EXIF Date Changer Helps You Synchronise Photo Times
Windows only: Setting (and re-setting, and re-setting) your camera’s clock can be a pain, but wildly incorrect photo timestamps even more so. Here’s a free program that can keep your shots in sync.
Back in the days of yesteryear, when everyone used film cameras, if your camera even supported a time function, the worst that would happen if you neglected it was the time stamp on the back of your photos would be off. Now, with photo applications to organise our photos and a reliance on the EXIF data to get that organisation done, having the wrong date and time on your photos means they get put in the wrong place and badly sorted in your collection.
EXIF Date Changer is a simple and free Windows application which allows you to alter the EXIF time stamp on your photos. You can alter the hour, minute, and second a photo or batch of photos was taken to synchronise them with the actual time or, more helpfully, with other cameras. I’ve found EXIF Date Changer to be invaluable for the times I’ve been using two cameras and forgotten to synchronise them to each other or have been at an event where multiple people are shooting and we all share our pictures. EXIF Date Changer makes it simple to synchronise photographs to the proper time and the output of individual cameras to each other. EXIF Date Changer is freeware, Windows only.
EXIF Date Changer [Relik Software]
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
Exif data is critical for GPS tagging your images. Being just a few minutes off may tag your photo with the wrong location. Then when you upload them to google maps (or other GPS-aware services) the placement will be all wrong.
Just check out all the different photo locations for Iquazu Falls on the Brazil/Argentina border? [maps.google.com]
My photos are correctly tagged.
Anyone interested in a Linux "how to"?
TheFu
@baritoneuk: EXIF supports GPS data such as Lat and Long, not sure about time zone specifically. Did a quick The Google search and found a Wiki, may have your answers.
[en.wikipedia.org]
Jake712
hello
I have a test with the images in a folder, changing the date on ExifDatechanger, but I always see the same date
Alessandro Romano
For mac (os X) users, check out the great ShootShifter. This one deserves a full piece on lifehacker.
Great programme, will look into it. I recently went on a trip to Arizona, Utah and Nevarda (and I live in the UK), because of the huge time difference between the UK and the US and also the slight differences in time between those states made my photo's dates and times go all weird. Does EXIF not have time-zone data? It would be good if I could set that. Also is there an easy way to geotag my photos in Windows? And if I uploaded them to Flickr would the geotag info carry over?
@Jason: That's my recollection too, except I had a camera back that put the date stamp (or any programmed data) between the frames so it wouldn't be on the picture. That was a handy feature, but really expensive. Still, the data was burned into the film itself and not on the back of the printer paper. As you noted, the date on the back of the print was put their by the printer, not the photographer.
tombuch
Just for the record, I don't think film cameras ever supported a time stamp that would show up on the *back* of a photo. To the extent that they had a time stamp it would be emblazoned permanently on the corner of the image, usually in an orange or yellow color, because when the shutter was opened the time would be projected onto the film itself. I'm not aware of anywhere else in 35mm film that the date could be "encoded" which is why the dates on the *back* of the print were typically just the date the prints had been made (not even necessarily when the film was developed, if you went back a year later for reprints they'd have the new date on them). So an "off" date would be permanently ingrained in the actual image itself, arguably even more annoying than bad exif data. :-)
In any case, cool utility. ;-)
Jason
@Mortimer: Wow, ShootShifter looks awesome. I will have to check it out!
rapamatic
And an equivalent Linux tool is...?
@Jason: Good catch. It's been so long since I've shot film (10 years?) my recollection is apparently hazy ;-)
@bswilson: F-Spot Photo Manager lets you change the date/time and it works for multiple pictures at the same time.
cam11
While not a program for the same market of photographers, but Aperture can also do this in batches. Saved my butt one time I shot a wedding with two bodies, one set 12 hours off of the other. That would have been incredibly painful to edit without a shift.
jollyllama
@bswilson: And can edit ALL metadata on a picture rather than just the date!
whiskey
Sounds good, but anyone has a suggestion for a program RENAMING the files with the correct date and time? I used to rename my pictures (JPG) with the EXIF-plugin of TotalCommander, but as I now use RAW format, this doesnt work? Any suggestions for a free (portable) tool?
chabis
@bswilson: exiftool
BlackSir
@Mortimer: Good app, but iPhoto (and Aperture, I think) do this natively.
Big fan of this. Win-based photo apps don't have this native (cough, cough...iPhoto), so when I traveled the world last year with my eee PC, this little appy helped me keep my time synched with all the photos I snagged from random friends. Install this on your netbook now...thank me when you're in that country whose internet makes a 2400 modem look like FioS.
@Adobe Photoshop Lightroom? It's well worth the money if you work exclusively with RAW images including editing of EXIF data.
jarhead
@Irfanview not do this for you? I know it supports RAW images even in the batch conversion/rename process.
jarhead
Nice tool for JPEG images. For RAW images, check out ExifTool... this bad boy kicks all kinds of ass when it comes to EXIF data & RAW images.
jarhead
@Alessandro Romano:
Hello Alexssandro,
Two likely causes for this...
#1: You're looking at the "Date Created" (or Modified) field in Windows Explorer instead of the "Date Picture Taken" (not visible by default). You might be smarter than this, I'm not... ; )
#2: Your photos are set to "Read-Only".
Regards,
-dasinmd
dasinmd
@jarhead:
Thank for the info -just started using IrfanView and didnt use the batch tool, yet.
chabis
There were some films that stored dates, which could be printed on the back of the printed photos. My last camera before my move to digital media used Advantix (APS) film. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_format
ShubhaAntiphates
Any idea if there's a similar tool for modifying timestamp information on digital video imported into iMovie ('08, to be particular)?
ArdonKollar
You can try Exifer for Windows. A bit outdated and slow-acting, but I find it does its job (including batch redating/renaming) well. http://www.exifer.friedemann.info/
ShubhaDJ
@ShubhaDJ: I second this. Have been using Exifer for a long time.
Is there a utility like this to restore camera model info after a PhotoShop retourch? I hate that when I retouch pix, I lose all pertinent camera info.
SavieroNumskis