Identify Your Camera – Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Several of my blog feeds this week featured a story of how a couple in New York did some very impressive work and was able to track down the owner of a found camera based upon images contained within the camera.

Losing your camera is of course one of every photographer’s nightmares and we cannot all count on the great detective skills of those who find a lost camera. A suggestion was made over at photoborg.org to label your camera with your email address someplace unobtrusive such as the memory card door.

There is another option yet. Many cameras allow you to set owner information within the camera itself. The camera will then add this information on to every photo taken afterward as part of the EXIF information for the photograph. For those of you who have never used the software included in your camera, this might be a great reason to do it now. I typically include my name, email and website address in my camera EXIF information.

Read you manual and find out if you can embed owner information in your camera.

Until next time, happy shooting.

Comments 2

  • When I got my first digital camera, I printed a letter-size form that included ownership information, then scanned it into a .jpg. I downloaded that picture into each of my memory cards, then made it “protected” (i.e. non-deletable) with the camera’s own utility tools. If your camera’s synching software doesn’t support a download from your computer, then simply take a picture of the form. If the camera ever is lost, picture #1 will tell the finder to whom the camera belongs.

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