Camera Sync Clock

How to sync the clocks of several cameras

Two cameras, or two photographers, almost never have their clocks set alike. When you put the photos in order, a few seconds off is enough to shuffle the ceremony. To find out how far ahead or behind each camera is:

1. Open this page on your phone.
2. Photograph the screen with each camera, one right after the other, always the same phone. Use a fast shutter speed (1/250 or faster) and the screen at full brightness.
3. Compare the time shown in the photo with the time recorded in the file. The difference is how much that camera needs to be adjusted.

The best moment is before the shoot starts, with all the cameras together. If you forget, photograph the screen afterwards, again with every camera at once: a camera's clock barely changes during the day, but the phone's may be corrected over the network between one shot and the next. Shooting the same phone at the same moment, any error of its own is the same for every camera, and the photos still fall in the right order.

Works offline

Once opened, Camera Sync Clock keeps opening with no signal, at a venue or a church with no coverage. Offline it shows the phone's own time, which may be a few tenths of a second ahead or behind. That does not shuffle the photos as long as every camera shoots the same phone, one after the other. If you can, open it with internet before you start: it sets the exact time and keeps it while it stays open, even if the signal drops. To get the icon on your home screen:

• iPhone: in Safari, tap Share › Add to Home Screen.
• Android: in Chrome, tap the menu › Install app (or Add to Home screen).
• Computer: in Chrome or Edge, click the install icon in the address bar.

After installing, open the app once with internet: that is when it saves itself to the phone. From then on it opens with no signal. While open, it keeps the screen on as you shoot.

Where the time comes from

With internet, Camera Sync Clock compares the phone's clock with a server synced to world atomic time (UTC), the same basis as every country's official time, and corrects the difference. The time zone comes from your device, and you can change it in the list above.

How to sync the clocks in FlashRAW

With a photo of this clock, FlashRAW fixes every photo from the same camera at once. The white card with the code, under the digits, is there for it to read the time by itself, to the hundredth:

1. Open the whole job's folder (the parent folder, with every card inside), with the photos from all the cameras. FlashRAW looks for each camera's photo of this clock by itself, among its first and last photos, and tells you how many photos have the wrong time: click Ver e acertar (See and fix). If it doesn't find it, follow the steps below.
2. In the grid, click the photo of this clock taken with one of the cameras and press ⌘⇧T (Ctrl⇧T on Windows), or right-click it and choose Acertar a hora usando esta foto. No need to open it or select the others: the fix is already set for every photo of that camera.
3. FlashRAW reads the time from the clock's card and fills it in; check it against the digits in the photo. If the photo has no card, zoom in and type the time shown on the screen. It shows how far ahead or behind the camera is and, when you click Ajustar, fixes every photo of that camera.
4. Repeat for each camera. With all of them synced, the photos fall into order on one timeline.

The fix goes into the XMP file next to each RAW. The RAW is never changed.

FlashRAW opens every RAW in a folder at once, with no import, and lets you mark stars and colors from the keyboard. Try it free for 14 days.