Yes—reviewing old photos and their EXIF can help, especially for learning exposure and for repeatable technical situations. Seeing what ISO, shutter speed, and aperture worked (or failed) can help you avoid repeating mistakes and give you a useful starting point for subjects like fireworks, lightning, or air shows where trial-and-error is costly.

But EXIF alone usually won’t make the biggest difference. Every image is different, and good photographs depend on the relationship between settings, light, subject, timing, and composition. To improve, use EXIF as a clue, then ask deeper questions: why did I make this picture, what was I trying to show, and what technical or artistic choices helped or hurt it?

Reviewing older work is most useful when you critically assess both technical issues and creative ones—exposure, framing, timing, and whether your gear choices matched the scene. It can also be encouraging, because comparing older and newer work often makes your progress easier to see.

So: yes, EXIF review is useful, but it works best as part of broader image critique, not as the only learning tool.