[NickLarsson]

I have nothing to hide so I leave them too, and I like to see them in other people pics.

Never got gear-based negative comments so far.

[bigted]

I leave it in too. No one has ever passed comment on what I use and personally any unsolicited advice on the gear I chose would be ignored. My copyright info is also in the data. I like to see the info in others images and I hope that those looking at mine would prefer to see it too.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

I'm not sure it is always a conscious decision to hide the data, some editing software might strip it.

+1. The processing I do in gimp leads to me creating a new image with no EXIF. But I do edit the description to include shooting details. I also tag shots with camera and lens, so I can quickly find all images I took with a given piece of equipment.

[mikeSF]

Right, when I make panos or use an intermediate TIF file before uploading to Photomatix, the EXIF is typically stripped off. I don't do this on purpose nor do I worry that anyone cares if it is missing.

[Anvh]

You can learn if a lens is any good wide-open and such. I see no reason to strip out aperture and shutter speed data...

Good luck judging if a lens is any good with a smallish developed JPEG photo on the web.

For the aperture, focal length, shutterspeed and the ISO.
A viewer don't need to know the exact numbers and by looking at the photo it's quite easy to see if wide angle or a normal lens was used and if the aperture was wide or small and same with the shutterspeed.

By excluding the EXIF people need to look at the image to figure out how it's made and they need to think and they see the lighting conditions.
That's much more useful then staring at the numbers.

[BrianR]

Good luck judging if a lens is any good with a smallish developed JPEG photo on the web.

Many people put full or large sized images on Flickr, and besides it doesn't need to be viewed anywhere near 1:1 to give you a rough idea on how a lens/camera can perform.

For the aperture, focal length, shutterspeed and the ISO.
A viewer don't need to know the exact numbers and by looking at the photo it's quite easy to see if wide angle or a normal lens was used and if the aperture was wide or small and same with the shutterspeed.

Once you've looked at enough of them or have enough experience of your own, sure, but I always found this helpful information when I was first learning. It gives you instant access to what happens under a wide range of settings without having to the the leg work with equipment you might not even have yet, or new shooting situations you might be preparing for. There's no substitute for trying stuff out on your own, but a big database to look at in advance can be helpful.

By excluding the EXIF people need to look at the image to figure out how it's made and they need to think and they see the lighting conditions.
That's much more useful then staring at the numbers.

Making the exif available doesn't make people mindlessly obsessed with the numbers, they probably started that way or had nothing better to do. Again, it's great to be able to inspect an image, make an educated guess at the settings, and then be able to check how close you were.

[loco]

I leave EXIF and find it useful when others are gracious enough to leave it for me to view. I don't ever look at it unless the photo makes me curious about how it was captured. Often times on long exposure shots, I like to see just how long it took to get that effect. Stuff like that. It's nice to have it there, but it's not something I obsess over.

I really can't think of any reason to purposely strip it off, unless it contains some personal info you don't want to share.

[Anvh]

Once you've looked at enough of them or have enough experience of your own, sure, but I always found this helpful information when I was first learning. It gives you instant access to what happens under a wide range of settings without having to the the leg work with equipment you might not even have yet, or new shooting situations you might be preparing for. There's no substitute for trying stuff out on your own, but a big database to look at in advance can be helpful.

Making the exif available doesn't make people mindlessly obsessed with the numbers, they probably started that way or had nothing better to do. Again, it's great to be able to inspect an image, make an educated guess at the settings, and then be able to check how close you were.

Problem is these numbers are quite meaningless if you are not there or know the lighting situation, it even matters in what part of the world you're.
That's why i say these numbers are meaningless. Besides that, we use flash light 90% of the time and EXIF does not have any info on that, so good luck shooting portraits indoor with f/8 ISO100 and 1/160 shutterspeed

[TER-OR]

EXIF does tell you if the flash was used, but of course nothing much beyond that.

Still, I think EXIF is useful and don't remove that information. I find it helpful occasionally.

[Anvh]

Nope it doesn't, it only does that with the onboard flash or when a P-TTL flash is used.


I also find EXIF data useful but for myself, but not for others or when i'm looking at other peoples photo.
The thing is the photos are processed anyway and today with RAW i can push the exposure up or down with 4 stops making and still get a good image for the Internet without a problem.
Only time EXIF is useful is with reviews but i don't make review photos...

[BrianR]

Problem is these numbers are quite meaningless if you are not there or know the lighting situation, it even matters in what part of the world you're.
That's why i say these numbers are meaningless.

That's a pretty narrow view of what aperture and shutter speed do. You know full well that they don't just affect exposure.

What kind of shutter speed is needed to freeze a show jumping horse? An indy car? A high jumper? A rampaging turtle? A swinging baseball bat? Looking at others exif data can give you a good idea on a starting point. Flickr is filled with all sorts of examples like these, under probably any choice of variables you are interested in, what kind of magnification, amounts of acceptable motion blur, etc.

Besides that, we use flash light 90% of the time and EXIF does not have any info on that, so good luck shooting portraits indoor with f/8 ISO100 and 1/160 shutterspeed

Is this 90% for you personally?

When my photos are lit with external flashes, I usually include this information in the description of the picture. It's a requirement for dropping stuff in the Strobist pool (the one I use most often), and I use flickr as a sharing resource between photographers which I believe goes both ways.

If you don't find exif useful, that's great for you. If you can't see how other people find it educational, that's nice too I suppose.

[Anvh]

The thing is these numbers are very complex to use correctly and that's where the problem lies when someone say it's useful for beginners.
You need to have an idea what everything does and you don't learn that by looking at someone else their photos and looking at the EXIF because the person might have a reason for choosing certain settings which you don't know about.
Think about shutterspeed and how well he can hold the camera or if he used kind of support, then comes did he use any filters ND filter effects every setting.

If you want to know why a picture work/look good then you're looking at more general information, like did he use a tele lens with small aperture and most important of all composition.

[BrianR]

The thing is these numbers are very complex to use correctly and that's where the problem lies when someone say it's useful for beginners.

It's not that complicated. Seriously, it's not. I'm not a prodigy in any sense of the word, and I found this sort of thing a great learning tool especially when I was a raw beginner. From exif on flickr or from the settings written down in a photography book, it was a help in giving me a general feel for what settings are a good place to start with in what situations.

You need to have an idea what everything does and you don't learn that by looking at someone else their photos and looking at the EXIF because the person might have a reason for choosing certain settings which you don't know about.

This makes no sense. You see the exif, you see the results, you start to put the pieces together. Why you think it's impossible to learn anything from this is beyond me.

Think about shutterspeed and how well he can hold the camera or if he used kind of support, then comes did he use any filters ND filter effects every setting.

So the exif doesn't tell you everything. Big deal! That's no reason to ignore the things that it does tell you.

If you want to know why a picture work/look good then you're looking at more general information, like did he use a tele lens with small aperture

This is included in the exif! Great, you've found a situation where you can learn from it!

and most important of all composition.

This is included in the picture!

No one is saying to ignore the actual picture itself and head straight to the exif data. It's a supplement with some technical info that can help understand how a picture was made. That's all.

[Anvh]

Brian its nice you're braking my comment apart but some pieces belong together, like the first three parts you broke apart

Things like aperture, AOV, shutterspeed, focus point can all be seen in the picture already.
The EXIF data is not that useful for someone else because they don't know the situation in which the photo was taken in, or know the persoal prefernce of the photographer. So it's not at all easy to fit the pieces together preciesly like you're saying, so it actually easy to come to the wrong conclusion.

Like i said if you can aply the EXIF to the image you can also make a good guess of most of the settings already.
For example you need to know what aperture does if you want to aply it to the photo, and if you can aply it you can also see already if the aperture was wide or small.
Why do you want/need to know some settings so preciesly?

If you're a raw beginner i would actually advice not to look at the EXIF of other people photos because it would mostly be confusing and you might learn wrong practices, experiment with the settings and experience what it does is far better way to learn.

[dtmateojr]

EXIF data is important but since most photos are already edited, they become less relevant. Sometimes EXIF data will throw me off especially if wonky values were used (f7.1 or ISO 640 anyone?). Makes you think whether the tog knew what he was doing or just fumbling with the dials.