Date and time in Aperture

Question

Date and time in Aperture

I used 3 cameras on a recent international trip, 2 were set to CDT time [home time] and not changed when we landed and one [the iPhone] updated the time when it next was on line, on arrival. I imported all three sets of photos into Aperture 3.6 [am running Sierra and no problems so far, or at least not major]. I did a change date and time from the CDT time to GMT+2 time and that worked fine on the two cameras, but I didn't do anything with the iPhone camera.

I have now arranged photos in Date/time sequence and yet the iPhone pics do not set in the correct order. Not sure what the issue is == As you can see from the attachment, the iPhone pics insert themselves into the date order of the larger camera shots. A series goes on and then the Powershot pics start up again, then the iPhone pics insert themselves again in an order which makes no sense ==

Aperture 3, macOS Sierra (10.12.5)

Posted on Sep 19, 2017 10:45 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

200,735 points

Sep 19, 2017 11:26 AM in response to Victoria Herring

How did you change the time of the photos?

Aperture has two ways to correct the time:

one is "Metadata > Adjust Date and Time". It will shift the time of all selected photos by the same offset. This is useful, if the clock in a camera has been set incorrectly and needs to be shifted by a few minutes or so.
The second method is "Metadata > Batch Change". It allows you to correct the timezone. I use it, if a camera has been to a different timezone than the one I wanted to use. You can specify two time zones in this batch change command
- the actual time: the timezone the capture time time should be showing
- the camera time: the timezone the camera has been set to.

If you use just "Metadata > Adjust Date and Time" without telling Aperture the name if the time zone, the photos will be sorted incorrectly.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

200,735 points

Sep 19, 2017 12:02 PM in response to Victoria Herring

It is hard to suggest something, if I do not know exactly how you adjusted the photos.

I'd first try to isolate the Canon photos and the iPhone photos in separate smart albums. Then adjust the timezones of all photos to the same time zone using batch change - they should be showing the timezone GMT+02 for Milan. Your screenshot is showing, that the iPhone photos are set to CDT. Select the smart album with iPhone photos and batch change them to GMT+02 actual time. After you adjust the timezone for the iPhone photos sort he photos again and try to figure out the offset in time. Try to find two photos taken at the same place at the same time with the Powershot and the iPhone and calculate the offset in time. Then use "adjust date and time" to correct the iPhone photos and shift their time.

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Answer 3

Sep 28, 2017 2:37 PM in response to Victoria Herring

There's a second way to set the timezone: In the import window under import settings you can specify the "camera" and "actual" timezones. This is where the "actual" timezone is added to the metadata (believe it or not, there is no timezone in the EXIF data!). If you never set the timezone during import it defaults to your local timezone. As Leonie pointed out, this is probably what happened. You end up with pictures with the correct time (local where the picture was taken) but the wrong timezone.

Caution: the import timezone settings are sticky across Aperture sessions. I usually remember to check and set them because I far too frequently forget to set the proper timezone on my DSLR. I get into trouble when I'm importing phone pictures as those always have the correct (local photo location) time and I don't think to check the import settings. That's when the Metadata/Batch Change... timezone change tool comes in handy.

P.S. Time/Timezone handling is one feature of Aperture that I can't find in other photo management/editing apps.

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Answer 4

Sep 19, 2017 11:32 AM in response to léonie

Hard to remember but I think it was doing a Batch Change == the Metadata/Adjust method has always scared me a bit == your explanation of why it is used helps a lot -- so any ideas on how to fix the ordering of the photos = it is weird that the iPhone photos are sort of plopped down in the midst of a bunch of later photos after all. But part of the problem of the iPhone photo taking is that it properly tracks time in a locale [assuming it gets online at some points, which it did] -- for instance the iPhone pics were taken in the sky over the Swiss Alps - well before the arrival into Milan. So do I just use the Adjust method and add time to them so they fall before the Milan ones??? How do I make sure in the future this doesn't happen again??

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Answer 5

Sep 28, 2017 2:40 PM in response to stephenfromencinitas

Thank you as well -- I did do some juggling and while some of the images are still a bit 'off' it's no doubt because I didn't do it quite right = they are close enough for what I need now. But between these ideas I'll find something useful.

I REALLY love Aperture [with all its faults] and am hoping to stay on Sierra as long as possible before I am forced to move. Though I guess it would force me to cull my Libraries!

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Answer 6

Sep 20, 2017 9:41 AM in response to léonie

That is very helpful == just the description of how to assess the time-off helps a lot =- that was what I was struggling with - many thanks.

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