Alter picture timestamp due to wrong time zone

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Dear gurus,

I have a peculiar problem. I had gone to India for a vacation and had started using my camera the very next day. After a couple of days of frenzied picture taking, I realised that the timezone in the camera (a Nikon D-80 for those curious) was still EST. I hurriedly changed it to the Indian time zone and continued shooting.

My question is, is there any way to change the timestamp in each of the hundreds of pictures taken in a batch mode? If there is no batch mode, could I change it manually, one picture at a time? Finally, I’d also like to change the file timestamp so that it matches the correct local time when the picture was taken.

I have taken pictures in RAW (NEF) as well as JPG modes. i.e. each picture was taken in both ways. If the NEF can be modified, I can always have JPGs saved from each NEF. I will then discard the original JPGs created by the camera.

Thanks for your attention!

IndianRediff

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Dear gurus,

I have a peculiar problem. I had gone to India for a vacation and had started using my camera the very next day. After a couple of days of frenzied picture taking, I realised that the timezone in the camera (a Nikon D-80 for those curious) was still EST. I hurriedly changed it to the Indian time zone and continued shooting.

My question is, is there any way to change the timestamp in each of the hundreds of pictures taken in a batch mode? If there is no batch mode, could I change it manually, one picture at a time? Finally, I’d also like to change the file timestamp so that it matches the correct local time when the picture was taken.

I have taken pictures in RAW (NEF) as well as JPG modes. i.e. each picture was taken in both ways. If the NEF can be modified, I can always have JPGs saved from each NEF. I will then discard the original JPGs created by the camera.

Thanks for your attention!

IndianRediff

Welcome to the Lounge.

Been there (India) and done that (forgotten to change the time on the camera)!

A bit of Googling leads to one or two programs that claim to be able to do this. For instance there are quite a few listed on this page and some more here, some of them free, and I also found a program called Quick EXIF Editor which is free. 

Health warning – I haven’t tried any of these myself. I’d make sure you try it on some copies of files before risking the originals.

What photo software do you already have – for instance, what do you process your Raw files with? (I use Capture One, though it can’t change the Exif data, I think). Do you use Photoshop? (I don’t – can’t afford it!) Can it do that?

Ian

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Hi Indian,

In the Freeware thread below there are two highly recommended photo viewers/editors. One, FastStone, says it can edit EXIF info. It has a CNET 4 star rating and, of course, it’s free. http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Specifically, in the added features in version 3.7 (current version is 4.0) it states: “Now it is possible to adjust EXIF Timestamp by both hours and minutes using the “Change Timestamp” tool under “Tools” menu”

Hope this helps

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It’s worth noting that an image file has two different time stamps, one is the file time stamp, the other the EXIF Timestamp written into the file.

FastStone can change either, or set either one to the same value as the other. Most importantly, it can apply the change to all selected files. Big time saver!

This leads to another feature, tagging. You can tag files using the Tag menu (pull Tag menu down and select ‘Allow File Tagging’). You can tag files across sessions by pressing the key, and then use the tag menu to select all tagged files (within the current folder). This is useful as you browse through the pictures, even in full screen, to select the ones you want for editing, rotating (if camera does not write orientation into the EXIF) and date changes.

Cheers,

Nathan

Hi Indian,

In the Freeware thread below there are two highly recommended photo viewers/editors. One, FastStone, says it can edit EXIF info. It has a CNET 4 star rating and, of course, it’s free. http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

Specifically, in the added features in version 3.7 (current version is 4.0) it states: “Now it is possible to adjust EXIF Timestamp by both hours and minutes using the “Change Timestamp” tool under “Tools” menu”

Hope this helps

Reply | Quote