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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Synchornizing Photos
Billy Precht, Photographer, Student/Intern
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Oceanside | Ca | USA | Posted: 1:03 PM on 08.18.09 |
->> I did a quick search but didn't find what I was looking for so I thought I would ask real quick before I run out the door.
I had a multi camera shoot the other day and I want to sync the photos to their proper order but I am have problems. Can anyone recommend a program that can do it easily or if its CS3 or 4 has the ability hidden somewhere that I cant find.
Thanks in advance for any help.
Billy |
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Kevin Novak, Photographer, Assistant
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Bel Air (Baltimore) | MD | USA | Posted: 1:09 PM on 08.18.09 |
->> Billy,
PhotoMechanic can do this. After ingesting, just sort by capture time. If you find that your cameras were not time-synced, PhotoMechanic can adjust the times for you.
You can download a demo at camerabits.com
Kevin |
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Fj Hughes, Photographer, Assistant
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Baltimore | MD | USA | Posted: 1:13 PM on 08.18.09 |
| ->> As long as the correct time & dates was set in your cameras, you should be able to view them in order in bridge by selecting view>sort>by date created. You can them rename them in that order. If the dates are not correctly set, I am unaware of any way to do it other then by sorting them manually. |
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Fj Hughes, Photographer, Assistant
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Baltimore | MD | USA | Posted: 1:16 PM on 08.18.09 |
| ->> Ooops. That is great to know you can do that in Photo Mechanic. Thanks Kevin. I'll remember that for the future. |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 1:39 PM on 08.18.09 |
->> A couple of tips on this with Photomechanic:
Chances are your cameras are not set to the exact same time unless you thought of this ahead of time. You're going to need to adjust the capture time of one set of photos from one camera so that it matches the other.
To do this, the first thing you need to do is determine how far apart the camera clocks are with respect to one another. Get both cameras out and set them up next to eachother, then snap a shot at the same time from both cameras. Load these frames into photomechanic and see how far off they are and write it down...as in Camera 1 is five seconds behind camera 2.
Now take the cards from your shoot and copy them into folders separated by camera (i.e. camera1, camera2, etc.).
The next step is to adjust one set of camera files so that the time matches the other. You can adjust either set, but to keep it simple in our example we're going to adjust the camera 1 files forward five seconds to match camera two. Open up the camera 1 folder, highlight all of the files in the folder, then choose "Tools -> Adjust capture dates and times" from the menus. The screen allows you to adjust absolute or relative - most of the time with multiple files you'll want "relative". In our example, you'd dial a "5" into the seconds field in the relative box to add five seconds to the capture times. You can also do negative offsets if you need to. At the bottom are checkboxes to adjust the modification times and the iptc info times as well - I'd select all of them to avoid confusion. Once you're set, click "Adjust Photos".
Now you have two folders, Camera1 and Camera2, with their times matched. Copy all the files into a single folder.
If you just want to VIEW the files in proper time order, just open up the folder in Photomechanic and choose "Sort by Capture Time" in the box at the top of the window. Instantly you'll see the files reordered in capture time format.
If you want something more permanent you'll want to rename the files in time-capture order. This is easy to do using Photomechanic variables.
The first thing I do as a cover-my-butt is to put the current filename into the IPTC header of each file so that if for some reason I need to go back to the old filenames I can do it. Highlight all of the files in the folder, type CTRL+I to pull up the stationery pad, then pick an IPTC field that you do not use (i.e. "edit status" or "transmission reference") and enter the variable "{fbas}" (without quotes), then click "Apply Stationery to selected". This puts the base filename in the IPTC field - which you could then use to undo the next step if you needed to.
Now to do the time sorted rename. Highlight all of the files in the folder, then click CTRL+M to bring up the rename window (or File->Rename Photos). In the photo renaming string box, enter "{timesortlong}" (without quotes), then click OK.
Now your files are renamed to a bunch of numbers, but in capture time order. You can now highlight them again and rename them to something more sane (i.e. "Basketball_{seqn}" to sequence the frames).
If for some reason you need to go back to the camera-generated filenames, highlight all the files and enter the variable corresponding to the IPTC field you used in the cover-your-butt step into the rename string (i.e. {tref} for transmission reference). This will get you back to the beginning with no harm done.
Photomechanic is cool... |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston & Houston | TX | US | Posted: 11:46 PM on 08.18.09 |
->> My procedure is very similar to David's but will allow for more than two cameras. As suggested I always have the default filename applied into the IPTC Transmission Reference field as part of the Ingest process in Photo Mechanic. This has saved me several times in the past.
I formerly used the "take a photo at the same time" method (and still will if only using two bodies) but now instead of syncing one body to the other, I sync them all to the actual time. I simply take a photo (three actually) of this website with each camera:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=104
I then figure out the difference between the time recorded in EXIF by the camera and the photo of the clock, then adjust each camera to the correct time using Photo Mechanic's "Adjust capture dates and times" as David outlined. I try to keep my cameras from drifting too far by resetting the internal clock every month so I'm only having to adjust seconds instead of minutes.
However instead of downloading into separate folders I just ingest them all to the same folder and then sort by Filename. This allows me to go through, sync up the clocks by highlighting only the photos from a single camera at a time, and once done switch right back to Capture Time sorting without having to move files around.
We just shot a wedding with six cameras last Saturday and this method took less than five minutes to get all the photos sorted properly into the right order.
On a side note this tool in Photo Mechanic is also helpful when you forgot to compensate for Daylight Savings and want the time on your photos to be accurate. Not that I've ever done something like that.... |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 12:57 AM on 08.19.09 |
->> How finely does PM chop up creation time?
With a one-second display, you could end up with 20 or more frames with identical times with just two bodies.
--Mark |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Louisville | KY | USA | Posted: 1:40 AM on 08.19.09 |
->> The timesortlong variable goes out to subseconds if the camera puts it in the exif.
If you're trying to get your camera clocks synced before your shoot, the best way is to use the manufacturer's camera setup software (Nikon Capture, Canon EOS Utility). Both have a "set camera clock to PC time" feature. Just plug the cameras in and execute the clock set on each one. That should get you as close as possible.
The reality is the clocks will drift no matter what you do, so sub-second precision is going to be unlikely. I can't think of many applications where you need them synched much closer than a second apart (remotes, maybe?). If you're doing something with that level of precision you probably have some pretty fancy triggering going on anyway and have already solved the file order problem :-). |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston & Houston | TX | US | Posted: 2:26 AM on 08.19.09 |
->> Mark, when sorted by Capture Time, Photo Mechanic obviously uses the time in EXIF first and then, as best as I recall, uses filename for those photos with identical times. This obviously works very well for files out of the same camera but can get a little tricky with multiple bodies. However from the wedding I mentioned we only came up with three "moments" from the event where one or two photos didn't fall into the proper order.
You can also setup Custom sorting and pick any variables you want for the primary and secondary criteria to determine the sort.
David, I've actually found that using EOS Utility to set the time doesn't seem very accurate. It seems to me like it only synchronizes to the minute and not the second. I had cameras be 30 or 45 seconds off right afterwards when using that method. |
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