Digital cameras are pretty cool, making multiple trips to the photo lab unnecessary and giving you the ability to know whether you got a good picture of Zira with her birthday cake before she tears into like a crazed baboon, but what makes them even better is that they record a ton of info you may not even be aware of…yet!

Go to iPhoto and select a picture you’d like to see more info about, now from the Menu Bar, choose Photos>Show Extended Photo Info (COMMAND+OPTION+I) and you’ll get a wealth of info about this shot.

The information here is divided into 5 sections:  Image, File, Location, Camera and Exposure.  If any of those sections isn’t showing you info, click the small right-pointing triangle next to the word to roll down its details.  Likewise, if there’s a section you don’t necessarily want to look at, click its triangle (now pointing downwards) to roll its details up and out of your way.

In the Image section, you’ll find the physical dimensions of the photo as well as the original time and date of the photo.

In File, you’ll find details about the file, itself, including File name, size, the date it was imported and the date it was last modified.

Location is super-handy if you have a camera with a GPS function in it.  Higher end SLR’s may have this feature and the iPhone 3G does as well.  If you’ve imported from a GPS-enabled camera, you’ll see longitude and latitude listed here.  If you’re not using a GPS camera, this information can be added using Places in iPhoto 09 and iPhoto will translate your ‘Place’ info into the Longitude and Latitude.  Awesome.

Camera shows you the make and model of the camera which can be handy if you’ve taken shots on vacation or at an event on multiple cameras and you’re trying to determine which shots cam from which camera.

Exposure lists all the details about the settings of the camera and the lens used when taking the photo.  This information can be incredibly valuable to some people and totally useless to others. If you find it useful, have fun; if you don’t, just know that its there and its totally cool to look at.

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