Please, please, please, set the proper date and time on your cameras. It’s easy to do and may save you a some problems as you work through workflow solutions for your system.
This is even more important if you are shooting with more than one camera or are shooting the same assignment or event with a group of photographers.
Sorting through several hundred photos from different cameras become much easier when the images can be sorted by shooting time in your digital asset manager software program. (More about this another day.)
I’m looking forward to the day when cameras will connect to a wireless network and synchronize to an atomic time network so I don’t have to worry about whether each one is properly set.
I failed to properly set up one of my D300s and it was an hour behind the other when Daylight Savings Time hit causing some confusion during the editing and error checking on the EXIF information.
As more and more of our photos are beginning to gather in the cloud and are on open networks for browsing, it become more important that the EXIF and IPTC information in each file is accurate and complete. (Again, more on this to follow.)
If you have the capability, use the comment section of the camera menu system to add personal information you may want in every photo you shoot. Almost all newer DSLRs have the option and even some of the newer high-end point&shoot cameras have added the function.
The comment section on my cameras have my copyright information and the last three numbers of the camera’s serial number embedded in each image. This insures my name is attached to each camera and that I can do a quick check to see which camera was used just in case I see a problem while editing. You can add an e-mail address or phone number into each image using the comment function.
This is a simple way to be sure you have the necessary information to make contact with the photographer, help protect your copyright, and set up a simple error-checking process for each camera.
