Lots of photographers, both professionals and amateurs, have started using Google Drive to store their photos online. We recently launched new features such as a way to quickly preview files and today I wanted to share more details about the image media metadata capabilities of the Drive SDK.
All digital cameras add some Exif information to the photos they take, and we exposed an initial set of Exif fields via the Google Drive API at the end of 2012. That set of metadata has now been expanded to include 9 new fields, such as the sensor type or the metering mode.
For instance, take a look at this recently taken photo:
Photo credit: Claudio Cherubino
What follows is the image media metadata as returned by the Drive API (in bold the new fields):
"imageMediaMetadata": {
"width": 2048,
"height": 1536,
"rotation": 0,
"date": "2013:02:18 12:51:51",
"cameraMake": "Panasonic",
"cameraModel": "DMC-GF2",
"exposureTime": 0.0025,
"aperture": 7.1,
"flashUsed": false,
"focalLength": 14.0,
"isoSpeed": 100,
"meteringMode": "Pattern",
"sensor": "One-chip color area",
"exposureMode": "Auto",
"colorSpace": "sRGB",
"whiteBalance": "Auto",
"exposureBias": 0.0,
"maxApertureValue": 3.6289062
}
You might have noticed that a number of fields have been added to the response while others (“subjectDistance” and “lens”) were not returned. This is expected as the camera doesn’t have to populate all Exif fields and in that case the corresponding properties will simply not be included in the API response.
For more information and to check the description of all metadata fields returned by the API, check the Files resource Reference Guide. If you have technical questions, please post them on Stack Overflow, my team monitors the google-drive-sdk tag and is happy to help.
 | Claudio Cherubino profile | twitter | blog Claudio is an engineer in the Google Drive Developer Relations team. Prior to Google, he worked as software developer, technology evangelist, community manager, consultant, technical translator and has contributed to many open-source projects. His current interests include Google APIs, new technologies and coffee. |
