How to find a specific metadata item

[LateJunction]

I needed to to know the firmware level of my camera. Advice on the web was to examine the EXIF data from an image using a tool such EXIFTool. I decided this would be a good way to learn more about iMatch. Having spent 3 hours this morning trying to find this data, I admit defeat - can somebody please advise me?

No firnware data is shown in any of the metadata information shown for the image I have selected in the file window. If I use the ExifTool processor (F9) I am similarly unable to find a tag which contains the text 'firm' or 'firmware'.

If I run EXIFTool outside of iMatch, I see the data I want immediately, listed as 'Canon Firmware Level'. How can I find this in iMatch ?

[Mario]

The ExifTool Command Processor shows the same information you also get from ExifTool on the command line (assuming you are using the same parameters).
When I run the "List Metadata" template in the ExifTool Command Processor on a CR3 file, I see information like

[Canon] Canon Firmware Version : Firmware Version 1.1.0

so this seems to work?

IMatch by default does not import most maker notes or other fluff that is not designed to be used by humans. Which avoids ingesting hundreds of metadata values per file, clogging up the database.
If you need to import special tags or maker notes from your camera, check out the Tag Manager, which allows you to configure which tags IMatch imports.

Unfortunately, Canon produces hundreds of metadata tags, often with different "names" for different camera models. And often changing between firmware revisions...
For the Firmware Version tag, looking at the very first entry Canon in the Tag Manager, I see a Firmware tag on the right. Excellent.
Enabling this and reloading the metadata for the file with Shift+Ctrl+F5 imports the data and IMatch now has it in the database. The Metadata Panel shows it in browser mode:



This data is now available for all features working with metadata, from sorting to searching to filtering to variables to ...

NOTE: Your camera may produce other tags or ExifTool may use a different name for your tag. If this tag is not what you are looking for, use the ECP to find the tag and then enable it in the Tag Manager. Resist the urge to just enable all Canon-related tags - because this may cause IMatch to import hundreds of additional tags per RAW image and besides a much larger database will also slow down all operations which work with metadata - from collections to categories to search.

[jch2103]

I don't know how Canon handles it, but in the Nikon camera settings Menu, there's a spot that lists the current firmware version and lets you upgrade if a more recent firmware version is available. Or are you looking back to past photos to see what firmware version was used by the camera for them?

[LateJunction]

I don't know how Canon handles it, but in the Nikon camera settings Menu, there's a spot that lists the current firmware version and lets you upgrade if a more recent firmware version is available.

Yes,  I remember that from when I was a Nikon user; it also applied to my previous Canon Powershot, S95 (wow, I got my money's worth with that camera: years of trouble free use including hundreds of hours being thrown about on my bike; over 10,000 images  - none of them sharp, unfortunately but otherwise a seriously under-rated little camera). My current Canon G7X II provides no such readily available method to check its firmware level and I couldn't remember if I had updated it.

[LateJunction]

When I run the "List Metadata" template in the ExifTool Command Processor on a CR3 file, I see information like

[Canon] Canon Firmware Version : Firmware Version 1.1.0

so this seems to work?

After studying the help file this monring for a long time I decided to guess that 'list Metadata', which you have used,  was the most suitable template - not beacuse I understood any of the very well written help, but because the clue was in the name, and, anyway, I had had no success in trying to find a group, especially one with the name 'exif' or a suitable tag, of unknown name. But when I followed your example and ran this template there was no output. I now suspect that this was because of the default data that appeared in the 'Arguments' box, none of which made any sense to me. By a process of trial and error (99.9%) and success (0.1%) I found that the argument 'File.Path' - which means nothing to me -  produced a tsunami of data, of Biblical proportions, in which a search was able to find the field 'Canon Firmware Version'.

This was/is a painful experience, caused entirely by my own inability to understand how to use iMatch effectively. iMatch obviously has the data in its database; why can it not be simpler to find?

[David_H]

This was/is a painful experience, caused entirely by my own inability to understand how to use iMatch effectively. iMatch obviously has the data in its database; why can it not be simpler to find?

No - it doesn't. Mario showed you how to use either the ECP preset to list all metadata (this just calls exiftool which will produce a whole host of information as you have now seen), OR to change the tags in the Tag Manager (Edit, Preferences, Metadata 2->Tag Manager) to import it into the database (after which if you add a tag, you will need to rescan your files) and then it'll appear in the metadata->browser view.
In many cases, there is no point in importing metadata such as firmware versions - so why clutter the db up with it...

[thrinn]

Just to clarify: The ECP does not work on the data contained in the IMatch database. It calls Exiftool which works directly on the file and therefore can list all metadata tags contained in the file itself. Even if these tags have not been imported into the IMatch database. Mario explained why the IMatch database will only contain a subset of all metadata information available in the files. You can add additional tags if they are useful to you. But for use cases where you need a specific tag, the ECP can help you to find it.

[Mario]

By a process of trial and error (99.9%) and success (0.1%) I found that the argument 'File.Path' - which means nothing to me -  produced a tsunami of data, of Biblical proportions, in which a search was able to find the field 'Canon Firmware Version'.

I don't understand.
Start the ExifTool Command Processor.
Select the List Metadata preset on the top left (which is the default for new installations)
Run it with <F9>
Type firm in the search box at the bottom. This reduces your "tsunami of data, of Biblical proportions" to metadata tags with names containing the term firm - like firm ware or firmware.
The metadata this preset shows is all the metadata contained in your file. Which is probably much just more than you expected.

Not sure what you mean by File.Path, though. This looks like a variable, this has nothing to do with the ExifTool Command Processor or metadata...