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No Date on my E-PL3 is getting to be a real pain.

Robert Watcher

Well-known member
Explanation: I purchased my E-PL3 shortly before heading down to Nicaragua.I soon noticed that when I removed the battery for recharging - all camera settings were lost. A web search helped me understand that many of the E-PL3's are defective that way, and that the camera needs to be returned to Olympus for a fix.

Well - I just couldn't send my camera away - not knowing whether I'd have it back in time before I headed to a different country. So I decided that I'd just be conscious of setting the cameras clock each time I recharged the battery.

If that was all there was to it, I probably could have survived the 5 to 6 months months until I got back to Canada and could send it in for repair (of course I'm now wondering if I will be able to get it fixed for free or not - but we'll see).

So first off is the fact that I often forget to set the clock. Of course, I have a ritual back home when I have a paid job of recharging batteries for all cameras that I will be using, and syncing the clocks up exactly right before I head out to the job. When I am shooting less disciplined and on the fly and sometimes with multi batteries that change in the field - I am very prone to forgetting to set date and time.

Next has to do with Lightroom - which currently is my preferred image management and processing tool. Accurate dates and times are crucial for organizing and exporting files with the naming structure that I use.

Firstly, on import into Lightroom, the camera files are copied into location on my portable hard drive that organizes them by year and date - creating a new folder for each day. This is wonderful - - - unless there is no file date or as I have done a couple of times, been off my a day or even a year accidentally. So yes, that last issue was my fault for setting the camera wrong, but it would have been less likely to happen if I didn't have to constantly be setting my cameras date and time, right!

Secondly, is the way that I prefer to output my processed and resized files for display on our journal. When Exporting I rename the files to the date and time the picture was taken. This is very practical for me because I can always go back and find an original file for printing, based on the online file name and going to the folder with that date in the Lightroom Library. As well, I have built many of my online image galleries so that a database isn't needed. The folder of files is read in and then displayed. By using a Date/Time file name, means that the files are always in the right order - even if I have gone back to a previous folder and processed images that I may have forgotten to do or didn't see the need to do at the time. They will show up slotted right in where they should be in the gallery related to the chronilogical order in which the images were taken.

So with the first - if the time date isn't set or is set wrong, the camera files will end up in some other location or in dusplicate folders with the same date - - - destroying my nice manageable folder and file structure. With the second - many times I may not notice that there is not a time stamp on an image or series of images - and when I export them and upload them to the server, they can't be immediately recognized and are generally in the wrong location because the file name has been changed to the date and time, which are all zeros. It all gets sorted out - - - but man what a pain, and many times I don't notice right away or maybe ever.

When I use the same card without emptying it - which I always do until it gets filled up (I use 32 GB cards) - - - the variations in date and time make it miserable when I want to import in Lightroom, because all or many of the ones that I have already imported have the check box beside them as if they haven't been imported yet. There goes the smarts of the program out the window.

Oh - and I found out last night, that I don't even have to take the battery out to lose my settings. I noticed that on the LCD screen that the battery was getting near the end of its charge with a red symbol showing - but continued to shoot. It wasn't until I had the files all loaded into Lightroom and exported out - - - that i realized the time had been set to -- -- -- ---- (in other words 0), when I could find the exported files.

I love Olympus, but almost every camera I have had of theirs has resulted in quirky little irritating issues - many times associated with the powering of the camera. But I continue on loyal to them. LOL. My little rant for today. Kind of my fault for not getting the camera in to get fixed - - - but really Olympus' fault for having such silly little irritating flaws show up in their cameras. So now that is out of the way only a month and a half more of putting up with this inconvenience, until I get back home and can deal with it properly.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Robert,

There's no harm having two identical images as they can be recognized by the BIT content with the right software, even though the names change. Can you import each day and then rename, date and number them each evening? That way you are now in charge.

Asher
 
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