Metadata should be collected to ensure that imagery can be georeferenced and needs to be maintained throughout the planning, fieldwork, imagery download, and annotation phases to ensure data quality. Examples of metadata requirements are provided below.
We provide templates for metadata (Tables 6-8) and file organisation (Fig. 5) here.
Table 6. Example of a completed camera metadata.
| Date | Face | Top camera | Top SD card | Bottom camera | Bottom SD card |
| 20220408 | A | 1101 | 200 | 1102 | 201 |
| 20220408 | B | 1103 | 202 | 1104 | 203 |
| 20220408 | C | 1105 | 204 | 1106 | 205 |
| 20220408 | D | 1107 | 206 | 1108 | 207 |
| 20220408 | Downwards | 1109 | 208 | NA |
Table 7. Example of a completed field metadata sheet.
| Sample | Date | Time | Longitude (dd) | Latitude (dd) | Depth (m) | Notes |
| MEG001 | 20220408 | 10:01 | 113.15 | -34.05 | 24.1 | |
| MEG002 | 20220408 | 10:05 | 113.16 | -34.06 | 24.7 | |
| MEG003 | 20220408 | 10:08 | 113.17 | -34.07 | 24.3 | Checked all cameras |
| MEG004 | 20220408 | 10:12 | 113.18 | -34.08 | 22.8 | |
| MEG005 | 20220408 | 10:16 | 113.19 | -34.09 | 21.9 |
Table 8. Example of completed annotation metadata columns, to join to field metadata.
| Status | Annotation.date.completed | Observer | Video.notes |
| Fished | 20220408 | Tim | |
| Fished | 20220408 | Tim | check octocoral |
| No-take | 20220408 | Tim | |
| No-take | 20220408 | Tim | |
| No-take | 20220408 | Tim |
Figure 5. Folder structure for downloaded footage. Footage is stored in a parent folder indicating the date the footage was recorded on, with separate folders for each of the eight stereo cameras and the downwards camera.