Camera Date Reset Error

tech Tip

2023-01-05 kingsnake Uncategorized 0

Angry Frustrated Hair Pulling Guy

My hiking camera is a Panasonic DMC-TS5 pocket camera, because it easier to quickly deploy it than an fancy digital SLR, and it is “waterproof”. Only $140 when I bought it eight years ago, it is cheap to replace, if necessary.

I have never had a problem with the camera’s date/time stamp until a few weeks ago, when for some reason, in mid-hike, it decided to start setting photos’ “date created” to 2003-05-21. But still with correct time. Odd. Okay, whatevs. Reset date on camera.

On yesterday’s hike from PIR to Tres Rios, I took a few photos, then checked the camera’s date. The first few photos were okay, but the next couple were back to 2003-05-21. What the hell? Reset camera date again. Delete mis-dated photos; retake them; check; dates all okay. Off I go. Check an hour or so later and … dates screwed up AGAIN. No way I’m walking back.

I'm walking all the way back here? Fuck that noise!Not sure what the long term solution is, but here is the current work around on my MacOS laptop:

  1. Download the photos from the camera chip.
  2. Open Terminal.
    • Change directory to where the photos are located, e.g. cd dir/sub/photos.
    • touch -mt 202301041033 P1470721.JPG on each mis-dated photo, where the new date is the correct date, and the “new” time is the current correct time on the file. Yes, this will be laborious. But you can do it quick if you have Finder and Terminal open side-by-side.
  3. Open iPhoto.
    • Import photos. If you view a photo’s information, “Date Taken” will still give the erroneous date, e.g. 2003-05-21.
    • Select all the photos with the erroneous date.
    • In iPhoto menu, click “Photos” then “Adjust Date and Time”. Change the year, month and date; leave the time alone. Click the “Adjust” button to confirm the change.
    • Export the photos to the same directory from which they were imported, overwriting the existing files.
Changing multiple photo dates in iPhoto.
Changing multiple photo dates in iPhoto.

I then uploaded 15 photos to HikeArizona.com (Haz). Unfortunately, some apps — such as Haz — read the DateTimeOriginal field from a file’s Exif data. (DateTimeOriginal can’t be changed, as far as I am aware.) So, you may be faced with further onerous date corrections, depending on the app you upload to and which Exif fields it utilizes. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Helpful links include Time Duration Calculator and Changing Date in OSx.

As to the source of the error, it is not related to turning the camera on & off, as I do this every few minutes during a hike, and the first few photos were okay. It may be related to the battery which powers the camera when it is turned off. Stay tuned for further developments!