How to change timestamp on import- Camera was set wrong?

Hello,

In the import panel you can set the time zone of the camera and the actual timezone. But that will only help for offsets in steps of one hour.

After you have imported the images, you can use "Metadata -> Adjust Date and Time" to correct the time of multiple images.

Select the images you want to correct in the Browser, select "Metadata -> Adjust Date and Time" from the Aperture Application menu, and in the diologue panel enter the correct time for the first image of the selection. All other selected images will be corrected by the same offset.

You can also check: Apply to master file; then the corrected date will be written to the master image file as well.

Regards

Léonie

Here is a screenshot how to correct the time for a selection of images using "Adjust Date and Time". You see the current time for the first image of the selection and enter the adjusted time, then click the adjust button. This will also write the changes to the master image file, at least the current version 3.2.2. doea allow that.

Thanks Leonie- The camera has a completely wrong time and date (not a basic offset). Also, i'm importing jpeg + Raw. When I try to do the change on master file, it says it doesn't understand the file type which is odd. It's annoying you can't edit directly in the import screen to correct the right time and date.

What is your Aperture version? Do you have 3.2.2? Previous versions had a bug preventing the writie to the master.

Yes, just checked, I have 3.2.2. the error says: "Unable to adjust master file becuase it has a format that does not permit date modification"- it is a video file- .mp4.

But for your raw + jpeg pairs is it working correctly? I'm afraid for .mp4 you really can't modify the date of the master file in Aperture.

If you want to adjust the date before you import your image files into Aperture you can use the commandline utility exiftool, here is a download link: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

But I looked again at the documention for the supported formats, the exiftool does not support mp4.

The camera has a completely wrong time and date (not a basic offset).

I just reread your previous post - sorry I missed that remark. Even a completely wrong time and date in the camera can be adjusted by a basic offset in the "Adjust Date and Time" panel. The original date and the adjusted date can differ by any offset from just one second to several years. Since the date in the camera will be equally wrong for all images from the same shoot, it is very convenient that all images will be corrected by the same time difference, if you select all images from the same shoot simultaniously. This should work well for your raw+jpeg pairs, not for for mp4.

Thanks a lot leonieDF. It's too bad Aperture doesn't let you change it automatically in the import panel. I've found another weirdness- when entering actual time and camera time. Camera time seems to be the thing that changes based on entering actual time rather than the other way around. This makes it difficult to remember what the time the camera had if you change actual time. Particularly strange when you are trying to adjust timezones.

Particularly strange when you are trying to adjust timezones.

That was driving me crazy too, until I decided to keep all cameras strictly set to UTC - no more forgetting to set the time when travelling, all cameras on the same clock, no more time zone adjustments in the camera; the time zone can be set in the import panel. The UTC time base goes well with GPS data and Geotagalog or JetPhotoStudio, or exiftool, and even after years I know what time the camera was set to originally, since I never change it.