[AndrewStephens]

Exif is great but here is your obligatory reminder that if you are publishing images you should strip out some of the identifying information that cameras and image editing software likes to embed.

In particular, you probably don’t want the GPS coordinates of your house publicly available on your blog for everyone to see.

[sigwinch28]

Conversely, as a hobbyist photographer, I want to do the exact opposite for most photos I take.

I would like my camera info, especially the body, lens, focal length, and settings in the image. I recently discovered that software like Darktable can even take a gpx file and photo timestamps to add coordinates to photos taken on a camera without a GNSS receiver.

[Avamander]

Yup. Looking back I wish I had location data on some of the photos I took. Can't share them but can't also remember where I took them. Unfortunate.

[zimpenfish]

This why I have my phones track themselves (started with Moostrax on the Blackberry then iOS, Moves on iOS until Facebook killed it, now it's OwnTracks on iOS logging to my server + Arc Timeline + Gyroscope + some others, I think) - even without the "where was this photo taken?" helpfulness (for camera shots + phone shots with stripped location), it's also good for "where was that cafe / coffee shop / craft shop / whatever?" kind of questions (obviously assuming you can remember vaguely what date and time...)

I should get better at taking contemporaneous notes, really, but since that hasn't happened in 30+ years, I doubt it's going to stick now.

[supriyo-biswas]

Yes, as another privacy "aficionado" many years ago I had taken so many photos that I don't remember where I took, and I can't ask around either :'(

[setr]

Apparently AI models have gotten decent at geoguessr... Might be worth a shot?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43724935

[nradov]

It's so stupid that we have to do geotagging as a post processing step with separate software. That could be built in to the camera with a GNSS receiver or smartphone Bluetooth link with minimal impact on cost or battery life. And yet even today many high end cameras lack such basic functionality. It's like the camera manufacturers aren't even trying anymore.

[dorfsmay]

Most publication and messaging tools strip exif data, which is incredibly frustrating when friends send you pictures taken together as you no longer have the time stamp, nor GPS coordinate.

[bluebarbet]

Incredibly frustrating but absolutely to be expected.

[dorfsmay]

Publication (Facebook, insta, reddit etc...), yes, messaging not so much.

[evilturnip]

On the other hand, the fact that exif is such a widespread standard has been a great tool for photo archaeology.

People who can track down the original exif can recreate when, where and with what equipment the photo was taken. It's been great to identify places and people for posterity.