[Spock]

Help! My K7 doesn't seem to consistently save images in auto-rotated form.

Most portrait-format images upload to my computer unrotated but mysteriously enough, some do get rotated. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. It's driving me crazy!

(And yes, I have enabled autorotate and 'save' autorotation and it always displays images the right way up on the camera preview screen.)

Is my camera software faulty or am I doing something wrong?

Can someone help me?!

[arpaagent]

are you shooting mostly level (towards the horizon) or more towards the ground or straight up? If the camera is pointing up or down, it won't be able to tell which orientaiton you are in because gravity is no longer perpendicular the direction of the photo. Just imagine, pointing your camera straight down in line with gravity (your camera uses gravitational pull and a small accelerometer sensor in your camera to determine orientation). It would have no idea what orientation you shot in because no matter how you rotated the camera, gravity relative to the camera would not change. Same for shooting straight up. There is of course some angle that they will just say forget it and not bother trying to figure out the orientation. Maybe somewhere around 45 degrees. You could try replaying a photo on the LCD and rotate the camera into portait mode. The photo should be rotated on the LCD to display correctly. Now slowly tip the camera towards the ground and at a certain angle, the photo will snap back to the original orientatin. This will probably be around the angle that rotation data will no longer get written to your files. I just tried it with my K-7 and it did appear to be around 45 degrees.

Hope this helps. If that's not your issue then I don't know what would be.

[heliphoto]

That sounds weird, like maybe your orientation sensor has an intermittent fault... (unless as arpaagent suggests you're shooting mostly down or up).

BTW, Autorotation, is how you "glide" a helicopter down with no engine power, and it really caught my eye when I was scrolling through the posts .

[Spock]

are you shooting mostly level (towards the horizon) or more towards the ground or straight up?

I almost always shoot level photos - either landscape format or with the camera rotated 90 degrees for portrait format.

The problem is that most of my portrait photos upload to the computer as landscape - ie. on their side.

On the camera preview screen the camera always rotates the image correctly for display - so I doubt the problem is with the orientation sensor.

[heliphoto]

...

On the camera preview screen the camera always rotates the image correctly for display - so I doubt the problem is with the orientation sensor.

Then I would say it's the software you're viewing the photos with not recognizing the orientation - but then if it is intermittent... I'm stumped!

[Marc Sabatella]

Could it be that you're using different programs to display the images, and some programs can read the orientation and others can't? That's the only thing I can think that would make it intermittent. But it definitely sounds from the description liek the camera is doing it's job properly, and the problem is on the computer side.

[falconeye]

Help! My K7 doesn't seem to consistently save images in auto-rotated form. [...] Can someone help me?!

Sure

Stop shooting your shoes when standing vertical. Because for this particular situation, the orientation sensor was designed to not work.

Other than this, your software sucks when it comes to reading the orientation flag in the images meta data. A common problem.

[aleonx3]

Help! My K7 doesn't seem to consistently save images in auto-rotated form.

Most portrait-format images upload to my computer unrotated but mysteriously enough, some do get rotated. There seems to be no rhyme or reason. It's driving me crazy!

(And yes, I have enabled autorotate and 'save' autorotation and it always displays images the right way up on the camera preview screen.)

Is my camera software faulty or am I doing something wrong?

Can someone help me?!

Download a free software "PhotoME" to check the EXIF, the field you need to check is "rotation" - if it register properly either "270 CW or 90CW", then it is your image viewing application problem - not the camera.

[Spock]

Download a free software "PhotoME" to check the EXIF, the field you need to check is "rotation" - if it register properly either "270 CW or 90CW", then it is your image viewing application problem - not the camera.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I did download and install PhotoME and yes it does show correct rotation info for *most* portrait images (eg. 90 degrees CW; left, bottom) - although curiously, it doesn't rotate portrait images for display - displaying them instead on their side - as does ACDSEE and Windows File Explorer.

As an aside, Landscape images are described by PhotoME as 0 degrees; top left. What does 'top left' mean in this case?!

Now, you'll notice I used the word *most* in the first paragraph above - this is because there are some images that do autorotate (ie are displayed the correct way up) in PhotoME and also other image viewers.

These images, despite clearly being in portrait format, PhotoME describes as 0 degrees; top left - just like landscape images. (?)

Until now, I hadn't really tried the software that came with my K7, "Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4". I notice that this does autocorrect portrait images for display - although it crashes when I try to open the few portrait images that PhotoME describes as 0 degrees; top left. (?!)

I know this is confusing and it sure as hell is frustrating. If anyone can help - it sure would be appreciated!

[falconeye]

These images, despite clearly being in portrait format, PhotoME describes as 0 degrees; top left - just like landscape images. (?)
[...]
I notice that this does autocorrect portrait images for display - although it crashes when I try to open the few portrait images that PhotoME describes as 0 degrees; top left. (?!)

One logical explaination comes to mind.

The 0° portrait images have been opened in another application, ... and saved.

Some applications (most actually), rotate by transposing pixel data, not by changing the EXIF tag. They must do so to maintain correct pixel order in memory. There even are programs around which rotate JPG pixel data losslessly, avoiding the typical loss when saving JPG to JPG (they just transpose compressed data w/o recompressing).

The fact that PPL crashed on these backs my theory: PPL has problems with the particular format written by this other application.

You can check my theory by looking at the ImageProcessing tag ID 0032 in PhotoME.

[Spock]

One logical explaination comes to mind.

The 0° portrait images have been opened in another application, ... and saved.

Some applications (most actually), rotate by transposing pixel data, not by changing the EXIF tag. They must do so to maintain correct pixel order in memory. There even are programs around which rotate JPG pixel data losslessly, avoiding the typical loss when saving JPG to JPG (they just transpose compressed data w/o recompressing).

The fact that PPL crashed on these backs my theory: PPL has problems with the particular format written by this other application.

You can check my theory by looking at the ImageProcessing tag ID 0032 in PhotoME.

Aha, you may be on to something. Problem is the way things are set up ACDSee opens as soon as I plug the K7 into the computer. I'll try a few things and see if I can't import the images some other way.

Edit:
ImageProcessing tag ID 0032 in PhotoME says "content - unprocessed"; "data format - undefined(4)"

It seems that no matter which way I import the images, the only way portrait images can be displayed correctly is when viewed through "Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4".

[falconeye]

Aha, you may be on to something. Problem is the way things are set up ACDSee opens as soon as I plug the K7 into the computer. I'll try a few things and see if I can't import the images some other way.

If ACDSee rotates them losslessly upon import, it may not write "its stamp" into the EXIF. Nevertheless, verify your hypothesis by doing this:
- copy an original file from the storage card to disk using the windows explorer, maybe first making the SD card read only.
- import via ACDSee

Then compare the two files:
- open the windows command prompt
- type "help comp" to learn about the COMPare command, then use it

If the files are different, you may open them in PhotoME to see traces beyond the 0° flag.


Because I really suppose that ACDSee does NOT touch your files upon import. You probably have altered the respective ones in ACDSee or another program.

Edit:

Edit: It seems that no matter which way I import the images, the only way portrait images can be displayed correctly is when viewed through "Pentax Digital Camera Utility 4".

Ah, you updated your post

Actually, this isn't true. Most photographers use Lightroom or a similiarly capable tool and these programs have no problems to honor the rotate flag. ACDSee is no adequate peer for the K-7 anyway

[Spock]

copy an original file from the storage card to disk using the windows explorer,

Even when I view the images on the storage card with the camera operating as an external drive in Windows "My Computer" it previews the thumbnails of portrait shots on their side (ie. landscape format).

I would have thought Pentax would have designed the autorotation to work with Windows. (?)

[Spock]

Here are some resized images as they appear when downloaded to my computer:

[MikePerham]

I have my autorotation turned off. If I view a portrait image, I filp the camera over. (I do this so the image is larger). Anyway, when imported into lightroom they are all oriented properly so I wonder if it is the camera or software you are using.