Peter talked about how Hasselblad (the camera software once begun as an Imacon scanner software) handles metadata in their camera software. They have supported the IIM version of IPTC metadata since the very first version. They also have an history log where you can see how the images has been processed, data from the can be embedded into the exported file.

Hasselblad uses a proprietary format for their raw capture. They did use the open DNG format for a while but has returned to their own format. The DNG format lacks support for some advanced features used for i.e. lens correction. They were asked if the documentation of the file format is publicly available – it is not. But they are cooperating with Apple and Adobe to let their software read the files. He did not omit the possibility to release it as open source in the future, but added that the lens correction are relaying on proprietary reference tables.

Note from the editor: This question regarding open and well-documented file format is very important in this discussion of metadata. Without an open format image repositories can’t read and edit all metadata. This question is of course just as relevant to put to other camera vendors. Most digital cameras use proprietary and secret file formats.

Notes from the first Photo Metadata Conference. This conference was held in Florence, Italy june 7, 2007. It was organized by Cepic, IPTC and IFRA. These are my private notes published to give you some idea of what was discussed. I will later write some articles from the conference and publish those on BLF.se and DigitalFotografen.se, but probably only in Swedish. If there are any demand I might make a short translated version in English. You can find presentations and more information at phmdc.org and cepic.org .

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