Get date and time when photo was taken from EXIF data using PIL

Question

I can get the EXIF data from an image using PIL, but how can I get the date and time that the photo was taken?

Answer 1

I create a function (get_exif) that can get attributes easier.

USAGE

your_date_time: str = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'), 'DateTimeOriginal')
# your_date_time = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'), 0x9003)  # same as above

get_exif

from pathlib import Path
from typing import Union, List, Tuple
import PIL.Image
import PIL.ExifTags


def get_exif(file_path: Path,
             search_list: Union[int, str, List, Tuple] = None,
             ignore_error=True
             ) -> Union[int, PIL.Image.Exif, List]:
    """
    :param file_path: image path
    :param search_list: if you want to get some property, then you can pass the id or name, it will return by order.
    :param ignore_error:
    :return:
        int: -1 FileNotFoundError, or exif is None
        PIL.Image.Exif: when the `search_list` is None, return the whole Exif
    """
    tag_by_id: dict = PIL.ExifTags.TAGS
    try:
        im: PIL.Image.Image = PIL.Image.open(str(file_path))
    except FileNotFoundError:
        if ignore_error:
            return -1
        else:
            raise FileNotFoundError(file_path)
    exif: PIL.Image.Exif = im.getexif()
    if not exif:
        if ignore_error:
            return -1
        else:
            raise ValueError("exif is None")
    if search_list is None:
        return exif
    tag_by_name = {tag_by_id[dec_value]: exif[dec_value] for dec_value in exif if dec_value in tag_by_id}
    result_list = []
    if not isinstance(search_list, (list, tuple)):
        search_list = [search_list]
    for key in search_list:
        if isinstance(key, int):
            result_list.append(exif.get(key, None))
            continue
        try:
            dec_value = int(key, 16)
            result_list.append(exif.get(dec_value, None))
            continue
        except ValueError:
            ...
        result_list.append(tag_by_name.get(key, None))
    return result_list if len(result_list) > 1 else result_list[0]

MORE TEST

import unittest

class ExifTests(unittest.TestCase):
    def test(self):
        exif: PIL.Image.Exif = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'))  # same as the ``PIL.Image.open().getexif()``

        # get specify attribute only
        date_t_ori1 = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'), 0x9003)
        date_t_ori2 = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'), '0x9003', )  # hex string is ok too.
        date_t_ori3 = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'), 'DateTimeOriginal')  # Give name is also working.
        self.assertTrue(date_t_ori1 == date_t_ori2 == date_t_ori3)

        # You can get multiple values at once. If the key does not exist, it returns None.
        date_t_ori4, img_length, _, __ = get_exif(Path('test.jpg'),
                                                  (36867, 'ImageLength', 'NoteExitName', -12345))

        # Occurring error return -1 (by default ignore_error=True)
        self.assertEqual(-1, get_exif(Path('not exist.jpg')))  # FileNotFoundError
        self.assertEqual(-1, get_exif(Path('no_exif_tag.jpg')))  # ValueError

        self.assertRaises(FileNotFoundError, get_exif, Path('not exist.jpg'), ignore_error=False)
        self.assertRaises(ValueError, get_exif, Path('no_exif_tag.jpg'), ignore_error=False)

note

This website is good, but if you want to get the full list, you should reference PIL.ExifTags.py, see below,

# ExifTags.py

# Maps EXIF tags to tag names.

TAGS = {
    # possibly incomplete
    0x000B: "ProcessingSoftware",
    0x00FE: "NewSubfileType",
    0x00FF: "SubfileType",
    0x0100: "ImageWidth",
    0x0101: "ImageLength",
    0x0102: "BitsPerSample",
    ...
    0xA430: "CameraOwnerName",  # <-- The website does not record it. (The website record last tag is A420.)
    0xA431: "BodySerialNumber",
    0xA432: "LensSpecification",
    0xA433: "LensMake",
    0xA434: "LensModel",
}


# Maps EXIF GPS tags to tag names.

GPSTAGS = {
    0: "GPSVersionID",
    1: "GPSLatitudeRef",
    2: "GPSLatitude",
    3: "GPSLongitudeRef",
    4: "GPSLongitude",
    5: "GPSAltitudeRef",
    6: "GPSAltitude",
    7: "GPSTimeStamp",
    ...
}