Fault in presenting EXIF Date

Bertus

I think there might be a fault in presenting (and using?) the correct exif date-TIME for creation, see attached example.

In the upper part creation time is 09:24:03 whereas in the lower part EXIF data all TIME is equal for DateTimeOriginal, Createdate and Modify date. As it should be because file is shot and never touched again.

Below is an example but i have lots of files with other creation dates than in the exif information somtimes the modified time is before the creation time. I only see this because i have a canon R50 now. Never seen before with my iPhone files.

Possibly a small bug?

Andrey

Bertus In the top you see the time in your current time zone according to your OS clock. Whereas in the metadata section it is in GMT+1 (please see the OffsetTime field just below). I guess this is not the same timzone where you currently at?

Bertus

Hi Andrey,

I was in Vietnam but (accidentally) left the camera timezone at my local timezone. So camera thinks it was in my local timezone. So my pictures are 6hrs off vietnam local time. EG made a picture at 18:00hrs Vietnam time, Exif says it is 12:00 noon. But that cannot be a factor in this i think.

What i expect to see in the top half is at least that Time Created and Time Modified are the same because the pictures are not Modified after making. That is never the case, time differs witch each picture. Sometimes even Modified time is earlier than the Created time. In the Exif information all date/time is equal, but presented in the top half there is no logic in it.
And also because i didn’t change my camera’s timezone i expect to see same date/time in top half as in Exif. Apart from the fact the time is 6hrs off actual Vietnam time.

My camera’s timezone was GMT+1 and currently i am back from Vietnam and i am also in GMT+1. And timezones go in hours and i see minutes difference from Exif time and the time presented in the top half so that is not logical either.

Bertus.

Andrey

Bertus I just looked at screenshot one more time and realised that this is cannot be just time zones thing. Timezones would never change minutes from 09 to 24. Then I looked in to GPS time (very bottom of your screenshot) and it clicked - this time comes from your GPS.

The thing is, photo metadata have like dozen different places where time and date can be stored, and it is quite common that they contradict each other. We have special function that analyzes all this and makes decision which date/time to trust. In your case it obviously decided to trust GPS time. Whether it was right or wrong - that is open for debate. GPS time usually comes directly from satellites and it is very precise. Actually, this one of the most precise clocks available, since whole positioning thing depends on its accuracy.

Do you have any idea why GPS timestamp is different from regular timestamp on your photos?

Bertus

Sharp noticed, could be because the canon R50 doesn’t have build in GPS and receives GPS location via bluetooth connection from the Canon Camera Connect app from an IOS iPhone. Which of course gets it’s time/date from the Mobile network.
But then again i would expect for Created and Modified to be the same (be it GPS time).

Andrey

Bertus This all looks odd. I would totally understand if time zone would be off somewhere as there were so many moving parts (program, network time, etc.) But Hanoi time is UTC +7, no minutes, just hours unlike for example Nepal. I wonder where those additional 15 minutes difference are coming from. And I guess this is understandable that program is also confused and does not know which one to trust.

By the way, what do you think, what was actually more accureate? GPS time that came from the app or camera clock?

Bertus

I looked at the Canon Camera Connect app and it sends GPS coordinates and GPS date/time to the R50. Seems this GPS date/time is off. So i think Camera is the most accurate. Even more because the app sends the phone date/time to the R50 to use as date-time for camera clock. (other than the send GPS date.time)

Bertus

Unfortunately the foto’s are presented in the wrong order because of this, is would be nice if there was a possibility to switch to DateTimeOriginal or something else to get it in the right order 🙂

Andrey

Bertus Sure, I will take a look into this. However, cannot promise anything yet. The topic of dates is very complicated, I am not sure that solving this problem will not create more problems to other users. I will need to look deeper.