Changing Time Zone

[mastodon]

I have a lot of mess in my mind with time zone.
I have pictures that have time zone +02:00 after manipulating them in Picasa, but they are taken in a +01:00 time zone. The pictures that I just imported but did not altered in IMatch, does not have time zone in the Date created or Date digitized field. Does the Date created or Date digitized field show the local time that set the camere/mobil, and the time zone show the difference of the local time to UTC?
How can I change their time zone equally to +01:00 time zone?

[Mario]

EXIF date and time have no time zone. It depends on the application how this is interpreted. Some assume local time (with or without summer time adjustment) others assume UTC. It is a real mess. I have written a lot of this in the IMatch help. See there.

IMatch gives you some options when converting between EXIF -> XMP on import and export. But since EXIF cannot hold a time zone, it's always messy.
Most photographers I know (me included) set the camera to UTC and avoid all problems. Works for me for 10 years now.

Camera vendors should have ripped out lame EXIF 10 years ago and instead use XMP. XMP can store the same as EXIF, and lots more. No problems anymore with character sets. No more or less lossy conversion. Proper timestamps with proper time zones. But most users don't care or know about it, camera vendors try to squeeze out as much money as possible (and rewriting camera firmware for XMP costs money) etc. Modern smart phones now start to support XMP (Androids at least) so we'll may see some change for the better in 10 years time.

[Jingo]

But most users don't care or know about it

Bingo!  Ask the average user about EXIF and prepare for the blank stares... most folks just do not know or care... I did a very quick poll at work last year about photo management/organization just to get an idea of how folks handle their photos (part of a business plan).  Out of 50 employees (most with families and kids)... only 2 managed their images in some way.  Only 15 had actual cameras.... the rest used their phones..  Of the 15 that had cameras... 10 of them are still using the same SD card that came with the camera... and the photos they took are still on the card... YIKES!!! 

There is a huge market out there for photo management... but truly folks need to actually care about the process in order to take advantage.  Since most do not - camera manufactures have no reason to change anything... and we are stuck with outdated EXIF in our photos .... and IPTC only support in our OS....

[sinus]

But most users don't care or know about it

Bingo!  Ask the average user about EXIF and prepare for the blank stares... most folks just do not know or care... I did a very quick poll at work last year about photo management/organization just to get an idea of how folks handle their photos (part of a business plan).  Out of 50 employees (most with families and kids)... only 2 managed their images in some way.  Only 15 had actual cameras.... the rest used their phones..  Of the 15 that had cameras... 10 of them are still using the same SD card that came with the camera... and the photos they took are still on the card... YIKES!!! 

There is a huge market out there for photo management... but truly folks need to actually care about the process in order to take advantage.  Since most do not - camera manufactures have no reason to change anything... and we are stuck with outdated EXIF in our photos .... and IPTC only support in our OS....

True.

And your poll is interesting.
Phew, quite asthonishing!

[Mario]

Your poll results don't surprise me. There is a 1000 to 1 ratio of "folks taking photos" to ambitious photographers who actually care.

There is a huge market out there for photo management... but truly folks need to actually care about the process in order to take advantage.  Since most do not - camera manufactures have no reason to change anything... and we are stuck with outdated EXIF in our photos .... and IPTC only support in our OS....

Yeah, well. Windows 10 can do (some) XMP at least. But don't dig too deep...

In general:

- The desktop (DAM) market is shrinking. It's all going mobile.

- Cameras in smart phones get better all the time. Good enough for most people who just produce selfies for Instagram or Facebook. Or family / vacation photos and videos.

I get some pretty good results with the Sony camera in my BQ smart phone (if there is sufficient light).
It even outputs DNG files (although GPS coordinates only go into the JPEG, because Google wants it that way...??

- Adobe, Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Instagram do everything to get people to store their photos in their clouds.
This gives these companies a massive leverage over the data and they can make enough money from selling the knowledge they accumulate that way to compensate for the cost. It is also pretty unlikely that users will move their images out of their clouds again, because this is complicated and time consuming and maybe even expensive. Massive Customer retention feature.

- And the big vendors feed their AIs with the images, doing face, location and object recognition on each photo. This tells them who knows who, where the person goes to, which objects the person possesses or uses (car brand, favorite cinema, furniture, electronics) - even if the persons have disabled the usually always-on tracking on their smart phones. Most people don't realize this or understand the corresponding paragraphs in the 20 page legal text they have to agree to before using the service.

- People often learn to late about what a DAM can do for them.
Just keep an eye on dpreview and similar forums and you'll know what nonsense is often done or suggested...

- People have been dumbed down to accept mediocre image quality everywhere. What you today sometimes see even in big magazines would have been rejected by image editors 20 years ago for "bad quality and composition". But today even smart phone photos make it big time into the magazines. No image editors anymore - cost cuts. Most photos are produced for on-line magazines and blogs, where you don't need more than 800 pixel (or maybe 1600).

- Everything has been photographed to death anyway 

- The 'corporate' and 'institutional' DAM market is holding up, but is under the control of a few big vendors. Who seem to struggle...

- Luckily, these big vendors also require big budgets.

Which is why IMatch Anywhere is such a neat and important product. Powerful and affordable, even for tiny budgets.
Whether you just want to view your photos on your iPad or Smart TV or you need to make your image collection available for 10 colleagues in your company, institute or library.

- What most people don't get (yet) is that I have completely separated all the DAM logic and magic of IMatch from the user interface with IMatch Anywhere.
I could build a new UI (or several specialized UIs for different audiences) in JavaScript and HTML wrap it with Electron into a real app and have a new product (with IMWS running in the background to do all the work).

As soon as all the endpoints I need are there (and the STAGE 3 level shipped with the next IMatch release comes close already) I will enhance IMatch WebViewer to allow for metadata and Attribute updates, adding photos (uploading) etc. Over several releases of course.

The Admin tool will be enhanced to support the full range of IMatch maintenance, including database creation. Diagnosis and Optimize are already available.
When this is available, a user can choose between the desktop version of IMatch or a version which only consists of IMatch Anywhere and runs completely in your browser.

IMatch WebViewer in the web browser will not do everything IMatch for Windows can, but most people will be perfectly fine with a reduced feature set. Especially when they can use all that from their smart phone, tablet, Linux box etc.

The only culprit is that IMatch WebServices requires a Windows system. Rewriting to run on Limux / Mac is possible but massively time consuming and expensive. But one thing after the other.

The main goal is to give people an affordable, reliable and flexible DAM solution on all platforms.

[mastodon]

Ok, I read the Help and a lot of forums, and I have learnt that EXIF has no time zone. I like to sort my pictures that have been taken by several cameras and mobil in the right order (We go across time zones in a trip). I see time in in IMatch, and I like to use it properly.
On IMG_1 there is no time zone data in IMatch but there is on IMG_2. But the actual time zone is +01:00. How to set time zone +01:00 to both picture?
[/img]

[Mario]

None of your attachment contains metadata.
Please ZIP images before uploading them. The community software will strip metadata.

Note: Whatever you enter in the Metadata Panel will be used, which allows you to enter the time zone as well.S

[jch2103]

EXIF date and time have no time zone. It depends on the application how this is interpreted. Some assume local time (with or without summer time adjustment) others assume UTC. It is a real mess. I have written a lot of this in the IMatch help. See there.

For what it's worth, the latest update of the EXIF standard includes 'TimeZoneOffset' (see https://sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/EXIF.html). However, I'm not aware that any camera makers actually use this tag. At best, it's a band-aid, at worst just business as usual. As suggested above, it would be better for camera makers to shift to XMP, but that doesn't seem likely in the foreseeable future. 

[mastodon]

Sorry, I have forgot the method of posting of images. So, I see, that in the Metadata panel I can add or edit even the time zone of every pictures, but only individually. How can I set/modify the time zone for several images at the same time?

[Mario]

For what it's worth, the latest update of the EXIF standard includes 'TimeZoneOffset' (see https://sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/EXIF.html). However, I'm not aware that any camera makers actually use this tag. At best, it's a band-aid, at worst just business as usual. As suggested above, it would be better for camera makers to shift to XMP, but that doesn't seem likely in the foreseeable future.

I have so far never encountered an image with data in these fields. Even if, it would depend on if and how ExifTool incorporates this when mapping the EXIF timestamps into XMP and vice-versa.

[Mario]

Sorry, I have forgot the method of posting of images. So, I see, that in the Metadata panel I can add or edit even the time zone of every pictures, but only individually. How can I set/modify the time zone for several images at the same time?

You can change the metadata for any number of files at once in the metadata panel. But then all files get the same values, which is probably not what you want.
IMatch has no feature for mass-updating time zone data. This is not something you need very often.

You can use the Commands > Image > Modify EXIF Date and Time to fix your broken timestamps.
NOTE: Make extra sure you have read the help topic (press <F1> in the dialog)  and that you try this out first with some copies of your images.

EXIF date and time, IPTC date and time (which has time zones) and XMP (which has time zones, for some time stamps) is really a big mess and I have lost far to much lifetime over this already. It's just not worth the trouble. Set your camera to UTC and done.

[mastodon]

Thanks, for the clear answer! 

[hluxem]

How can I set/modify the time zone for several images at the same time?

I think you can do that for multiple images using a meta data template.
Select the XMP:photoshop\DateCreated Tag and fill it with the date time information and the time zone like this:
{File.DateTime|format:YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss}+00:02   where +00:02 defines the time zone.
I tried it out for some of my files and it seems to work. Make sure you try it out on duplicates of your files. If it works for you and you need multiple time zones, just clone the template.

Heiner

[ubacher]

Set your camera to UTC and done.

Unfortunately not that easy: I, and I assume many of us, get images from others which we then want to include with ours in a proper timeline.
And I have yet to find a camera which has an accurate time setting! If the camera clock is off by a fixed number of hours it is easy to correct.
If, however, the time is only off by several minutes/seconds then the problem is to find out how far off the clock of the "foreign camera" is.

Where I anticipate such problems I get other "photographers" to take a picture of the current time displayed on my smartphone. I ask them to send me this "time" picture
together with others and use this then to synchronize the time on the photos.

(The free and simple android app "Big digital clock" by andreas1724 is what I can recommend for this)

[DigPeter]

Sorry - what is UTC?

[sinus]

Sorry - what is UTC?

UTC steht für Universal Time Coordinated, früher auch offiziell als GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) bezeichnet.

UTC most often refers to Coordinated Universal Time.

[DigPeter]

Danke markus

[sinus]

Danke markus

Gern geschehen! 

[mastodon]

Where I anticipate such problems I get other "photographers" to take a picture of the current time displayed on my smartphone. I ask them to send me this "time" picture
together with others and use this then to synchronize the time on the photos.

Thanks, ubacher. That is what I do, too. My colleges and friends don't really understand why I need a picture of the exact time webpage. An other option to search for pictures that are made in the same situation, hopefully in the same second. And with the two pictures (from my camera and from the other one) you can set the correct time for the other one.