Dumb question Focal Length

[Photofarmer]

Is there a programme/app which can tell average focal length.

Example have 700 images from a night rodeo all taking with 70/200 rf 2.8 trying to establish average focal length.

Reson toying with idea of prime for second rodeo camera for side kick (the wife) either 135 rf 1.8 or 85mm rf 1.2 gut feel 135mm might be close to average but the extra stops of light with 1.2 is big as well for night rodeo.

cheers all

 

[Dean Wilson]

I have heard of, but never used, a program called "Exposure Plot".

Exposure Plot website

 

[ShipleyNW]

I'm not sure I've ever seen software that will aggregate exif data from multiple image files. You could build your own using something like exiftool software to scrape the focal length data from individual image files, then throw that data into a spreadsheet to calculate the average.

 

[chipman]

Screen shot from 10+ year old version of exposure plot. I should update it but don't use it that much.

 

[Jan_K]

Don't know of such a program. In the past when I wanted some insight on my focal ranges used mostly for an event or from a zoom lens, I did a manual workaround using my lightroom catalog.
With its metadata filters options, there is "lens" and "focal lenght" and behind the options it shows the totals for the values in the selected folder/ collection.

When I'm thinking of what lens to take to an event and doubting between lenses that may overlap or where cropping in on the max end of a lens, I sometimes go to a set of photos from a similar event.
For example with a beach rugby tournament I might want to choose between my 120-300 or 70-200 (which is much more compact). I select a tournament from the past, select my 120-300 lens and then have a look of the totals per focal lenght, for example which percentage was shot over 200mm. I do that by selecting all focal lenghts in the filter that are over 200mm. When I select them all, Lightroom filters and I can see how many photos are selected so I quickly see how many photos were taken over 200mm.

In your case, an average focal length my not be the best measure, as it also comes down to the types of shots you take. Let's say that the 'best' shots were either on the wide end to show the scene and on the tele end to show dedication on the rider, something in between would not give you the real thing.
Since the prime focal lenghts usually are 'limited' (24-35-50-85-135-200) it may be more worthwhile to see how many photos with your zoom lens were taken around a prime focal length, for example between 30-40mm to assess if a 35 would be usefull. The exposure plot shown in the post before this, can make that more easy.

Just my two cents, in case it might help. I use Lightroom so used it as an example, but I can imaginge similar software might provide filtering like lightroom does.

 

[Photofarmer]

will check photolab