Lightroom tagging GPS coordinates incorrectly

[knmorgan]

Hello, I attempting to use a gpx file to tag my photos from a long trip for the first time and am encountering issues. As an example, here is Lightroom's metadata for a single photo.

https://i.imgur.com/5A2Kj86.jpg

I would personally expect it to use the middle coordinate from the gpx file here.

<trkpt lat="65.451889" lon="-21.922289"><ele>46.454929</ele><time>2018-08-14T10:26:08Z</time></trkpt>

<trkpt lat="65.449211" lon="-21.908587"><ele>15.016686</ele><time>2018-08-14T10:28:08Z</time></trkpt>

<trkpt lat="65.449211" lon="-21.908587"><ele>15.016686</ele><time>2018-08-14T10:30:09Z</time></trkpt>

However, you can see from the metadata above that it does not have the correct coordinate. I believe it is interpolating between the following two points.

<trkpt lat="64.926727" lon="-23.310328"><ele>-11.122681</ele><time>2018-08-14T14:27:20Z</time></trkpt>

<trkpt lat="64.925835" lon="-23.311325"><ele>76.686890</ele><time>2018-08-14T14:29:22Z</time></trkpt>

Now, I am normally on EDT (UTC-4), but was taking these photos in a country on GMT (UTC-0). I properly set the time and time zone on my camera to the GMT time/zone before taking any photos, but it appears Lightroom is assuming they should be four hours in the future. I know there is no official time zone offset EXIF tag, but Lightroom's behavior in this circumstance seems truly puzzling. For what it's worth, here is a selection of metadata from exiftool.

exiftool -a -G DSC_0066.NEF

[File]          File Modification Date/Time     : 2018:08:14 10:28:32-04:00

[EXIF]          Date/Time Original              : 2018:08:14 10:28:30

[EXIF]          Create Date                     : 2018:08:14 10:28:30

[MakerNotes]    Time Zone                       : +00:00

I know I can probably use Lightroom's "Edit Capture Time" tool to get around this, but I would prefer to preserve the current capture times. Lightroom is presumably assuming the capture times are in EDT and the gpx file is in UTC, correct? If anything I would have to give everything a +4 hour offset and re-sync the tracklog. Does anyone else have any experience with this issue?

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

You'll need to use the Map > Tracklog > Set Time Zone Offset command: Work with the Map module in Lightroom Classic CC

This part of the Map module is very confusing. Camera times are usually recorded in "local" time without reference to any time zone, the track log is always in UTC, and your computer is usually in some other time zone.  To match the camera times with the track log, LR assumes the camera times are in the time zone of your computer. When that's not the case, you have to use the Set Time Zone Offset command.

[knmorgan]

I eventually got this to work, so thank you for the response! In this case I had to give it a +4 hour offset to get it to sync properly.

Initially it was not working and was tagging photos the same as before. I eventually noticed that I had to select the correct track along the bottom of the map module.

The tracklog I had contained about two weeks worth of data, and initially was set to "All Tracks" above. When I dialed it down to the correct day, it worked properly. This means I have to individually auto-tag each day, but at least it works now.

[johnrellis]

I know there is no official time zone offset EXIF tag

After all these years, the standards commitee finally added time-zone offsets to Exif Version 2.31 in 2016 (e.g. EXIF:OffsetTimeOriginal). But I think few cameras use it.  And by design, LR completely ignores any time zones that are present in the metadata (with a minor exception for some manufacturer's QuickTime videos).