P: Sort by capture time should use filename when times are equal

[Ellarsee]

When I bracket exposure or "motor drive" on my Pentax K-5 II, and sort the files by shutter press time, they do not show up in the right order. To see them in the right order I have to sort by filename (which breaks if I use two cameras or loop my counter past 9999).When I look at the exif data, capture time is only shown to a resolution of one second. What the software should do, when sorting by time, is if photos were taken in the same second, sort them by the index number in the filename.

[Ellarsee]

I was just sorting files to update one catalog with recent edits in another catalog, and not only were photos taken in rapid order out of sequence, I had whole blocks of photos that were out of sequence by months.

[John R Ellis]

"I had whole blocks of photos that were out of sequence by months."

That is almost certainly a different issue than the one described here. Did the problem files come from a scanner or from a digital camera?

[Ellarsee]

As far as this bug report is concerned, everything ultimately came from a digital camera. There are some files in my library that were created by lightroom's hdr and panorama features, but they share the shutter time of the parent image in the exif.

I was trying to solve another problem, so I didn't document things as well as I should have but I think that the groups that were out as groups may have had odd file creation times, possibly from copying a directory tree from one drive to another.

[John R Ellis]

"When I look at the exif data, capture time is only shown to a resolution of one second."

Note that in LR 2015 / 6, LR will not show fractional seconds for what it displays as "Capture Time" or EXIF "Date Time Original". It will show fractional seconds in the IPTC "Date Created" field. And it will use the fractional seconds for sorting in Library view. Very confusing.

I don't believe this matters for the Pentax K-5 II, which doesn't appear to record fractional seconds (at least in the samples I downloaded).

[Hakanu5]

At events I shoot fast sequences. So many photos are shot in the same second. If I set the sorting in Lightroom to "Capture Time", these photos are often sorted in the wrong order. So I have to switch to "File Name" where I took the sequence number from the original photos.

But this actually makes the sort by "Capture Time" quite useless. 

I would be great if photos with the same time-stamp automatically are sorted by file name, or there is an option to define the secondary sort order.

[John R Ellis]

Very much agreed.  It would also be great if all camera manufacturers inserted the fractional capture time in the EXIF -- only some do.  Hard to believe that 15 years into digital imaging, some are still not doing that.

[BackDoorHippie]

When I import images from my Sony a6000, if multiple images are taken during the same second they do not display in the proper order. This Added Order condition is the same for my Nikon cameras, but the difference is that when I change the catalog sort to Capture Time my Nikon images will now display in the proper order while the Sony images remain in the Added Order sort. If I import the images a second time the order within the second will change randomly, but the condition persists. This is true whether shooting in Continuous High, Medium or Low modes, and even when I manage to shoot a pair of single images within the same second. If Lightroom can do a proper sort for Nikon within the same second it should be able to do it for Sony.

[John R Ellis]

Unfortunately, the Sony a6000 doesn't insert the industry-standard field SubSecTimeOriginal in the pics' EXIF, which records the fractional seconds of capture time.  The recently released a6300 doesn't either.   But Nikons and Canon's generally do insert that field.  This explains why LR properly sorts bursts from your Nikon but not from your Sony.

Of course, I fully agree that, when sorting by capture time, LR should use the filename as a secondary sort criteria, which would improve this situation quite a bit.  (It's not perfect, since the camera sequence numbers will wrap around from 9999 back to 0.)

But you should also complain to Sony.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Add OMD 5 Mk II to the list of camera's where capture time is problem. Where there is ambiguity a subsort by original (i.e. camera filename would help).

[lhiapgpeonk]

And still: Lightroom will not let me rename my files containing this subseconds...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I've been reviewing pictures I took at a Gaelic Football tournament last week. Since it was a sporting event I was often taking several pictures a second (set at 3 frames a second). When I ask lightroom to display by capture time it appears I get the 1st, 3rd and then 2nd picture in the sequence. I can confirm this both with file numbers and visually the sequence of play is just wrong.

Camera: OM-D 5 MkII

Lightroom version is current (updated this morning).

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

Hi Mark,
We have fixed a similar bug recently. Would you mind sending me those pictures, (may be as a Dropbox link), so that I can test the fix.
Thanks in advance.

Thanks,
Sunil

[ResortOperationsCH]

I'm fully conversant with using the different sort options, however, following the latest update, my photos are NOT sorting how they usually do. I have my Sort set to 'Capture Time' as usual. In this screen capture, images (1), (2) and (3) have been merged to HDR (image (4)). The example on the left, is how they're sorting NOW and the example on the right is how they PREVIOUSLY sorted (which is how I still want them). And interestingly, the merged HDR is using the image name of (1) as per usual, but sorting it after image (2), which my logical brain just cannot process! I have found a band-aid measure (changing capture time by 1 or 2 seconds for the merged image, then resorting), however, really want the previous sort solution back to minimise my workflow.

[John R Ellis]

Your last two screenshots narrowed down the issue.  (That's the great thing about full screenshots.) The pics were taken with a Sony A7R, and unfortunately, many (perhaps most) Sonys don't record capture-time fractional seconds in the industry-standard EXIF fields. For example, see this thread: http://www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&&FORUM_THREAD_ID=1305964&order=DESC

As a result, LR often doesn't properly sort photos taken in burst mode in the same second.   

LR could fix this by using the filename as a secondary sorting key when the capture times are the same, but it doesn't.  As a result, the order within a given second is pretty arbitrary.  

This has been a long-standing problem.  (I'm not sure why it worked ok for you before but now doesn't.)

Your main complaint should be directed to Sony for not recording fractional seconds in EXIF metadata.  But LR could easily improve the situation by sorting by filename when the capture times are equal.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

John - your summary of the problem hits the Olympus as well. Just for fun at the time I had a look at the file with a binary editor/viewer I don't see any sub second metadata in the files. So Adobe could make many Sony/Olympus/??? users happier by making this small fix. How do we signal them?

Thanks
Mark

[John R Ellis]

This is the right place to"signal" Adobe -- it's the official place to provide them feedback.  Product developers do monitor and participate here.  The number of me-too votes does influence their prioritization, but it's only one factor among many. 

By the way, you can view all the metadata in a file with the free Exiftool.  

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Sunil - this folder: https://db.tt/my3OmOim contains two sets of DNG files that exhibit the problem.

Thanks
Mark

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

Thanks, Mark.
I have sent you an e-mail offline to get some more info.

Thanks,
Sunil

[John R Ellis]

None of those files have the EXIF:SubSecTimeOriginal field, which stores the fractional capture-time seconds.  E.g.

 

I downloaded a couple of sample JPEGs for that camera model from dpreview.com, and the samples didn't have the field either.

[flintobrien]

Same problem with Olympus OMD EM10 II.

I do a lot of macro shots with focus bracketing. The camera does the focus bracketing to get many shots taken as fast as the camera can shoot. I don't use in-camera focus stacking (combining each pic's in-focus areas). I do it in post. 

The Auto-Stack by Capture Time would be sweet if it would sort properly. My stacks are typically 20 to 50 pictures each. I end up with 10 to 20 stacks, so it's somewhat of a chore to create the stacks manually.

What's worse, once the stacks were created with Auto-Stack by Capture Time (wrong order), I couldn't select them all and unstack. I had to open each stack, select only those photos in the stack, then unstack. But, that didn't work. It only removed one photo from the stack. Turns out you can't select the last, then shift-click the first. You have to select the first, then shift-click the last, then unstack works.

I don't see fractional seconds in the EXIF or IPTC metadata for Olympus raw files.

Lightroom CC 2015.8 build: 1099473
MacBook Pro mid 2015
MacOS Sierra 10.12.3

[John R Ellis]

Perhaps you could upload a sample raw to Dropbox and post the link here?  I'd like to poke in the metadata to see if fractional seconds are hiding anywhere else.

[flintobrien]

Here are two Olympus raw pics both with time 11:07:31.

[John R Ellis]

Fractional seconds are nowhere in metadata.  Sometimes manufacturers stick it in the proprietary MakerNotes, but not this camera.  (I'm amazed that many manufacturers don't include fractional seconds, and that Adobe still doesn't do a second sort by filename.)

[John R Ellis]

"What's worse, once the stacks were created with Auto-Stack by Capture Time (wrong order), I couldn't select them all and unstack."

Hmm, in my LR CC 2015.8, when I select several collapsed stacks and do Photo > Stacking > Unstack, all of the stacks are unstacked.  Does that not work for you?

[flintobrien]

Seems to work now. Perhaps I was using "Remove from Stack" (wrongly thinking "Unstack" exapanded the stack?).