I first heard about the free Lightroom Analytics plugin today and immediately downloaded it when I came home. I haven’t found the time to analyze some of my photos with it yet, I’ll have a look at it tomorrow when I am well rested. The plugin seems to be highly interesting as it enables you to find out which lens and which settings (mode, aperture, exposure time, etc.) you most frequently use thanks to EXIF data.
How can you meaningfully use the data? Well, you could have a look at whether you favor one lens too strongly, which could in turn lead to monotonous pictures, while conscious use of another lens might lead to higher variation. You could also find out which lens you use the least and sell it.
Furthermore, you might have a look at whether certain lenses are used “at max”, and thus facilitate your own decision of what to purchase next. Let’s assume I have a 50mm f/1.8 and always use it wide open. It would be obvious for me to be on the look-out for a 50mm f/1.4. With a zoom, you could check whether you shoot most of your pictures with the one or the other end and thus purchase a lens which better covers your preferred focal length range.
You’ll need Analytics Viewer to open the Lightroom-exported .json or .csv files. Just follow the link and have a look at the manual.
