Shooting 2 5dMKIII's and time no longer in sync.

theurbanclown

theurbanclown

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I've synced my 5d MK IIIs so that when I import files into Lightroom and sort by capture time, events are in a sequence. However I've noticed recently that shots from each body are not coinciding with each other so checked both bodies and they're about 25 seconds out from each other. I've reset them and about a week on they're about 3 or 4 seconds out again.

Anyone else had this issue? If so, anyway to sort it other than syncing them before every wedding?
 
Sorry I don't have a fix but I'm another one with the same problem
 
I've had this with 1D III's IV's and now my 1DX and 1DIV are out by about 20 sec per month. I just sync them before I go out.
 
My 1Dx's had drifted just over a minute apart by last weekend (first match of the new season) and that is since the end of last season in early June.....about 20secs/month give or take.

Bob
 
I haven't found a free app to sync the RAWs but there's a few that'll change the time on the jpegs.

But; all our Canons drift too.
 
theurbanclown said:
I don't mind the fact the drift from the accurate time, but the fact they drift from each other is really strange.
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Yeah.

I wonder if it's related to usage? Maybe a specific event pausing the clock?
 
Paulmag said:
If you can be bothered if you have EOS utility on your PC you can set the camera time to match the PC's
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That's what I do
 
Time does drift on DSLRs - it has happened on every single one of my Canon bodies from the 10D onwards and on all of my Nikons since 2008. It is a fact of life.

Drift also means it is going to be different on bodies even if you set them correct at exactly the same time. So if synchronised times are important - as they are in weddings to ensure a correct timeline then you need to put a simple process in place.

As part of my routine prior to each and every wedding (except of course doubles/triples over consecutive days typically weekends in the summer) then I cleaned out the mirror box, did a sweep of the sensor for dust, ensured cards were formatted and inserted, and finally made sure that the time was correctly set.

I did use EOS Utility, but with the Nikons I just used a correct clock via an internet connection or via a radio data clock and set them against that accurately.

Takes a few seconds.
 
theurbanclown said:
I don't mind the fact the drift from the accurate time, but the fact they drift from each other is really strange.
Click to expand...
It's not strange, surely. All quartz clocks drift because of manufacturing tolerances. The standard tolerance is about 6 parts per million (i.e. 99.9994% accuracy), which sounds good, but there are nearly 2.7 million seconds in a month so that translates to a tolerance of about +/- 15 seconds per month. If you're comparing two clocks, each of which can be out by +/- 15 seconds per month, then the difference between the two clocks can be +/- 25 seconds per month.

If they could manufacture the clocks to drift together, then they could manufacture them to be perfectly accurate in the first place.
 
Not cheap, but one answer is to pop a Canon GP-E2 on to each 5D III then they'll sync to GPS time - or at least they will when they're outside :) If I remember rightly I read something from Canon suggesting this as the preferred solution to the very problem the OP describes.
 
Yea they drift pretty quickly (I have a couple of 5D3s). Good job it only takes a few seconds to set them to each other again - though I'm usually too lazy to bother.

I never go to the hassle of setting them to the second via GPS or the internet, etc. No need, just hit OK on the clock menu on each camera at the same time - as long as they match each other, all is well.
 
StewartR said:
It's not strange, surely. All quartz clocks drift because of manufacturing tolerances. The standard tolerance is about 6 parts per million (i.e. 99.9994% accuracy), which sounds good, but there are nearly 2.7 million seconds in a month so that translates to a tolerance of about +/- 15 seconds per month. If you're comparing two clocks, each of which can be out by +/- 15 seconds per month, then the difference between the two clocks can be +/- 25 seconds per month.

If they could manufacture the clocks to drift together, then they could manufacture them to be perfectly accurate in the first place.
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Also depending on whether they chose to use a high precision quartz oscillator or not on the microcontroller will have a big impact. Most projects that I've used micros on end up with a certain amount of drift, one way or another!
 
This doesn't bother me with cameras but when I was in computers/electronics one annoyance was that relatively little effort went in to making the clocks accurate. So, the fact that cameras are often out when compared doesn't surprise me in the least.
 
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woof woof said:
.... when I was in computers/electronics one annoyance was that relatively little effort went in to making the clocks accurate.
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Relatively little effort? Your standard quartz oscillator has an accuracy of about 6 parts per million, which means that the crystal needs to be controlled to be between about 2.99999mm and 3.00001mm long. Relatively little effort?
 
theurbanclown said:
I don't mind the fact the drift from the accurate time, but the fact they drift from each other is really strange.
Click to expand...

Not strange at all. It's just a quartz clock, they have differences... some gain, some lose. All quartz oscillators do. There's usually a little trimming capacitor in there somewhere. I used to always fine tune oscillator in radio equipment for bang on frequency SSB transmissions. It would mean taking the camera apart though. Even if they were both bang on... they'd only be bang on at one specific temperature... as all quartz oscillators vary with temperature.


Just sync the cameras before the shoot.
 
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