EYE OF TOBIA PHOTOGRAPHY BLOG

Documenting, sharing and musing about photography (and life with small children)

Here is a major time saving work-flow enhancer for my photographer friends or advanced amateurs who work with multiple cameras and Adobe Lightroom. This is an indispensable tool I read about on a blog some time ago. I wish I could remember where I saw it so I could attribute the idea.
When you are dealing with multiple cameras (and assistants with multiple cameras) how do you sync up all of your photos so that when you are editing all of your images you can easily have them in the proper order? You and your 2nd shooter can get together and do a nerdy camera-time sync-up before a shoot, but that doesn’t always happen with the rush at the beginning of a wedding to get moving and you will still likely be off by a few seconds. You could try to manually reorder like in the olden days of digital and Adobe Bridge then rename. But this method is foolproof and can even be done the day after the wedding if you forget.
All you need to do is take a physical photo of the back of your main camera with the time stamp as it is rolling. Each camera should do this.

Then at the end of your wedding or session, import all the photos into LR. Obviously, you have already BACKED UP YOUR IMAGES somewhere else…right?…. Just checking.
Enter the Library View and see all of your images in Grid View
Use the METADATA filter up top on the screen, select ALL of your secondary camera’s images and find the image with the main camera’s time stamp.
Sub-Select that camera back image and go to the menu: METADATA > “edit capture time” from the drop down list.

Enter the time and date you see in the photo and this will modify the capture time for this camera and all of its corresponding images. Make sure you have all of the photos from your secondary camera selected before you click OK.

You can not revert (although in a pinch you could just delete the files from your library and re-import your backups). Now repeat this method with the rest of the cameras you used during the event. Order by capture time and… Walla! Now there is no more shifting around through series of images from formals, etc. to make sure you have all the right images in order. After you have made your final image selections and renamed your files to make it easier to view for your client. Easily an hour of editing time can be saved.
You could also do the same thing by having all of your photographers (and cameras) take a photo of the same clock- as long as it has a second hand.