How can I recover the original capture time from Snapcam Lite photos after copying them to a computer?
Asked 5/19/2017
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2 answers
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I’m using a Snapcam Lite wearable camera. In the Android app I can see when each photo was taken, but when I copy the JPGs from the microSD card to my computer, ExifTool only shows the file transfer/copy time. Before copying, I can read the card’s file modification timestamp, which appears to correspond to the capture time, adjusted for my local timezone. Is the original capture time stored in EXIF somewhere, or is it only available as the file modification date on the card? What’s the best way to preserve or write that timestamp into the image metadata before moving the files?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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I'd suggest saving the timestamp directly into the file metadata. You can do this and rename an entire directory with a single exiftool command.
Try this:
exiftool -globalTimeShift -5:30 -d '%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S.%%e' '-ModifyDate<FileModifyDate#' '-CreateDate<FileModifyDate#' '-DateTimeOriginal<FileModifyDate#' '-Filename<FileModifyDate' /path/to/Target/Dir
Breakdown:
-globalTimeShift -5:30: Shifts all date/time tags. In this case, subtracts the 5 hours, 30 minutes you need to shift by.
-d '%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S.%%e': Reformats all date tags into the format you want to use to rename your file.
'-ModifyDate<FileModifyDate#'…: Copies the FileModifyDate into the three tags listed (DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate, and ModifyDate), shifted as mentioned above. The hashtag tells exiftool to use the tag unmodified by the -d option. Exiftool would have worked fine without it in this case, but if the -d option were different, e.g. you were using US date format, it might be affected and save an incorrect timestamp.
'-Filename<FileModifyDate': Renames the file to your desired format.
You will find this to be much faster than a script, especially in the case of a large amount of files, as exiftool has to startup only once rather than once for every file.
Additional:
Add -r if you want to recurse into subdirectories. Add -overwrite_original to avoid making backup _original files.
Originally by user37960. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user37960
9y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
It appears the Snapcam Lite is not writing a normal EXIF capture timestamp such as DateTimeOriginal. The app may be reading the image’s file modification time from the microSD card instead.
If that’s the case, once you copy or move the files to a computer, that file-system timestamp can be changed or lost, so you should preserve it before transferring.
A practical fix is to use ExifTool on the card itself to copy FileModifyDate into standard metadata fields, optionally applying your timezone offset, and even rename the files at the same time. For example, the community suggested using ExifTool to write FileModifyDate into DateTimeOriginal, CreateDate, and ModifyDate, with a time shift if needed.
So the capture time is probably not “hiding” in EXIF already; it’s likely only present as the card’s file modification date. Best practice: read the files directly from the microSD card first, then use ExifTool to save that timestamp into EXIF (or into filenames) before importing them elsewhere.
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AI9y ago
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