[jamarley]

I have several favorite parks that I walk in the evenings with my dog. With the weather finally improving the snow has nearly completely melted and last night I noticed something on the ground - a bright orange box about the size of a tape measure. It turned out to be a ProMaster Weatherproof case with a 32gb SD card inside. I cleaned it up and opened a few files hoping to find the owner's info in the exif without success. I think these were taken with a Nikon D600, and from the content appear to be from a for-hire photographer as they were of obviously different families all posing in this park. I have seen someone, with an assistant, at this park on several occasions but being there with my dog I have never approached. I did fire off an email to ProMaster to see if they have a record of selling this to someone in my area, but that's the only thing I could think to do so far. Nikon itself requires a login just to send an email, so that's not an option for me and I don't use Facebook or Twitter. Any other suggestions folks?

[TinaS]

Maybe someone you know who uses social media could post for you. Does the park have a bulletin board for announcements & stuff? If so, maybe a note there could help.

[TER-OR]

Yeah, the park would be first - and often the county has a Facebook page - or state park or locality, if that's what it is. They often have their own police as well, so that's a possibility.

I encourage everyone to put their name in their EXIF profile.

[K57XR]

Good advices above. You can put them in the Lost+Found section of Craigslist. There’s also Nikonforums (run by Adam, I believe) and Nikonforum (without the “s”). I’d assume someone shooting with a D600 would tend to know these forums somehow. I guess the tricky part is proving who the owner is whoever comes forward. Maybe ask to bring a photo sample and match the exif serial numbers to the photos you found? I don’t know about Nikon but Pentax exif shows internal SN, which is different from the body SN.

[interested_observer]

A couple of thoughts....

• Take a look at the embedded EXFI meta data on the images. There is usually a Copyright field, that the camera can automagically fill in that might indicate who the photographer is or the camera owner. Lightroom or any utility can show this. PhotoMe is a free download that shows all of this information.
• Going back to the EXFI metadata again. This holds the serial numbers of both the camera and the lens. Jot these down and find a high end Nikon shop. They should have the connections to Nikon to possibly find the owner (or buyer)....
• There are lost photo and lost camera websites. You might try posting there.
• Is there a reddit.com subreddit for your city? If so, post an image or two asking for help in identifying the folks
• The park's management may know who the photographers are who use the park from time to time. Ask them....

[jamarley]

Thanks for theses suggestions everyone. There are several I will initiate when I get home tonight. I wish there was an equal to PhotoMe for Mac, but the copyright info was not showing up in Lightroom so I guess the owner didn't have it in there anyway. Keep those suggestions coming!

[Sagitta]

Thanks for theses suggestions everyone. There are several I will initiate when I get home tonight. I wish there was an equal to PhotoMe for Mac, but the copyright info was not showing up in Lightroom so I guess the owner didn't have it in there anyway. Keep those suggestions coming!

Check Panoramio, Flickr and/or 500px and see if you have local Nikon shooter who shoots from that park. They may have embedded location information on the maps on those sites.

[Tamia]

Thanks for theses suggestions everyone. There are several I will initiate when I get home tonight. I wish there was an equal to PhotoMe for Mac, but the copyright info was not showing up in Lightroom so I guess the owner didn't have it in there anyway. Keep those suggestions coming!

If you have a Mac, download GraphicConverter, which can be used for free. Be sure to get the version that will work with your generation of computer and its current operating system. Then use it to open (COMMAND-O) one of the images. When the picture comes up, click the menu item "Window," then select "Show Information" in the drop-down menu. This brings up a small box with several tabs. Click the EXIFTool tab, and this should give you all the information that's embedded in the image.

[johnmflores]

I can post on Reddit.

Like anything lost and found, you want to provide enough info to help find the person, but you also want to hold something back as a test for anyone that might come forward. Might I suggest providing the County and the Month and let potential claimants identify the park and date? Or something like that.

Let me know what you want to share and I'll post on Reddit. And there's NJ Photographers group on Facebook that I can post on as well.

[jamarley]

I can post on Reddit.

Like anything lost and found, you want to provide enough info to help find the person, but you also want to hold something back as a test for anyone that might come forward. Might I suggest providing the County and the Month and let potential claimants identify the park and date? Or something like that.

Let me know what you want to share and I'll post on Reddit. And there's NJ Photographers group on Facebook that I can post on as well.

Thank you John. I have a PM coming your way.

[jamarley]

Thanks to johnmflores, there are now posts on Facebook & Reddit. Kudos to you John!