English

Stolen Camera Finder Will Help You Track Your Stolen Camera

ע״י עידו גנוט

פורסם ב 01/05/2011

Your precious camera got stolen? you left it on the park bench and came back to find that someone already picked it up? a new web service promises to help you track it down…as long as the perpetrator decided to use it and post some pictures online. We check it out.

The website with the somewhat long (but appropriate) name stolencamerafinder was created in order to help photographers who’s camera was stolen or taken without permission.

The service offered by stolencamerafinder is pretty straightforward. Drag and drop an image you have taken with the camera before and the website will examine its EXIF data and show you any it images found online which have a similar camera ID (each modern camera has a unique one).

The concept is interesting but there are several problems:

1. Size of the database – according to the creators of the website currently has about a million images on its database. This number is extremely small compared to the number of images that can be found online – therefore most chances are that you will not be able to find a match even if one exists.

2. EXIF problems – EXIF are data “files” that are part of any image file and contain information about the image and the camera used in taking it. However in many cases even a small manipulation in Photoshop deletes the EXIF data making the entire search meaningless.

3. Found it so What? Lets say that by some miracle you were able to find your image and locate the person responsible, than what? call the thief and ask him to give you your camera back? call the police?

We have tried the service with some pictures from our own camera (one which has several pictures floating around on the web) without much luck. Despite that and our basic criticism of the concept we still feel that it’s basically a useful idea especially if the database could be extended considerably (something which you might be able to help with).

עידו גנוט

עידו גנוט הוא עורך ומייסד אתר הצילום מגה פיקסל. הוא מסקר חדשות טכנולוגיה מאז סוף שנות ה-90 וכתב וערך עבור שורה של מגזינים בינלאומיים מובילים. הוא עוסק בתחום הצילום מאז שנת 2009. עידו הוא גם מייסד שותף בחברת ההפקה Shooteat.co.il העוסקת ביצירת תוכן ויזואלי עבור חברות מסחריות.