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Calculating EV of an image file using its exif data

Photography Asked on June 25, 2021

I’m trying to calculate the EV (exposure value) for an image file based on its exif data. From the exposure value article at Wikipedia, I am using this formula for calculating EV:

EV = EV100 + LOG(S/100, 2)
   = LOG(N^2 / t, 2) + LOG(S/100, 2)

where LOG(x, 2) is log of x in base 2 and:

N: F-Number (1.0, 1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 64)
t: the exposure time in seconds ("shutter speed")
S: ISO (100, 200, ...)

Now, the problems that I have for calculating EV based on exif data (the values shown are from a sample image I took with my Canon 6D, the camera was set on Av mode, with Aperture set to 11 and ISO auto):

  1. I’m not sure which exif tag to use for each of the needed parameters:
  • F-Number: FNumber: 11 or ApertureValue: 11.3?
  • ISO: ISO: 500 or BaseISO: 519?
  • Time: So far I have one candidate ExposureTime but I might be missing something
  1. On top of that, I can see two tags in exif data; MeasuredEV: 10.38 and MeasuredEV2: 9.75. I believe the camera has calculated these internally but first, why there are two of them? And secondly, why when I calculate the EV using the formula does not match any of these two values (based on the formula, I have 14.14 and 14.27 for the different values provided above).

Can someone please help me calculate the actual EV for an image?

[UPDATE]

I’m trying to use this formula to smooth the exposure for my time-lapses. Below you can see the flow of change for 600 pictures that I took as a time-lapse. The chart shows MeasuredEV, MeasuredEV2, and CalcEV which I calculated using the provided formula and parameters: ISO, FNumber, and ExposureTime.

enter image description here

As you can see, while the two MeasuredEV and MeasuredEV2 are pretty close to each other, the CalcEV diverges from them after a while. Which means I have no idea what’s going on!

[UPDATE]

Per @Michael C’s request (which I believe he is onto something), here you can see the changes for ISO over the 600 images I took:

enter image description here

And for the sake of completeness, the corresponding time (shutter speed):

enter image description here

And as I said before, the aperture was fixed on 11 for the whole set.

One Answer

The formula should be :

EV = LOG(N^2 / t, 2) - LOG(S/100, 2).

If a cloud passes and the EV diminishes by half, you can keep the same N and t but need to double S (ISO). EV of a scene is decreasing with S needed to take the picture.

Answered by Hugues on June 25, 2021

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