Syncing the shoot from two cameras

[vasha]

If you start an event with body clocks slightly off (and I find my Canon bodies drift at different rates over time) at any point you can take both bodies and shoot something (firing each body at the same time!) uncharacteristic of the event - at a football game I shoot a shot of nothing but grass, that way it stands out when you go looking. Then, after importing all the files into PM, locate the two files and check the capture times of each. Pick one body's file, read the capture time, then determine the capture time adjustment needed for the other body.
Sort by filename, select all the files from the second body (the one who's time you are going to adjust) and apply the adjustment (Tools: Adjust Capture Dates and Times). Select all the files in the folder and sort by capture time: you are now seeing them in chronological shooting order. I usually go the extra step of renaming them with a sequence variable at this point so that later on Filename sort also sorts everything chronologically.
The best thing about this is you can shoot sync files even after you finished shooting or even the next day if you shoot one day and prep the next (unless your camera body clocks are changed or shifting badly every day).

Of course the easy way to use capture time is to sync the bodies beforehand as others have suggested. But the above process might be of help to anyone who already started a shoot or just finished...

[Kevin M. Cox]

What we've been doing for weddings (with 4 or 5 cameras) if we forget to sync beforehand, is to take a photo of this website with each camera: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fullscreen.html?n=104

We then do the math, sort by serial number and adjust capture times for each group of images to make it match the clock. Only takes a few minutes.

[vasha]

Cool link Kevin, thanks for sharing it!
V

[fabianlujan]

I use 2 cameras, both with different filename, such FL1DXXXX and FL7DXXXX.
My contact sheet is sorted by capture time and voilá, I have both cameras together in one contact sheet.

[bazography]

Nikon Camera Control Pro 2 also has an option to sync the time with your computer's clock.

[FVlcek]

On a mac you don't even need “special” software; the standard image capture application can do it too with most cameras

Hayo, really? Image Capture can adjust cameras' internal clock? I haven't known about that - where do I find the option for that, please? Maybe it's just not working with my Canon DSLRs, or it got taken out as another Apple's "upgrade".

Sorry about reviving an old thread, just few notes:

If you are syncing cameras time manually, for example after an event to adjust out-of-sync photos from two cameras, try to be accurate to the subsecond. In PM, you can sort by time by subsecond as well (with cameras that have such accurate timer, which most newer ones do), and in many sporting or similar events, a whole second can mean a lot of photos that are off a little bit from each other.

Second, some (esp.older) Canon 1D series bodies (and possibly Nikon as well?) have had an additional button primary battery under two screws in the battery compartment, used to keep the clock. Usually, these don't get replaced ever over the life of the camera, and when I brought some older 1D series bodies from the closet for a remote cameras setup, I found out some of them wouldn't keep the time accurate enough over the course of few days because of this battery being nearly empty. Easy replacement though.

[Hayo Baan]

On a mac you don't even need “special” software; the standard image capture application can do it too with most cameras

Hayo, really? Image Capture can adjust cameras' internal clock? I haven't known about that - where do I find the option for that, please? Maybe it's just not working with my Canon DSLRs, or it got taken out as another Apple's "upgrade".

Hmm, I just tested this with my own cameras again and it seems this particular piece of functionality is no longer present in the latest versions of OS X

Sorry about reviving an old thread, just few notes:

If you are syncing cameras time manually, for example after an event to adjust out-of-sync photos from two cameras, try to be accurate to the subsecond. In PM, you can sort by time by subsecond as well (with cameras that have such accurate timer, which most newer ones do), and in many sporting or similar events, a whole second can mean a lot of photos that are off a little bit from each other.

I know of no camera (no Nikon/Canon at least) that allows users to set the subsecond themselves in-camera. After the fact you can not really change it either (unless you use exiftool) so syncing multiple cameras on the subsecond is not really possible I'm afraid.

Second, some (esp.older) Canon 1D series bodies (and possibly Nikon as well?) have had an additional button primary battery under two screws in the battery compartment, used to keep the clock. Usually, these don't get replaced ever over the life of the camera, and when I brought some older 1D series bodies from the closet for a remote cameras setup, I found out some of them wouldn't keep the time accurate enough over the course of few days because of this battery being nearly empty. Easy replacement though.

Yep, to my knowledge all Nikon DSLRs have such a clock-battery (which actually gets charged by the main battery!), and I'm quite certain this goes for most brands. As you indicate, only in very rare cases would this battery ever require replacement (which is good as it is usually buried quite deep inside the camera and may not even be user replaceable).

Cheers,
Hayo

[FVlcek]

Hmm, I just tested this with my own cameras again and it seems this particular piece of functionality is no longer present in the latest versions of OS X

I know of no camera (no Nikon/Canon at least) that allows users to set the subsecond themselves in-camera. After the fact you can not really change it either (unless you use exiftool) so syncing multiple cameras on the subsecond is not really possible I'm afraid.

oops, my mistake.

Yep, to my knowledge all Nikon DSLRs have such a clock-battery (which actually gets charged by the main battery!), and I'm quite certain this goes for most brands. As you indicate, only in very rare cases would this battery ever require replacement (which is good as it is usually buried quite deep inside the camera and may not even be user replaceable).

On Canons, it's a lithium primary battery, and there are instructions http://cpn.canon-europe.com/content/education/infobank/batteries/care_of_batteries.do as to its replacement. Although that would be a pretty rare case for it to run out of juice so much the clock starts drifting (although as I wrote, it did happen to me in one case with really old 1Ds mkII body). Although it's a pretty marginal case.