EXIF search inconsistent ?

[Amamba]

I thought I've posted this already but I don't see it ... if double posted please delete...

I was very excited to find that XNView allows to search by EXIF data.

However it seems to ignore some fields, or otherwise not being consistent in getting their data.

E.g. I have a folder with about 30 photos, some were taken with my 17-50mm lens and others with 55-250mm. I wanted to find only the ones taken with the longer lens, so I made a search on "Any field" with a value of "250" (this should match the EXIF field "Long focal" that for the second lens will always have a value of 250). The search returned 4 hits, however in reality there was about a dozen photos taken with this lens, all of them having the same value. I've tried this several times on different sets of photos, same results each time - only partial hits.

Is this because Search is only looking at certain fields (the ones in the dropdown menu) and not all fields ? Or is it just missing some data ?

This would be a killer organizing feature, if it could be made to work reliably !!!

[Amamba]

As a followup question, is there a help on using EXIF search ? The latest help file that I have doesn't seem to go into much detail.

[rra]

With what option within XnView are you searching for the focal length ?
When I use /tools/search in the browser-mode I get no focal length field to search for (XnView 196.2)
However I do agree that the search seems to be inconsistant,
or maybe I am using it the wrong way. A good example or help-page would indeed clarify things.

Rene

[Amamba]

I use search in "Any field".

[rra]

I use search in "Any field".

If you use "any field" I would expect that setting this field to eg. 100
you would get it hit for the focal length being 100 mm but also ISO speed 100
or maybe even shutterspeed 1/100 ??

René

[Amamba]

You should, yes.

However I am not even getting all 250 mm focal length files...

I don't know what the program limitations are, but ideally there should be an additional user-definable ("Custom") value in drop down for EXIF search. And it would be even better if these values could be saved...

The way it is, though, it's mainly a teaser

PS Rene, are you on POTN ? Your name / location sound very familiar...

[rra]

user-definable would indeed be nice,
but the main issue of this thread,you brought-up once again,
is far more relevant to my opinion at least:

the search is inconsistant, I posted the same remark:

http://newsgroup.xnview.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=17316

Concerning POTN, I never heard of it before,
I am member of a few "digital camera" fora, maybe you have noticed me there.

René

[xnview]

Is this because Search is only looking at certain fields (the ones in the dropdown menu) and not all fields ? Or is it just missing some data ?

Strange, i search in all fields. Could you send me a file found by "Search", and a file that must be found