How can I fix photo times in Google Photos when geotagged images use the GPS location’s time zone?

Question

I geotagged DSLR photos using GPS positions recorded on my phone. The camera itself has no GPS, and its clock was set to my home time zone rather than the local time where the photos were taken. After uploading to Google Photos, the images appear shifted because Google seems to use the GPS location’s time zone for display/organization.

I know EXIF historically didn’t store time zone information, though newer EXIF versions added offset tags. What’s the best way to handle this if I want to keep my existing local library convention but have correct times in Google Photos?

user75526 · Answer

I have seen ... which tell me that there is no way to set the time zone in the EXIF tag. How should I proceed here?

The most expedient solution is to change the date-time tag to the local time of the location in which they were taken.

Per StarGeek (1, 2):

As of EXIF standard 2.31 (2016), the EXIF standard includes 3 tags to record the time zone. There is OffsetTimeOriginal which is the time zone for the DateTimeOriginal, OffsetTimeDigitized for the DateTimeDigitized (which is CreateDate in exiftool), and OffsetTime for the DateTime (ModifyDate in exiftool).

In my testing, Google will give priority to the time zone for the coordinates over even if the time zone is set elsewhere.

How can I fix photo times in Google Photos when geotagged images use the GPS location’s time zone?

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