Aperture issue with Time Zones at Import

I use to always keep my Canon 40d set to GMT and then adjust the time by setting the TZ on import. This way I didn't; have to remember to reset the camera when traveling.

At some point in the Aperture 3 update cycle this stopped working for me. It is unclear if this affects only Canon cameras (I have no way to test as I have no other camera) or if it is more widespread. I reported this to Apple on numerous occasions and with each update I hoped the problem was resolved, but for mw it is still not working.

The good news is once the images are imported it is possible to use the Metadata->Batch Change; Adjust Time Zone feature to set the images correctly.

Wish I had better news and perhaps someone has found a work around, but as I wrote, for me the Time Zone adjust on import does not work as it should.

regards

Jon, is your camera really set to "GMT" and not British Summer Time?

The results of camera time "GMT" will be different in summer and winter. With the setting camera time "GMT" Aperture will assume (right now) that the camera is set to London Time as it is now and adding a daylight time correction. To prevent Aperture from adding a daylight time correction set the camera time to UTC in the Import panel. UTC is the only constant, linear time.

There is nothing I can do to get the photos stamped with both the correct time and the correct time zone.

With my Canon EOS 5D Mark II the only thing that really helps is to set the System Time in the System Preferences to the time zone of the Camera while importing. 😟 And that is easy to forget, unfortunately.

All rather confusing!

Part of the confusion is due to the fact, that you cannot tell the timezone of a date, that Aperture is displaying. I have set all date formats in the system prefererences to always include the timezone, and still Aperture will not show all timezone suffixes.

In System Preferences Language and Text:

And in Aperture: With "Camera Time" and "Actual time" set to Nairobi (GMT+03:00) and viewed with the System Time set to Hamburg, GMT+02:00

The "Date Created" is showing without Time Zone tag and misleading, since the System Time is GMT+02:00.

I have also been perplexed by time zone problems in Aperture. My wife & take photos with our iPhones cameras, and occasionally I try to integrate photos that friends have also taken. The main problem I have encountered has been one of time stamps - to get the photos to appear properly in chronological orders the time zones and times must be aligned.

After our recent Portugal trip I seem to have finally figured it out - and it was surprisingly straighforward. My approach is to fix the times and the time zones independently so that the interaction between the two doesn't confuse the heck out of things. As far as I can tell this should work for all situations. Here is this solution.

The first thing you should know is that EXIF does not store time-zone data. Hence when you import into Aperture it can only assign the time-zone of your Mac to the photo. On import there is an option to adjust the time zone. My strategy is not to do this, as it gets very confusing. Just import as is and we will fix everything later.

When the photos are in group the photos together (using albums or projects as you prefer) into time zones. If necessary subdivide by camera. Now you have groups of photos which can be correctly timestamped with at most two batch changes each.

For each group, figure out if you need to adjust the time. In this step we ignore time zones, and just focus on the time data. Select the photos and use "Adjust Date and Time..." to change all the times of the photos in the batch to the correct time in the timezone of the photo. That is, if the photo was taken at 3pm in the place where it was taken, change the time so that it becomes 3pm. Ignore the time zone. Occasionally taking a photo with a smartphone at the same time as with a camera is something I do so that I can synchronize location data as well as timestamps. I also turn on "Also adjust original files" but since I only work within Aperture I'm not sure if this is strictly necessary. The same adjustment should apply to the entire group so close your eyes and hit "Adjust".

Next, for each group figure out if you need to adjust the time zone. Select the photos, use "Batch Change..." and turn on "Adjust Time Zone". Now here is the clever part. Set both the "Camera's Time Zone" and "Actual Time Zone" to the actual time zone where the photo was taken. If you don't do this Aperture is too clever for its own good and ajdusts the time as well. Since you have already set the time correctly in the last step, you do not want this. Hit "OK".

That's it! Your photos in this group have the correct time and time zone. No mess, no bother.

I ran into this issue for a particular date range of photos. Somehow they all got labelled with GMT instead of PDT.

I followed strikemannt's directions to separately change the time--in my case +7 hours for GMT to PDT. Then I changed the time zone with Batch Change for both the camera and actual.

I discovered one hidden feature. In the Inspector HUD, you can drag items into the order you like. If you click on Date and begin to drag, then let go, the time zone will appear.