I can get a file's properties/metadata by calling Shell32.Folder.GetDetailsOf, but I can't seem to figure out how to modify those attributes. The properties I'm referring to are the "extended details" like Camera model and Camera name for image files.
IF you are indeed using C# then you must do some Interop/PInvoke to call that method since that is Shell method...
To get+set EXIF information you can use the Image class (though not optimal), for the standard attributes you can use the FileInfo class.
A very good class for doing EXIF related stuff including source can be found here.