Analog Metadata

This python script allows you to add metadata to your pictures that you've taken with your beloved analog camera. Of course, as the neat freak that you are, you want the camera make and model as well as the film stock and film speed in the metadata of those pictures. Not to mention, having the pictures ordered in the order that you took them. This script does all of that! (More or less)

Prerequisites

You have to have python3 installed and the python package piexif.

Usage

Your project should have a structure like this

roll_folder_1
    | pictures
    | roll.json
roll_folder_2
    | pictures
    | roll.json
roll_folder_3
    | pictures
    | roll.json
analog_metadata.py

Basically, where each roll have it's own folder containing all the pictures form that roll.

The roll.json file should contain the information about that particular roll.

{
    "roll_no": "0",             // Keep track of your rolls
    "camera_make": "Konica",    // The camera make
    "camera_model": "FC-1",     // The camera model
    "film_speed": "200",        // The film speed
    "film_stock": "Kodak Gold", // The film stock
    "film_format": "35",        // The format of the film
    "comments": "",             // Add comments to your pictures
    "start_date": "01.07.2019", // The date you took the first picture
    "end_date": "05.08.2019",   // The date you took the last picture
    "date_developed": "31.08.2019" // The date the roll got developed
    "reverse_order": "false"    // Set to true if the scanned photos are in reverse order
}

The script will use the end date as the timestamp for each of the photos.

Here you have a template of the roll.json file. Just copy it to the folder with the structure as mentioned above.

You run the script by python3 analog-metadata.py or ./analog_metadata.py depending on your system.

The script will then rename the folder to {start date}-{end date} and also rename all the pictures according to {end date}-analog-{sequence}. It's important that you leave roll.json in the folder as it tells the script that the pictures within that folder has been processed.

Remarks

• The script only process jpeg, jpg and png files
• The script actually only fixes the timestamp so that the picture appear in the correct order in programs like Google Photos, it does not know in which order they were taken if the pictuers are not sorted beforehand. Hopefully, the lab developing your photos have done so and scanned them in the correct order.