Time zone setup

[TRU-IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY]

I just installed LR the other day, this morning I shot some photos of snow, as soon as I put my card into the computer Lightroom launched for import but I was told that the photos were taken 7 hours ago, well that is not right, they were taken "now". All I want is a definitive answer about how to set the correct time zone in LR, that's it, I don't want to change the metadata, just the global time offset, so it is correct.

How do I make that happen?

[dj_paige]

This is probably controlled by the time setting in your camera and not in Lightroom.

[TRU-IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY]

I mentioned upon insertion of the card that was the time indicated, just happens to the be the time offset from UTC, I did have to reset the time in the camera back one hour, cuz I forgot to do it after daylight savings time ended, earlier this month. But still it would be 6 hours off (my offset from UTC is -6)

[JoeKostoss]

You may have the time set to what looks correct; however, you do not have the correct time zone in the camera.

[dj_paige]

TSPCo wrote:

I mentioned upon insertion of the card that was the time indicated, just happens to the be the time offset from UTC, I did have to reset the time in the camera back one hour, cuz I forgot to do it after daylight savings time ended, earlier this month. But still it would be 6 hours off (my offset from UTC is -6)

Still, this indicates that you have not checked your camera today to verify that it is set to the proper time. As both I and cmgap and JoeKostoss have stated, this is almost certainly a camera issue, not a Lightroom issue.

[cmgap]

Hi TSPCo,

Is this the first time you are seeing a time stamp issue? Are you using an external GPS to track coordinates? If yes it may be related to that. If not can you check your camera settings?

At this point if you want the correct time stamp you will need to change the metadata on this batch of images.  Victoria Bampton, a.k.a the Lightroom Queen has a tutorial here: http://www.lightroomqueen.com/time-camera-incorrect-change/

Hope this helps.

[TRU-IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY]

Yes this the first time I saw the time issue, also the first time I tried to import into LR. No gps issue, didn't use it, other software I have used, asks you to set your offset from UTC upon installation, LR didn't. I will shoot some more today and see if the issue persists.

[TRU-IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY]

I did confirm today my camera clock is correct within seconds, that is not the issue

[JoeKostoss]

That does not answer the specific question that we asked.  While the "Clock" may be set correctly to within a nano-second, what is the "Time Zone" set to in your camera?

[TRU-IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY]

Time zone is correct also, i'm pretty ocd about that, central time zone US

[JoeKostoss]

Can you post a screenshot of the Lightroom panel showing the Date Time Original in the Library Module?  What time did you take the photo?

[TRU-IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY]

Can't right now post the screenshot, the photos were taken this morning at

5:05 am

[johnrellis]

LR simply ignores any time zone that some cameras record in the metadata.  So it won't matter what time zone you may have set in the camera, LR will show the local time as recorded in the EXIF metadata field.   See this post for the gory details of how LR handles time zones: Re: How to change the timezone in photo metadata?

LR does have some issues with time zones, but in situations that don't seem to apply here (folder naming when using a USB cable, capture time of Quicktime/MP4 videos).   After triple-checking your camera's clock is set correctly, the easiest way to triple-check this is to upload a problem pic to Dropbox (or similar) and post the sharing link here.

[cmgap]

What kind of camera? Can you take a picture of the settings menu and paste it here? Lightroom will only change the time stamp 1. if the feature is selected in the preferences menu and 2. if the time zone settings are different in the camera than the local time.

You may want to try resetting the camera to factory settings and then set the time/date/TZ before testing again.