Your image archive likely contains images shot with more than one camera. If you’ve been doing it long enough or just use a bunch of different cameras, you might end up with hundreds of thousands of images taken with dozens of different cameras in your Lightroom catalog.
And sometimes you might want to find other images shot with the same camera.
One option is to filter by camera model. But if you’re shooting with more than one copy of a specific camera model, that can still sometimes not be specific enough. For instance, I often shoot with more than one copy of the same model of camera.
In those instances, it’s possible to narrow it down even further. That’s by filtering by the camera’s unique serial number.
There are two ways to do this. Here’s how.
Using the Filter Bar
In the Library module, there’s a filter bar at the top of the screen directly above the images. (If it’s not visible, use the keyboard shortcut `/` key to toggle it. Or use the menu to enable it: `View > Show Filter Bar`.)
If you click on the title of any of the four filter panels, you’ll see a selection of fields you can use. Camera Serial Number is a field that’s available.
But it’s often not helpful to just choose that first. That’s because the serial numbers don’t come with any context–they’re just strings of numbers, and you can’t immediately tell what’s what from the list.
So I find it most useful to set Camera Serial Number for the last filter panel. That’s the narrowest search/filter criteria.
Then use the panels at right for other filters that help narrow down and identify which camera corresponds to what serial number. For instance, you might set the third column to camera model.
Quick Selection
The previous method is thorough and reliable. But it’s not always the quickest option. So I use this method more often.
If you have an image you know was taken with the camera you’re trying to filter down to, select it in the Library module.
Then go to the Metadata panel on the right-hand side of the screen. Change the fields drop-down item to EXIF.
Towards the bottom of that, you should see a Serial Number field followed by the serial number of the camera used to take that photo.
And just to the right of that is a small button. That’s a quick filter button. Pressing it will instantly filter the image panel to display only images that match that exact result.
Things Worth Knowing
This quick selection method doesn’t only work with serial numbers. You can also use it for other fields such as dimensions, lens models, and ISO.
