Time-shift with Ligthroom

[Robert-Peter Westphal]

Today I found out that Lr 4.1 RC shows the exposure time for all my images based on the local time I set on my PC.

In concrete, I was in Florida shooting some birds and set my camera accorid to the time and timezone of Florida with a timeshift of 6 hours between Florida-time and German time. Now, when I'm watching my images here in Germany, it tells me that I've shot nearly all of my images at night which can't be. When I substract the 6 hours difference, it looks ok.

So, is there a way to make Lr show the time based on the timezone which was active when the images were shot.

Was it in general a mistake that I've changed the setting of my camera to the local time ? Does it make more sense to switch the camera to UTC and you're done ? I'm planning for the next trip to use an app on my iPhne to collect the places were I was into a gpx file and then use Lightroom to load it into the image's exifs. So I'm a little confused now.

Many thanks for future answers !

Robert

[john beardsworth]

This should sort things out - Metadata > Edit Capture Time.

[Robert-Peter Westphal]

Hi,

thanks for your fast answer !

Sure, I could rewrite the time of sahooting by Lr, but in my opinion it doesn't make sense to change the time in the raw-files everytime I travelled to a different timezone. I'm looking for a more "generell" solution.

Robert

[Steve Weldon]

Cameras are becoming smarter.. some new ones like the Fuji x100 and xPro1 have "home" and "away" time zones so you can leave your home country's time zone intact and easily enter another when abroad.  This is very handy for those of us who travel internationally on a regular basis.  I hope to see this feature showing up on Canon's and Nikon's soon.

[Robert55]

Strange this is happening. The way Windows handles timezones seems to be messy, but I've never seen Bridge or LR stumble on that with the several Canon dslr's I've used.
I've always downloaded through a card-reader, not with the camera connected to the PC.
As far as I can see, the camera's I've used only write the actual camera clocktime to the 'time created' field, not the timezone

[Robert-Peter Westphal]

Hi,

it looks as if Nikon writes the timezone into the exifs.

As shown in my example, shots were taken at 4PM in Florida show now 10PM in Lr.
I've doblechecked that the time which the camera showd in Florida was exactly the local time of Florida.

At this moemtn I'm really confused how to handle this without rewriting the tme every time I'll return from my tours. I think the best way is to set th4 camer<a to UTC, and I hope that this is the same timezone contianed into the GPX.

Robert

[Robert55]

gpx? are you using a gps logger?

[richarddd]

If I change the timezone on my pc, the time on my images in LR4 doesn't change.   I changed from UTC-5 (which is Florida time) to UTC+1 (which is Germany time).

Am I doing something different that what you are doing, or has behavior changed between LR4 and 4.1RC?

[John Cothron]

IIRC, the date created will show the computer system time at the time of import...  the date shot should reflect the time as the camera stored it.  It may sound like a stupid question, but are you sure you are not confusing the two? I'm only asking because I have done the same thing before.

[Robert-Peter Westphal]

So, back from a business trip without accerss to this forum, I want to first thank everybody for the replies !

But, I'm wondering what the default behavior of Lr is when different time-zones between the camera and the PC are in use, especially when Lr is used to touch the raws ( import from CF-card) for the first time.

Robert

[John Cothron]

I can't speak for everyone, but I always import from the CF Card.  In every instance, it has always applied the time as is in camera, regardless of whether I had it agree with the time-zone or not.  This is with Canon 5d Classic and 5d MkII.

[Robert-Peter Westphal]

To find the problem, I tried to recognize exactly what I did - and I found the following :

• importing the files from the SD cards to Lr 3.6 on my notebook running Windows 7 64 bit
  having Lr creating a secure copy of all fiels to my external harddisk during the import
  taking the external harddisk and haveing the files imported to Lr 4 from this copy

After some investigations, I found out that the time of the files on my notebook inside of Lr 3.6 is ok. Then I reimported some pictures frm the external harddisk which hasn't been formated yet and the time is wrong, although it is the same Lr.
Then, I switched my camera again to UTC-5 ( -> Fllrida) and took a shot, imported the file into both Lr 3.6 on the notebook and ( now) 4.1 on my PC, and the time is ok.

So, the conclusion is that the copy Lr makes for security is not as untouched as told. Only in these files the time is wrong.

Very strange and spooky.

Robert