameras, 57 different lenses used in my catalog, so if you need a tester for this one let me know!
Very Cool tool, and I posted a link on Twitter to let all the other LR users I know find out about it.
Thanks Again for the useful tools.
Christopher
When you say that LR reports about your Canon shots, does it also report the 35mm-equiv. focal length? I didn’t know it when I released the plugin, but it seems that Canon cameras don’t add that bit of metadata, so I’ll have to figure a way for the plugin to calculate it itself. As for the LR crash, that’s really unexpected. —Jeffrey
Ah, pokin around in the library to grab data and stats. Great Fun!
First – this worked for me. I went straight to a large library 18,600 photos, one camera(Canon) and Four Lens.
It toook a while but the chart was displayed.
Then I thought, Now What?
===
I think that greater Utility could be had from the generation of a CSV format file containing selected columns from the photos of the library.
I would take this info into MS Excel and analyse, graph, pivot table with it there.
ex.
Fname, date, camera, lens, shutter, aperture, focal length, ISO, …
You are unlikely to satisfy everyones desire for reporting, lens chart, aperture chart, date chart, iso chart, Just a bit more data
Export to CSV can place the data in the hands of the user.
Roy
What you’re asking for is Tim Armes’ LR/Transporter plugin, which already exists so I won’t replicate it
, but FWIW, I’ve just pushed Data Plot v5 which allows you to save the focal-length summary-chart data as CSV. —Jeffrey
I second Roy’s idea.
A generic stats export plugin would be of tremendous value – IMHO, the type of people interested in these data plots (I am certainly one of them) are just the type to want to filter/sort/graph/pivot table the data to death.
Thanks!
AJ
I really like it – just tried it out today. Thanks for stuff like this.
Keep it up!
Interesting looking plugin. I used ImageReporter which runs separate from Lightroom. The ability to use a csv file would provide those whose like this kind of stuff to play with it the best. IR doesn’t do cvs. It does report to the nearest 10mm which makes for nicer plots. This has come in handy for looking at what lenses to buy after using a “vacation” zoom (18-200).
The one major sticking point is reporting in equivalent focal length. This is misleading and in the case of using the data to help with lens purchase – useless. I shoot both film and digital cameras using the same lenses. A 100mm lens produces the same perspective and distance compression on a crop sensor or 8×10 negative. This e-focal crap has to die… sorry, bit of a sore spot. Maybe an option to use either equiv or reported would be a solution?
And for some reason LR thinks I have 3 different cameras with the same make, model, and serial number.
Enjoy the plugins, great work!
From Midwest United States.
Consider shooting with a compact for years, and run the plot and you find that your most common focal lengths are 8.2mm and 17.8mm, but now you’re moving up to a DSLr. What lenses should you consider? Of course, the example you cite is valid, but there are plenty of situations where 35mm-equiv is exactly the most helpful way to look at things. In any case, as it turns out, I just pushed v5 which allows you to look at the data WRT any of the cameras used. And now that I think about it, I’ll add some standard crop factors in there as well, so v6 should follow soon…. —Jeffrey
Hi Jeffrey,
Thank you for making available these great Lightroom plugins.
I was just thinking there are a couple of things that could make the Data Plot plugin even more useful IMHO:
1. Focal length is logarithmic in question – in your diagram above, the 20mm range between 14 and 31mm range is far more vast than the 492-510mm range at the other extreme, in terms of look. I suggest the scale should be logarithmic – between 7 and 20mm (35mm equiv f.l.) each range on the chart should probably be no more than 1mm, whereas at the other extreme (above 400 mm) it can be as much as 50 or 100mm.
2. Your tool takes data and turn it into information. It’d be great if it went a step further to turn it into answers. So what are the questions? I can think of:
- Which focal lengths and apertures are associated with my best rated shots?
- Which focal lengths and apertures am I using most often?
- Which lenses can I do without?
- Which lenses produce the most shots I reject?
Regards
Alex Karasev
Thanks. I was looking for something like that worked with the LR library just a few weeks ago. If you could find the time I think it would be great to have graphs for ISO and other exposure info too.
Thanks for another great plugin.
Using this in combination with built in LR filters really helps me understand which lenses produce the most pleasing shots.
Jeffrey,
I have been playing with Data Plot and graphing with Excel. It has shown me some interesting things about lens use. Makes one wonder why I bought some of them…. I always like a neat program… keep up the good work. Thanks.
I first tried doing a “Screen Print”, but all I got was the background of LR2, not the Data Plot (it’s really labeled “Jeffrey’s Focal-Lenght Plot”). Not sure why this happens. Press Print SCRN and the Data Plot panel vanishes, “click”, the screen print happens, the data plot comes back on top. What gets saved is the LR2 panel.
In playing around for a day or so and looking at what I wanted out of it I found, at least for me, some “Nice to Have” ideas for the way I did my graphs. Yes, I realize “Easier Said Than Done”…
I do the Data Plot then do a Save Data to generate the CSVs. Then on to Excel (since I could not print screen it).
First thing I had to do was delete the blank lines after I opened the CSV in Excel (2000). Would be nice if the blank lines were not there.
Then I converted the StartMM and EndMM to the normal lens values. Just divided the values by 1.5 because the output of Save Data converts (or uses) 35mm equivelent. Know you are working on this. Great if it was the same choices as on the screen plot.
Then I created a new column of data that was a Range in mm, using the StartMM and EndMM converted data. Just like on the Data Plot. Would be nice if you had a column in the CSV giving range.
I would like to see nice rounded values in the StartMM EndMM and RangeMM areas. Values in multiples of 5, 10, 25, etc. Nice round numbers. Currently you might have a value of 189 or 193. How about these falling in a 185-200 range. I had lots of odd ball numbers on my plots. This would be a “Nice to Have” but most likely is a “Easier Said Than Done” item.
Thanks again for neat programs. Not to mention a neat website.
George Kindt, W0MKZ
Loveland, CO USA
Hello,
I’m triing out your data-plot plugin but when I check my Panasonic FZ30 pictures I see in the dropdown more than 1 entry for the FZ30 with different crop factors (4,9 – 5 – 5,1 – 7,5).
The FZ30 has a lens of 7,4-88,8 mm wich is equivalent to 35-420 mm so the cropfactor is 4,73 (4,729729729729… to be more precise)
Now you can choose a lower resolution where the FZ30 only uses the center of the sensor and so seems to have a bigger cropfactor but that is in reality only a crop of the bigger picture so (in my opinion) nothing to use in your calculations.
You say you use a database of camera’s to calculate the 35mm equivalent but I suppose that it is buildin the plugin and that the user has no acces to it to add/remove entries?
Many thanks in advance,
If it were using only part of the sensor for the smaller images, it would be a bigger crop, but it’s downsizing from the full sensor to create the smaller image, and hence the crop factor is the same, but gets calculated incorrectly, which is the real problem you’re reporting. The problem is that the plugin can’t tell the difference between an image that’s been cropped, and an image that’s just smaller out of camera. I suppose it makes sense to assume it’s smaller out of camera and let it be wrong if it’s been cropped before loading into LR… I’ll look to see whether I can do that. —Jeffrey
Hi ! Congrats on your program !
Just one question: does it also works with RAW anf TIF files, or only with JPG (like ExposurePlot) ?
TIA to let me know…
Regards,
J-P.
PS. I’m in Geneva, Switzerland
It works with your Lightroom catalog, so if Lightroom knows the focal length, so does the plugin. —Jeffrey