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Time Zone Upon Import

When importing into Aperture, do you always have to set the Time Zone settings properly?

The easiest of course is when you are shooting in your local time zone and the camera time is set properly to match that. However, let's say you are shooting in a different time zone and you have set the camera time to match the correct time in that time zone. When importing, do you have to tell Aperture the correct "Camera Time" and "Actual Time"?

So long as you are properly managing the camera's time, do you even have to mess with the time zone settings in Aperture? Will it just automatically know that you shot in MST?

The reason I ask is that I thought the time zone adjustments were for when you needed to make changes because you didn't set your camera clock and/or time zone properly. This feature lets you correct it after the fact. However, it seems as though you have to do it always. I live on the east coast. I shoot in California, have my camera's time settings set to properly reflect PST and the correct time in California. If I were to import the images, they show up in Aperture with an EST time. Now, it is the EST that would match the correct time in California, i.e. if I shot in California at 10:00 am, the images would show up in Aperture as 1:00 pm EST. This is the correct time, but I want it to say, 10:00 am PST, which is telling me when and where I shot those images. The only way to do this is to make sure that you choose, "Camera Time" = America/Los Angeles and "Actual Time" = America/Los Angeles. This seems ridiculous to have to do every time you shoot images in a different time zone than the one you live in.

On top of that, when I export the image masters for archiving purposes, the date is reflective of the EST, not the PST. What am I supposed to do, change the date and time of all the Masters of images that were shot with the correct time to begin with?

Can someone PLEASE shed some light on the TIME, TIME ZONE, CAMERA TIME, ACTUAL TIME and when to do/how to use these features properly when importing images. It seems like it should be straight forward, yet it continues to throw me for a loop.

Thanks

Message was edited by: macorin

Message was edited by: macorin

Macbook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.6.4), 2.93 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Posted on Nov 7, 2010 7:08 AM

Reply
20 replies

Nov 7, 2010 8:06 AM in response to Andreas Yankopolus

Andreas,

That does seem like a sound system, and easy. Out of curiosity, if you were to export an image to a folder preset to show the time and date of the image, what would the name of the folder be? Basically, what I am asking is, are you sure that the time and date of the Master is the same as what is listed in the Metadata Pane for that image in Aperture? The issue I am having is that the time and dates do not match. They are different by the difference in time zone. So, if I shot an image at 10:00 pm PST on 11/6/10, the image gets imported to a folder named 11/7/10, because the Master is communicating that it was shot at 1:00 am EST (the next day), not the 10:00 pm on the day I shot it, nor that which is listed in the Metadata Pane. Weird, and annoying.

Also, what I think could be happening is that when importing images and making time zone adjustments, Aperture does not give you the option to apply those adjustments to the Master image. Perhaps it does it automatically? It should, but I don't think it should have to, as you are adjusting the time zone for the masters coming in. It is a little confusing, because if you are altering the time and date of images, you would want the masters to be reflective of those changes.

Mac

Message was edited by: macorin

Nov 7, 2010 3:32 PM in response to Andreas Yankopolus

Andreas,

You are definitely right. I think I messed up upon import. I had my camera time set right, but for actual time, I had it set to actual time the image was taken, not the actual time that I was importing the image. I think this is where things got messed up.

Do you know if there is any way to correct this problem after the fact? I have tried to play with changing the time zone and then changing the time and date, but no matter which combination I choose, it always comes out incorrectly. It either shows the correct file time in Aperture, but the wrong original file, or it shows the correct time for the Original, but the wrong time for the file time.

I was hoping that I could correct this in Aperture, but it looks like I will have to correct the original time first, export the images and then reimport them with the proper time zone settings Camera Time and Actual Time.

What do you think?

Mac

Nov 7, 2010 4:28 PM in response to Andreas Yankopolus

Andreas,

I've tried this in almost every conceivable combination possible and no matter what I do, something is always off. For example, I have an image that was shot at 9:35 pm PST. The file date in the metadata pane says 9:35 pm PST. If I go to adjust date and time, the original image shows as 12:35 am the next day, which is telling me that the file's original image time us on EST. No matter how I adjust this it doesn't match up. Either the original file time is off, or the adjusted file time/time zone is off.

Nov 7, 2010 7:11 PM in response to Andreas Yankopolus

Andreas,

I've tried this also, but to no avail. It may have something to do with the way I originally imported the images and the time zone I originally chose.

Do you know if the "Actual Time" pertains to the actual time the image was shot, or if it pertains to the actual time of when you are importing the image into Aperture? Let's take an example: You have the camera set to UTC time. When you import your images, you set the "Camera Time" to UTC and the "Actual Time" to whatever time it is when you are importing the images. So, if you shot your images in London, but were up importing the images into Aperture while you were in Chicago, IL, would you choose CST for the "Actual Time", or would you choose London Time because that was the actual time when you shot the images?

I am assuming you would choose London Time, and not the actual time in Chicago.

My example is this: I just shot images in Tucson, AZ. I had the camera time set to the local time in Arizona. Arizona does not honor daylight savings time, so the time zone would be equivalent to PST (California Time). When I got back to New York, I imported the images. I set the "Camera Time" to PST. I set the "Actual Time" to PST. The images showed up in the "Aperture Date" in the Metadata Pane as the correct day and time PST. However, if I pulled down the Metadata drop down menu and went to "Adjust Date and Time..." for that image, the time for the "Original" read three hours later, or the equivalent of EST. This is significant, because if I export this image, the image Metadata will be logged as what the "Original" time and date say, not the adjusted date that is associated with the file. From here, there is no way to have the "Original" date and the file "Date" match. You can try it yourself and see. It has something to do with seeing the "Date" for that file in the right time zone.

Let's try it a different way. I set the "Camera Time" to PST. Again, this is correct because this is the time that the camera was set to. If I now make the "Actual Time" EST, the file "Date" comes out with a time that reads EST, even if the time is correct for PST. So, if the image was shot at 9:30 pm PST, it shows as 9:30 pm EST. At the same time, the "Original" shows as 9:30 pm, which is correct, but the image was shot in PST, not EST. If I change the time zone, the EST will change to PST, but the time will shift by the appropriate amount to. So, instead of showing as 9:30 pm EST, it shows as 6:30 pm PST. Now the time zone shows correctly, but the time is incorrect. Either the time is right, or the time zone is right. I can't see a way to make them both right at the same time. And also make the original the right time as well.

I hope I haven't lost you here.

Mac

Nov 8, 2010 7:52 PM in response to Andreas Yankopolus

Andreas,

Thanks so much for your interest in trying to help me solve this issue. Let me ask you something first for clarity purposes. In the Aperture import settings, "Camera Time" = the time set on the camera, right? What is "Actual Time"? The time that it actually is when you are importing the images, or the time that it actually was when you took the images? This seems to be very critical in understanding what happened to my images, and in how to go about setting that properly in the future.

For example, if I set the camera time to New York Time (EST), but shoot the images in California (PST), I would set "Camera Time" to New York (EST), but "Actual Time" to California (PST). If I set the camera time to EST and shot the images in EST, I would set "Camera Time" to EST and "Actual Time" to EST, right? It seems you have to manage this each and every time you import images. This is exactly what I have done. It would make sense that if you set the camera time correctly, then you would need to set "Camera Time" and "Actual Time" to the same thing, be it EST, PST, UTC-0... whatever. They should only differ, I would think if you didn't set your camera correctly.

This is why I can't figure out exactly what is going on here. Mind you, in the Metadata Pane, the time and date is correct for all of my images. It is only when I click Metadata in the toolbar and go to "Adjust Date and Time..." that I see a discrepancy on the images that weren't shot in EST (which is where I live and import all of my images). The time of the Original image is always EST, even though the images were imported as a different time zone (both the camera time and the actual time because the time on the camera was set correctly). This is an issue, because when I export this image, it places it in a folder by date that is incorrect. If I try to change this in Aperture, sure I can get the Original to be correct, but then it changes the time and date in the Metadata Pane. Therefore, I am left with images which seem to have two different dates associated with them.

Does this make sense to you? If so, what do you think the solution is? What am I missing here/doing wrong?

Mac

Nov 8, 2010 8:34 PM in response to macorin

Camera Time is the time set in the camera.
Actual Time is the time at the location where the images were taken.
If Camera Time and Actual Time are the same there is no need to use this Import setting.

From the Aperture User manual:

Adjusting the Image File’s Time When Importing
On a trip, it’s easy to forget to update your camera’s clock to match the local time zone. If you didn’t synchronize your camera time to the new location, Aperture lets you correct the time assigned to the image file by whole hours when importing.

To adjust image file capture time when importing
In the Import browser, choose Time Zone from the Import Settings pop-up menu.

The Time Zone controls appear in the Import browser.


Choose the time zone that matches the camera’s time setting from the Camera Time pop-up menu.

Choose the time zone of the shoot location from the Actual Time pop-up menu.

Aperture updates the capture time of your image files according to the Time Zone settings.

After you’ve imported images, you can adjust the date and time of any versions you’ve created by choosing Metadata > Adjust Date and Time. For more information about this command, see Adjusting Image Date and Time.

Nov 8, 2010 8:53 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

Frank,

Thanks for chiming in. That is exactly what I thought, and the way that I have been doing things. However, when you say that there is no need to use the import setting when Camera Time and Actual Time are the same, what exactly do you mean? By default it is there, no? I mean, let's say the Camera Time is set to PST and you shot the images in California, so the Actual Time would be PST also. You can't just ignore the Time Zone import settings, because if they were both set to New York/EST wouldn't the images be imported with an EST time stamp in the Metadata? I would think that you would need to set both the Camera Time and the Actual Time to PST in order to get the PST to show up in the Metadata.

This is where I am running into my issue. So long as I have the camera time set properly (which I usually do), I would love to just ignore the time zone import setting altogether. As I mentioned though, it doesn't seem to let you. And if you do, you run into the problem stated above, i.e. the time zone showing up wrong next to your image. However, when I do it correctly, the time for the original image is always different than the time shown for the image in the Metadata pane. The only time this is not the case is when I have the camera time set to EST and the actual time was EST (which is where I live and import the images on to my computer). This is the only time that everything matches up everywhere. So long as you shoot in a different time zone, and have the camera time set correctly there doesn't seem to be a way to import the image with the proper time zone stamp (EST, CST, MST, PST...) next to the image and still have that same exact time for the Original image. You can check this yourself with a simple test. Please do it and prove to me that I am crazy. Maybe look at an image you shot in a different time zone, while having the camera time set to that time zone. See what information is in the Metadata Pane. Next pull down the Metadata drop down menu and click "Adjust Data and Time..." Tell me if the time is the same as that listed in the Metadata pane associated with that image. I would be curious to know.

Thanks,
Mac

Message was edited by: macorin

Nov 9, 2010 5:14 AM in response to macorin

Mac,

I am having the same exact problem as you, thus I am following this thread closely trying to learn how to solve the time zone issue. I'm also on the East Coast (EST) but frequently shooting in California (PST). I am stuck with the EST on my times when it needs to be PST. It seems that the Metadata drop down ADJUST DATE AND TIME tab would be the right place to change the EST to PST but it does not have that option. Whatever the solution is, I do not see it at the present time. I'm looking forward to following this thread and hopefully understanding the solution. Good luck.

Nov 9, 2010 7:20 AM in response to macorin

OK there are three different scenarios: (maybe more?)

1) Your camera time and shoot time are the same and you import into Aperture in the same time zone.

ex) I live on the East Coast, I shoot here and my camera is set to local time, I import into Aperture at home. I don't need to do anything during import. I can leave the Time Zone adjustment closed.

ex) I go to LA, I set my camera to local time I shoot in LA I go back to my hotel and import the photos into my laptop. I don't need to use the Time Zone adjust. Assumes the laptop time is set to local time.

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2) Your camera time and shoot time are the same but you import in a different time zone. Set both camera time and actual time that time zone.

e). I go to LA set camera to LA time shoot, in LA, fly home and import. Set both Time Zone adjust settings to LA.

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3) Your camera time and shoot time do not match.

ex. I go to LA forget to change camera time. When I import I set camera time to EST and set actual time to PST.



Need to run, let me know if this helps or if it totally confuses the issue 🙂

Nov 9, 2010 8:05 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

Frank,

I fall into what you described as example #2. This is the only time I seem to run into this issue. It is when I set the camera to the local time, shoot in that local time and then import in a different time zone (home). When I do this, I do the steps exactly as you logically outlined them. I set the time zone settings so that both the camera time and the actual time are the same and match the actual shoot time.

This being said, my issue isn't that the image doesn't show the proper time, date and time zone in Aperture. I can see this info in the Metadata Pane and it is correct. The issue I'm gVing arises when I try to export the image. If I export the image and set the export settings so that the image is stored in a folder by date, the times are off. Now mind you, I only know that the times are off on images which change date based on a time zone change. For example, an image shot at 10:30 pm PST on 11/9/10 gets placed in a folder named 11/10/10 -the next day. This happens because Apeeture us saying that the original image time is EST, or 1:30 am the next day. The way I confirm this is by going to the image in Aperture. I pull down the "Adjust Date and Time..." menu item and it tells me that the image has a date and time of 1:30 am on 11/10/10, not 10:30 pm on 11/9/10 which would be the correct PST, and the time that shows in my Metadata Pane associated with that image.

I just don't understand why Aperture is keeping track of the image in two different times, and I would like to know how to stop it from doing so.

Dies this make sense?

Michael

Time Zone Upon Import

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