It is just a matter of work habits. I make it a habit to turn off the
power and unplug the USB cable BEFORE doing any photo processing. It
helps that I put my camera back in its bag after each session, checking
once again that the power switch is OFF.
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
On 11/2/2013 8:21 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
> I'm not really your compatriot here. I wouldn't normally use a USB
> cable from camera to computer since the camera is only spec'd at USB
> 2.0. My computer has USB 3.0 ports and will download faster if the the
> card is removed from the computer and hooked into a reader using the USB
> 3.0 port. But my ebay handgrip (which I dearly love) has the bad habit
> of covering the card socket. The card can't be removed without a
> screwdriver to remove the hand grip. If I had many hundreds of images
> to download I'd remove the grip so I could download faster. If its just
> a few images (in this case it was 17x2 (ORF plus JPEG) I'll just connect
> the camera. But that can also be a pain as I have twice forgotten to
> disconnect and power off the camera until the following day or longer
> and that's what led to the loss of date/time.
>
> Chuck Norcutt
>
> On 11/2/2013 9:03 PM, Jim Nichols wrote:
>> Glad you figured it out, Chuck.
>>
>> The most interesting part of your story was your admission that,
>> contrary to all of the folk lore, you download images using a USB
>> cable. I have done this ever since I got my first digicam, and have
>> never had a problem. But, all of the "old timers" seem to treat this as
>> heresy. Glad I found a compatriot! :-)
>>
>> Jim Nichols
>> Tullahoma, TN USA
>>
>> On 11/2/2013 7:51 PM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:
>>> Yesterday I went out to capture some late fall golden sunlight with the
>>> E-M5. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing about 30 mph but I thought
>>> maybe I could capture some "artistic" blurred images. Unknown to me
>>> that was the beginning of a strange adventure.
>>>
>>> As soon as I got outside and turned on the camera I saw a strange (and
>>> undocumented) error display screen from the camera... a large, analog
>>> clock face with something like Year/Month/Day displayed in orange on a
>>> black background. It was a surprise. After thinking about it for a
>>> moment I realized that it must be a warning message that the date and
>>> time were not set. But it didn't bother me that the date and time might
>>> not be correct. I was going to grab a handful of images and be done
>>> with it. The sun was going down, the light was changing rapidly and I
>>> wanted to take pictures, not fiddle with the camera's clock. Bad
>>> decision.
>>>
>>> But first, how did it happen? I tend to forget that the camera is on if
>>> I have it connected to a USB port to download images. I remembered that
>>> I had twice run the battery to exhaustion recently. I had thought
>>> nothing of it at the time and had merely recharged the battery. The
>>> first time it happened there were no other repercussions. But this time
>>> was different because the date and time were lost. The E-M5 manual
>>> says: "The date and time settings will be returned to the factory
>>> default settings if the camera is left without the battery for
>>> approximately 1 day. The settings will be cancelled more quickly if the
>>> battery was only loaded in the camera for a short time before being
>>> removed. Before taking important pictures, check that the date and time
>>> settings are correct."
>>>
>>> It would appear from the second sentence above that the date/time
>>> settings are maintained by some sort of capacitor rather than a separate
>>> battery. Therefore, if the battery has only been in a short time the
>>> capacitor may not be fully charged and the date/time may be lost in less
>>> than a day. But the fact that the date/time would be set to factory
>>> defaults didn't bother me. I didn't care what the date and time might
>>> be. Maybe the announce date of the E-M5. Maybe 00:00:00. Maybe
>>> Maitani's birthday. I didn't care. But I should have and you should
>>> too. Here's why.
>>>
>>> When I started shooting there were already about 100 images on the card
>>> which had previously been downloaded. The last image number ended in
>>> 335. I shot 17 images and then tried to download using my Win7 system
>>> and a download application. When it listed the files on the card the
>>> only things that appeared in the list were the images that had already
>>> been there... the last image was 335. It was as though the new images
>>> didn't exist. I scratched my head for a few seconds, disconnected the
>>> camera from the computer and started reviewing images on the camera's
>>> display screen. There were the missing images but with nothing
>>> displayed where the date and time should be. It was as though the data
>>> were ASCII blanks and not numerics. I reconnected the camera and used a
>>> Windows file utility directly on the flash card without any intervening
>>> application software. Same result... the files didn't exist. I tried a
>>> freebie Windows file recovery utility. Same result again. The files
>>> didn't exist unless I told the utility to ignore the directory and go
>>> for low level data. That got the files with 0000:00:00 00:00:00 for
>>> date/time stamps but with file names generated by the utility. Better
>>> than nothing but not ideal.
>>>
>>> Finally, I tried Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu did much better since it saw and
>>> recovered all the proper file names and also substituted 0000:00:00
>>> 00:00:00 for the apparently blank time stamps. But even it was
>>> mysteriously confused. At first I didn't think it had worked since I
>>> didn't see the files listed. I had expected them at the end of the
>>> list. In fact, they were at the beginning of the list. I then assumed
>>> that the list was sorted by date/time and all the 0s were forcing the
>>> previously missing files to the top of the list. I then forced a sort
>>> by file name... or so I thought. Rather than sort to the bottom of the
>>> list where they should have been they continued to maintain their
>>> position at the top. I still haven't figured that one out. I gave up
>>> pondering that development and decided to be happy that I had my files
>>> back with proper alpha-numeric names with numbers running from 336 to 352.
>>>
>>> Moral of the story: When you see the orange clock face warning message
>>> you should immediately reset the date/time. Maybe Apple utilities are
>>> smarter but I was surprised that even Ubuntu Linux didn't get it
>>> completely right. And I was especially surprised that this simple bug
>>> has apparently persisted in Windows at least throughout the lifetimes of
>>> WinXP and Win7 and likely much longer. Makes me wonder too what Oly
>>> used for testing. Probably hired the US HealthCare.gov web developers. :-)
>>>
>>> Chuck Norcutt (all mentally tuckered out)
>>
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