Can Photo Mechanic write to {serialnum} upon ingest?

[DaveBurbank]

I shoot with multiple Sony a7R II's. For reasons beyond my comprehension, Sony does not write the camera body's serial number into the EXIF data.

I'd like to see if Photo Mechanic can help me work-around this issue. I've configured each of my camera bodies so that the body's serial number is written into the copyright field. Is there a way to have Photo Mechanic (upon ingest) take whatever is in the {copyright} field and write it to the {serialnum} field?

Other possible solutions are welcome.

[Kirk Baker]

I shoot with multiple Sony a7R II's. For reasons beyond my comprehension, Sony does not write the camera body's serial number into the EXIF data.

I'd like to see if Photo Mechanic can help me work-around this issue. I've configured each of my camera bodies so that the body's serial number is written into the copyright field. Is there a way to have Photo Mechanic (upon ingest) take whatever is in the {copyright} field and write it to the {serialnum} field?

Other possible solutions are welcome.

PM won't insert tags (except GPS) and even if there were a "serial number" tag present, PM does not have a facility to edit it.

-Kirk

[Hayo Baan]

Dave,

Have you already checked with exiftool if it can discern a serialnumber in the file (I don't have an A7RII file to play with so can't verify for you)? Note though that I think chances are slim it's there. From a discussion on the exiftool forum I understand they don't seem to store the shutter count either.

The only solution I have for you is to store the serialnumber in e.g. XMP. You'll need to use exiftool for that, but copying the serialnumber from the copyright tag then becomes just a matter of running a command like: exiftool "-SerialNumber<Copyright" FILE (you'll probably want to add some more options and you need to check if the Copyright tag is the correct one (sometimes tag names differ between applications).

Cheers,
Hayo