Changing camera maker name

A warning at the beginning - don't do this unless you know what you are doing.

JPG Files

Changing camera maker name has some consequences that might not be obvious at a first place. The problem is that in EXIF data exists a special section where camera manufacturers can save its information regardless of the EXIF specification. So, because of the nature of this section where every camera maker can put anything, and since format of that section is more or less known for each camera maker, you must determine the section's format. And this is done by the camera maker name and also possibly by the camera model.

As an example, we can name lens identification. There is a standard field that can hold this information, but pretty much nobody uses it. Instead camera makers use their own section to put lens identification there. So you, might loose this information.

RAW Files

Things get even more messy for RAW files. Removing or changing maker name not only prevents you to identify maker's section properly, but in many cases, it prevents RAW file from opening. It is because of RAW files heavily depend on the content of EXIF data. So, many RAW processors will refuse to open the file completely.

This also applies to camera model tag. RAW processor use the field to identify model and setup settings according the camera model. So if you alter the tag, your software may also refuse to open the file as well.

As always, EXIF is about interpretation. You must experiment in some cases to see how your software interprets tags and what does it do.