I am about to purchase a new lens for may camera to replace the kit lens and I have decided on the brand, aperture and features. However I cannot decide if I should buy a 17-50mm or a 28-75mm lens both with AF-S and an f/2.8 aperture.

For this I thought that it would make more sense to open Lightroom and check out my photo statistics; so here I am configuring the Library Filter in Library module, however the only relevant options available are: Lens, Shutter speed, Aperture and ISO Speed. Disappointment – no filter for Focal Length.

The skills and tools

Luckily Lightroom stores its catalogs in SQLite format – so all you need to do is export the .lrcat file to Excel (I used a Mozilla Firefox add-on to open the Lightroom catalog – sqlite-manager) and perform your own statistics using (using pivot tables).

The solution

  1. First and very important, create a working copy of the catalog
  2. Install the sqlite-manager add-on and restart Firefox
  3. Select Tools > SQLite Manager
  4. Open the lrcat file Database > Connect database > browse for the above created working copy
  5. Export the relevant statistics to CSV: browse for AgHarvestedExifMetadata table and proceed with Export Wizard and OK
  6. Open the file with Microsoft Excel, select all data, insert a Pivot Table and perform your own custom statistics

That’s it! Now you will be able to perform your own custom statistics on the photos EXIF data.

Lens purchase decision

I have split the focal length categories to fit the lens that I own (respectively 18-55mm, 50mm f/1.8 and 55-200mm) presenting separately the photos taken with the prime 50mm lens.

Following my analysis, it is very clear that the best lens to purchase is the 17-50mm one as I have a lot of photos taken using the 18mm focal length, while very few are placed in the 50-75mm zone.

Update: Data Plot plugin for LR

After writing this article I have found out that there is a tool to analyze focal lengths in Lightroom after all: it is called Data Plot and you can download it from Jeffrey Friedl’s Blog along with other good LR plugins.

However this does not fully suit my analysis, as I would need to differentiate between lenses, reporting separately on primes (50mm) and assimilating the 55 mm to 50 mm on the 18-55mm kit lens that I now use as the new lens would also be a substitute for the kit lens.