Problems with date/time

[kaczor47]

Hello, first time poster, 'long time' reader here...

I have been trying to solve this issue for a while now, and quite frankly, I find it very troubling...

LR occasionally displays incorrect time in the EXIF metadata, specifically off by one hour. The reason I say 'displays' is that other software, namely Bridge and iView, show the correct time (I know when the picture was taken and that the camera settings were correct), and thus I assume that the actual EXIF info is correct. On the other hand, perhaps it is more of an 'interpretation' of the date/time, since when I rename the photos using 'date-time' present, it renames it according to what it 'displays' (ie one hour off). It only happens for some images and while it happens in 'blocks', I can't figure out the pattern.

I don't know what causes this, but I have a feeling it has something to do with daylight savings. Call it a hunch.

I know this has been discussed on Adobe's forums, but there seems to be no consensus on the root of the problem, nor has anyone from Adobe responded to it in any way. Very frustrating, as I think of the date/time as probably the most critical part of the metadata. It troubles me that LR in some ways 'messes' with this EXIF information.

Does anyone here have any insight into this problem? Has anyone else experienced this?

cheers!

 

[Steve Crane]

As a developer who has had run-ins with daylight savings I immediately thought that this sounded like a daylight savings issue. A search turned up this Adobe Applications and the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2''5 change to daylight saving time (DST) General Information document, which gives no useful information save that Adobe products rely on third-party software such as operating systems for handling daylight savings.

Perhaps you should take a look at your Windows regional settings and see if there is anything wrong there. For instance you are in Canada but if your machine is inadvertently using US daylight savings settings then the change referred to in that document could cause certain dates to be one hour out from what you expect.

 

[kaczor47]

Steve,

I have played around with various setting. If I deselect 'automatically adjust clock for daylight saving' in 'date/time properties' the time that LR displays shifts back by an hour. Problem is twofold: the windows clock is now incorrect, and all photos in LR are shifted by an hour, including the ones that were correct in the first place.

What I still don't understand is why does LR not simply read the EXIF information? The time that a photo was taken should be independent of which time zone LR is viewing it in.

 

[Steve Crane]

Strange. Does this happen with all your images? I import my images into a year\month\day folder structure and seem to recall noticing with B4 that if I took a test shot between 11pm and midnight and imported it, it would be imported and filed in the following day's folder, but that the actual file name, again derived from Exif date, would be correct. I haven't noticed, or really looked, to see if this happens in any of the release versions.

My machine never adjusts for daylight saving as we don't use it here in ZA.

 

[ATJ-renamed]

I am having this problem, too. I have just noticed that the date/time displayed for every image taken between April and September is shifted forward one hour by Lightroom. The details shown in all other applications are correct. It does smack of DST adjustments but why would Lightroom make adjustments without me telling it to?

The timezone and daylight saving settings for Windows are 1''% correct. In Australia up until this year, we go onto DST on the last Sunday in October and end DST on the last Sunday in March. (From this year we end DST on the first Sunday in April and go on on the first Sunday in October.)

 

[ATJ-renamed]

No-one?

Just in case it isn't clear, this is what I see with Nikon View (and all other software except Lightroom). The shot was taken at 1':16:33 and that's what Nikon View says

The same image when displayed by Lightroom displays as 11:16:33

This must somehow be related to DST and it appears that Lightroom is doing something it shouldn't. If I disable "Automatically adjust clock for daylight saving changes" in Windows' Date and Time properties, the times are displayed correctly in Lightroom.

 

[Brad Snyder]

I believe that it's a known problem, at least I recall seeing discussions in other venues voicing similar (maybe identical) concerns.

I recall one of the Jeffs particularly (Schewe, Freidl, not sure which one), commenting.

No advice to give at this point.

 

[Ian Farlow]

Hm... I'll try this when I get home.

 

[ATJ-renamed]

I had done a Google on this before, but my search parameters must have sucked. I now get a relevant hit, including this:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c'59'ff

 

[Bruce J]

I had done a Google on this before, but my search parameters must have sucked. I now get a relevant hit, including this:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.3c'59'ff

As you can see from reading the post mentioned above and several other posts on the Adobe forum, this problem has been around for a long time. At least since the Win version of LR beta came out to my knowledge. In all that time, I've yet to see any comment from anyone associated w/ Adobe as to:

a) If it's a bug, why this should be so hard to fix, or

b) If the software is acting correctly, why this is a reasonable response.

IMHO, this is the type of situation where just a few minutes of staff time from Adobe could earn them a world of respect from their clients.

 

[Ian Farlow]

I just tried this, and now I'm terribly upset. Virtually all of my DNGs created with Lightroom have wonky dates/times. They are off by 9 hours to 12 hours to not being off at all. I can't get the proper date and time back as some of these images are several years old.

I took a picture about 3' minutes ago to test this (a picture of a watch, not prize winning by any means ), and imported the CR2 file into Lightroom without making a DNG. I then re-imported the same file, but this time I made a DNG. Both files display the exact same date and time information in Lightroom ('3/26/2''8 at '9:18:24) which is the correct image date and time. However, if I examine the two files outside of Lightroom, the CR2 file has the correct date and time, while the DNG displays '3/26/2''8 at '':18:24.

Why on earth is the DNG showing a loss of 9 hours? This is only happening to images converted to DNG, and happens with Lightroom or the Adobe DNG converter. Is this DNG, the DNG conversion, or Apple OSX?

Here are the files (right click and save):

Original CR2 File
DNG File Converted With Lightroom

 

[jimburgess]

Ian,
It may or may not be related, but I can't open your DNG file with anything--PS3, Preview, Quick Look, and the DNG converter.

I also took a quick look with CS3 at some TIF and CR2 raw files from Canon cameras imported and converted to DNGs in LR, and the times look ok. You did say some of yours are ok, so is there anything in common among the images that are screwed up? What are you using to look at them outside of LR?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Date/time wonkiness is definitely on their radar, but it's not a quick one to fix.

Ian, I've just run a conversion to DNG, and apart from the '':'' 1.4 bug, I can't see any wonkiness, but then I'm GMT. What are you using to view them?

 

[Ian Farlow]

Ian,
It may or may not be related, but I can't open your DNG file with anything--PS3, Preview, Quick Look, and the DNG converter.

Oops... appears to be a problem with the DNG. I'll re-upload it.

I also took a quick look with CS3 at some TIF and CR2 raw files from Canon cameras imported and converted to DNGs in LR, and the times look ok. You did say some of yours are ok, so is there anything in common among the images that are screwed up? What are you using to look at them outside of LR?

I think this is a DNG/Adobe issue, so CS3 and Lightroom will display everything okay, but I can not confirm at this point.

Date/time wonkiness is definitely on their radar, but it's not a quick one to fix.

Ian, I've just run a conversion to DNG, and apart from the '':'' 1.4 bug, I can't see any wonkiness, but then I'm GMT. What are you using to view them?

If I view the files in Lightroom, everything is fine. The date and time are as expected. However, if I view the files in Aperture or Preview, the times are off in the DNG. The CR2 file is still correct. There is definitely a problem with the DNG, which means that all of my DNGs are potentially wrong. I seem to recall something with extra data being stored in the DNG which may cause the times to be off, but I'm not sure.

I'm really kicking myself in the buns for going the DNG route at this point. I completely invested in DNGs to the point that I no longer have my original CR2 and NEF files, so there is no way to go back at this point. However, going forward you can bet that DNGs are off the list. Hey, at least my imports will be faster!

 

[Ian Farlow]

The link to the DNG file in my earlier post has been fixed.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

If I view the files in Lightroom, everything is fine. The date and time are as expected. However, if I view the files in Aperture or Preview, the times are off in the DNG. The CR2 file is still correct.

Ok, in Preview, where are you looking? Cos when I ran a conversion, the Preview time matched and I'd just like to try and replicate in order to understand it better.

I'm really kicking myself in the buns for going the DNG route at this point. I completely invested in DNGs to the point that I no longer have my original CR2 and NEF files, so there is no way to go back at this point.

I wouldn't panic. If LR says the times correctly, then when the LR bug is fixed, you'll be able to write the correct times out to metadata.

 

[Ian Farlow]

In preview, if you bring up the Inspector (Command-I) and click on the EXIF tab, you can see the camera date and time for the file. Here are two screenshots:

The CR2 file:

The DNG file:

 

[Ian Farlow]

Oh, and looking at my screenshots, it appears that a single IPTC field was entered somehow. ByLine got a value put in it, even though I don't know why. Not a problem, except that maybe something has to be edited to get this issue to appear? In other words, maybe Lightroom needs a reason to write to the DNG, such as saving IPTC data, and at that point the time shift happens?

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Interesting. The same file, converted to DNG at this end, reads correctly. They should all be corrected when the bug is fixed though, as long as LR still has a record of the correct details somewhere.

 

[ATJ-renamed]

Victoria,

Thanks for your response.

Date/time wonkiness is definitely on their radar, but it's not a quick one to fix.

What I don't understand is why there is something that needs to be fixed in the first place. What were the developers trying to achieve by manipulating the times?

My previous camera (Nikon D7') knew nothing about time zones or DST. I would just set the clock on the camera so reflect my local time and rely on that information so I knew when the photo was taken. Why would I ever want to know what time the photo was taken relative to a different timezone (whether that be a different location or DST on or off)? It make no sense to me that anyone would want to display times any different to when they actually took the photo.

My current camera (Nikon D3'') does know what time zone it is in, but as with the D7', all I care about it is recording the time I took the photograph in the time zone I was in. I don't want any application playing around with those times.

With this particular bug, the adjustment isn't even consistent. If I look at photos that were taken during DST, most show the date/time correctly. Some taken during DST have their times shifted forward one hour. All photos taken when DST was not in force are shifted forward one hour. What is the value of this?

This may not be a big deal for some people, but for me it is. I take a large proportion of my photographs underwater. I synchronise my dive watch (which records my depth every 5 seconds) with my camera so I can determine at what depth the photograph was taken. It is now difficult to do this when using Lightroom as photos may be out by an hour or maybe not. It is very annoying.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Yep, I'd agree Andrew, and I'm not sure what the thinking behind it was at the time. I'm sure there was probably some level of logic involved, but that doesn't always help in the real world! At least they have acknowledged that it needs sorting, and will get done. It's just a question of when, and I don't have a date to give you (and it'd probably be wonky if I did! :roll

 

[Ian Farlow]

...and I don't have a date to give you (and it'd probably be wonky if I did! :roll

Nice!

It's annoying to me too, but as I don't have as important a need for this data as ATJ does, I can just let it go for now. I expect Adobe will get this sorted in time too.

I still think I'll stick with CR2/NEF files, at least in the interim.

 

[wblink]

At least they have acknowledged that it needs sorting, and will get done. It's just a question of when, and I don't have a date to give you (and it'd probably be wonky if I did! :roll

I have seen much time garbaging. Many camera's have problems with timezones en most have problems (of course) with the ever changing DST's. SO I set my camera at GMT and that's it. I can calculate (if I rally NEED to) the time afterwards.

The real reason for me to do this was that I always forgot to adjust the timezone in my camera ....

 

[Halfje-Bruin]

I have seen much time garbaging. Many camera's have problems with timezones en most have problems (of course) with the ever changing DST's. SO I set my camera at GMT and that's it. I can calculate (if I rally NEED to) the time afterwards.

The real reason for me to do this was that I always forgot to adjust the timezone in my camera ....

Nice suggestion. I have had this also several times already.

 

[ATJ-renamed]

Looks like it is DST related. We went off DST last night and now all my photographs taken in the last 5 months show their time as 1 hour less than when I took them.

I have changed nothing other than letting Windows adjust the PC time.