Comments on: Event Photographers: Sync Your Cameras

By: Wedding Photographer Northampton

Wedding Photographer Northampton — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been using digital for years, but I only recently cottoned-on to this trick!

Just goes to show you learn something new everyday!

By: Adam Cavanagh

Adam Cavanagh — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve still got to do this… my cameras are a minute apart and when you shoot a wedding it’s sooo annoying!!!

By: Luis

Luis — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I prefer using names, but to the wedding shooter from Nice, France:
I really should have an item on my checklist for syncing clocks on all cameras. That’ll save me quite a lot of trouble. The workaround I outlined above using LR isn’t too difficult, but it still takes more time (and effort) than syncing clocks beforehand.

As for renaming files to the time they were shot – I skip that step. LR does a decent enough job of sorting photos based on their timestamps, so I work with that.

Here’s to always remember to sync camera clocks.

By: Wedding Photographer Nice France

Wedding Photographer Nice France — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Hi,

I shoot my wedding with 2 or 3 cameras. As I get my gear ready I sync the clocks of all cameras: I simply go in the menu, set the time and press the OK button of all cameras at the same time. I generally get them to the second, which is perfectly OK for wedding photography.

Then when I download the pics I rename them automatically to the time of the shoot.

I once forgot that and it was a real pain.

By: Luis

Luis — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Richard:
Editing timestamps after the fact is no fun at all, but the alternative — working with a set of photos synced to different clocks — is even worse. I usually try to sync my cameras before an event, but what I wrote here was my workaround if I forget to do that.

With what you described, you can probably sync one camera every minute. It would be a whole lot easier if you had assistants or additional photographers to help, but if you’re patient enough, you can do that alone.

By: Richard X. Thripp

Richard X. Thripp — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Doing it afterward isn’t fun, but at least you can change the metadata on the images. If I have friends helping me take pictures, I try to sync the cameras beforehand by waiting for the minute to change, and then saving the times all at once. Too bad I only have two hands…