Remove EXIF Metadata from Canon EOS R5 Mark II Photos

Remove EXIF Metadata from Canon EOS R5 Mark II Photos

A client or buyer who downloads a delivered R5 Mark II file can reconstruct far more than the shot itself, from your exact camera body to your lens inventory. Professional mirrorless bodies are often assumed safer than phones by default, simply because they lack a built-in GPS chip, but that assumption only covers one of several metadata fields worth nuancing. The Canon EOS R5 Mark II is one of the most widely recommended mirrorless bodies in 2026, built around a new 45-megapixel full-frame backside-illuminated stacked sensor capable of 30fps shooting with full autofocus.¹ Like every Canon EOS body, it embeds detailed EXIF metadata into every file, including the camera's serial number, lens data, and GPS coordinates if a connected GPS accessory or smartphone link is active.

Specifications¹

Why the R5 Mark II needs an accessory for GPS, unlike a phone

Smartphones write GPS coordinates automatically because they have a dedicated GPS chip built in and active by default. The R5 Mark II, like most professional mirrorless bodies, has no such chip on board.² GPS only enters the metadata if you pair the camera with Canon's Camera Connect app over a smartphone connection, or attach a dedicated GPS accessory to the camera body. Consequently, R5 Mark II files are less likely than smartphone photos to carry location data by default, but photographers who do pair their camera with a phone for geotagging purposes should check explicitly. The habit of assuming 'cameras don't do GPS' no longer holds once that pairing is active.

A fingerprint that outlives any single shoot

The camera's serial number persists across its entire service life, connecting files delivered years apart to the same physical body. This fingerprint outlives any single shoot and cannot be disabled or rotated in the camera settings, which is why scrubbing is the only reliable way to remove it before delivery. Unlike GPS, which depends on an accessory or app pairing, the serial number writes itself into every file automatically, with no setting to disable it.

The serial number is the metadata field most specific to this camera

Every photo captured on a given R5 Mark II body carries the same serial number in its EXIF data, creating a fingerprint that links files across every shoot that camera has ever been used for. For photographers delivering files to multiple clients, this means a careless client or a public upload could theoretically connect work done for one client to work done for another, simply by matching serial numbers across delivered files. Selling the camera body later does not retroactively change any of the files you have already delivered, so the fingerprint stays attached to that entire body of past work indefinitely.

What Canon's MakerNote tags reveal about your camera settings

Canon embeds a proprietary MakerNote IFD inside every EXIF block, recording details that go well beyond the standard exposure fields.³ The MakerNote on an R5 Mark II file includes the specific autofocus mode selected (Single, Servo, or AI Focus), the metering pattern (Evaluative, Spot, or Centre-weighted), the Picture Style (Standard, Portrait, Landscape, or Neutral), and whether features like Auto Lighting Optimiser or Highlight Tone Priority were active. Canon's Digital Photo Professional software reads this data to help photographers review their shooting technique, but it also creates a detailed behavioural profile inside every file.

Why camera settings metadata can identify your workflow

A photographer who consistently shoots in AI Servo mode with Evaluative metering and the Picture Style set to Neutral is likely a sports or wildlife shooter. A photographer who uses Single AF with Spot metering and the Portrait Picture Style is likely a portrait or wedding shooter. When you deliver files to a client, the MakerNote data reveals not just what settings you used, but what kind of photographer you are. Scrubbing removes the entire MakerNote block, so no workflow details survive in the cleaned file.

Scrubbing CR3-to-JPEG exports from the R5 Mark II

The R5 Mark II captures RAW files in Canon's CR3 format, which is based on the ISO Base Media File Format and stores metadata in a structure that differs from JPEG's APP1 segment.⁴ When you export a CR3 file to JPEG through Digital Photo Professional or Adobe Lightroom, the conversion process copies selected metadata fields from the CR3 into the new JPEG's EXIF block, including the camera serial number, lens model, and any GPS data that was present in the original.

Why you must scrub the JPEG, not just the CR3

The scrubber does not support CR3 files directly, so scrub the JPEG your CR3 export creates rather than assuming the RAW file itself is somehow safer. A common mistake is to assume that because the CR3 is a proprietary format, its metadata is somehow safer than a JPEG's. In practice, the JPEG export inherits the most sensitive fields from the CR3, including GPS coordinates and the camera serial number. Running the exported JPEG through the scrubber removes all inherited metadata, leaving a clean file ready for client delivery.

Inside the CR3 container, that metadata lives in four distinct TIFF-based boxes named CMT1 through CMT4: CMT1 holds the primary Exif IFD0 data, CMT2 carries the detailed Exif sub-IFD, CMT3 stores Canon's proprietary MakerNotes including the serial number, and CMT4 holds the GPS IFD. When Digital Photo Professional or Lightroom exports a CR3 to JPEG, it reads across all four boxes and writes their contents into the single EXIF block the JPEG format expects, which is exactly how the serial number and GPS data make the jump from RAW file to JPEG export without you doing anything extra to preserve them.