7DMkII GPS Clock AutoUpdate

I have read, read again, and reread the miniscule amount of information provided in the user's manual.

Our region observes stupid Daylight Savings Time, causing us to forever more have to be messing with our clocks.

Only a white man would think that you can cut a foot off of a blanket, sew it on the other end, and come up with a longer blanket.

That being said, time changed last night, back to normal ordinary sensible time; we only get four months of it anymore.

Since the last time change, I have been keeping my 7DMkII set to automatically update the clock.

Daylight Savings Time is ON.

I spent about an hour last night, manually updating the clocks on all of our cameras and various other devices; however, I did not mess with the 7DMkII; as I had it set to automatically update, I wanted to see if it did.

I went outside and acquired signal from several satellites.

The GPS was locked and ready.

Every few minutes, I would check the time, but nothing ever changed.

I finally gave up and went into the menu to Update Now; I let it do it's thing and nothing changed.

Am I missing something here; am I expecting something that I shouldn't ?

Not wanting to have the wrong timestamp on my pictures, I finally gave up and went into the menu and changed the time manually.

There's a setting that moves the time forward and back an hour, but you need to tell it whether it is DST or not. It works like many cars, which allow you to set DST with a single setting so you don't need to change the whole clock or remember if you need to move the clock forward or back.

See:
https://id.canon/en/su​pport/8202195600

The 7DII does not automatically change between Daylight Saving and Standard time on a specific date for its Real Time Clock.
The Daylight Saving (On vs. Off) is a manual selection that the user changes, to enable +1nr (Daylight Saving) or +0hr (Standard) adjustment to the set time, for the displayed Hour.
It is not like a computer which changes itself on the dates associated with the time shift, based upon a computer's location.

For example, my 7DII had Daylight Savings on, and just now (10:25am PST) it continued to show 11:25am (PDT), unlike the laptop or desktop PCs in my house which had automatically altered their displayed time (to 10:25am).

• No automatic changeover of displayed time;
  
• I had to change to Daylight Saving Off to see the correct time on the 7DII;

  • if Daylight Saving is On, the displayed time is '11:25',
    
  • but if the Daylight Saving is Off the displayed time is '10:25'.
    

  
  

I guess it is important to add that
I NEVER turn OFF the GPS; it stays ON, day and night, all the time.

The manual insinuated that battery drainage would be catastrophic when the GPS is ON; that has definitely not been my experience at all.

After two or three episodes where I forgot to turn ON the GPS until halfway through the day, I just left it ON and that way I can't forget to turn it ON.

Wilt wrote in post #19304396
The 7DII does not automatically change between Daylight Saving and Standard time on a specific date for its Real Time Clock.
The Daylight Saving (On vs. Off) is a manual selection that the user changes, to enable +1nr (Daylight Saving) or +0hr (Standard) adjustment to the set time, for the displayed Hour.
It is not like a computer which changes itself on the dates associated with the time shift, based upon a computer's location.

For example, my 7DII had Daylight Savings on, and just now (10:25am PST) it continued to show 11:25am (PDT), unlike the laptop or desktop PCs in my house which had automatically altered their displayed time (to 10:25am).

• No automatic changeover of displayed time;
  
• I had to change to Daylight Saving Off to see the correct time on the 7DII;

  • if Daylight Saving is On, the displayed time is '11:25',
    
  • but if the Daylight Saving is Off the displayed time is '10:25'.
    

  
  

I have never bothered to use GPS in the 7DII for any significant duration (apart of turning it on to verify it gets location, before turning GPS off again), but the GPS time probably changes GPS time to DST On/Off at a particular schedule, (like a PC) and it sounds from the OP description that it has no impact on the camera Real Time Clock setting. Someone with experience in the correlation between GPS time vs. camera RTC could post information pertinent to this discussion.

Read the post above yours.

BuckSkin wrote in post #19304408
I guess it is important to add that
I NEVER turn OFF the GPS; it stays ON, day and night, all the time.

The manual insinuated that battery drainage would be catastrophic when the GPS is ON; that has definitely not been my experience at all.

After two or three episodes where I forgot to turn ON the GPS until halfway through the day, I just left it ON and that way I can't forget to turn it ON.

In this case, leaving the GPS on or off doesn't matter. Likewise, moving around the world doesn't change the clock although you are in a different time zone. So when you visit Thailand, your camera will still timestamp your images in your home time zone. It's even more fun in places like India which aren't wide enough to merit two time zones, but evenly straddles a time zone border, so they just offset their clocks by half an hour. The GPS is good for initializing the camera clock and keeping it synchronized.

Capn Jack wrote in post #19304425
In this case, leaving the GPS on or off doesn't matter. Likewise, moving around the world doesn't change the clock although you are in a different time zone. So when you visit Thailand, your camera will still timestamp your images in your home time zone. It's even more fun in places like India which aren't wide enough to merit two time zones, but evenly straddles a time zone border, so they just offset their clocks by half an hour. The GPS is good for initializing the camera clock and keeping it synchronized.

Thanks; I had been wondering about that, whether Auto Update would make my clock change in different zones (which I definitely don't want).

Also, thanks for the link that showed how to move the clock up and down without all the hassle.

When I was a kid, the entire state of Kentucky was Central Standard Time; no matter where you were in Kentucky, you always knew what time it was.

Now, they have jacked and jerked the time zone borders around to where I am in a narrow peninsula of Central Time and almost any way I go jumps an hour faster into Eastern Time.

Almost anywhere we go, we are an hour behind before we start the truck; if the destination is an hour away, we have to leave two hours early to get there on time.

If I ever get to be Dictator, that is going to be my first move = put the time zones back where they were when the Pennsylvania RxR created them and do away with Daylight Savings.

BuckSkin wrote in post #19304438
Thanks; I had been wondering about that, whether Auto Update would make my clock change in different zones (which I definitely don't want).

Also, thanks for the link that showed how to move the clock up and down without all the hassle.

When I was a kid, the entire state of Kentucky was Central Standard Time; no matter where you were in Kentucky, you always knew what time it was.

Now, they have jacked and jerked the time zone borders around to where I am in a narrow peninsula of Central Time and almost any way I go jumps an hour faster into Eastern Time.

Almost anywhere we go, we are an hour behind before we start the truck; if the destination is an hour away, we have to leave two hours early to get there on time.

If I ever get to be Dictator, that is going to be my first move = put the time zones back where they were when the Pennsylvania RxR created them and do away with Daylight Savings.

You are welcome.

China is as wide as the lower 48 states, and it's officially one single time zone, based on Beijing. In Kashgar, the sun rises at 10 AM or later. On the other hand, they have plenty of daylight after school and work to do stuff. You can have it worse

Capn Jack wrote in post #19304444
China is as wide as the lower 48 states, and it's officially one single time zone, based on Beijing. In Kashgar, the sun rises at 10 AM or later. On the other hand, they have plenty of daylight after school and work to do stuff. You can have it worse

Thanks for sharing that; it is interesting that the Chinese have enough sense to leave the whole place on one time zone and us Americans have nothing but a mess.

Anytime anyone from anywhere in Kentucky calls someone else and a time is involved, the question is always asked "what exactly is the time where you are at right now?" it is that confusing.

We had two guys from Tennessee bring their mules/wagons up for a trail ride; they got things backwards and thought they had two hours to spare, so they stopped for a coffee and breakfast break.

We waited quite a while and gave up on them; and, as we were on the couple miles of blacktop before we hit the wilderness, we met them in the road.

They thought they were there in plenty of time.


Back to the camera/GPS/Time:

Thanks again for that bit about the Daylight Savings Time switch/button; I probably would have been another couple years learning it was there.

I went into manual time set and purposefully messed up the date and time by several days and several hours/minutes/seconds; I left it on Daylight Savings.

I stepped outside to get a GPS lock and, of all the times, met a deer staring back at me about twenty feet off the porch; I took as many photos of him as the camera would fire as, tail in the air, he went across the open yard and into the woods.

Now, my deer shots are going to be way off on the timestamp and I get to correct that.

Anyway, deer gone and excitement over, I selected Update Now; I let it do it's thing and it corrected my way off date and time and set the clock an hour ahead of current time.

I went back into the menu and clicked the Daylight/not-Daylight button, and then Update Now; and, it set the clock back one hour to the current non-Daylight time.

That Daylight Savings button/switch was the piece of the puzzle that I was missing earlier today.

I assumed the satellite would make the change, but obviously it does not.

Now, if I can just remember all this in February when we have to go the other way.

BuckSkin wrote in post #19304491
Thanks for sharing that; it is interesting that the Chinese have enough sense to leave the whole place on one time zone and us Americans have nothing but a mess.

Anytime anyone from anywhere in Kentucky calls someone else and a time is involved, the question is always asked "what exactly is the time where you are at right now?" it is that confusing.

We had two guys from Tennessee bring their mules/wagons up for a trail ride; they got things backwards and thought they had two hours to spare, so they stopped for a coffee and breakfast break.

We waited quite a while and gave up on them; and, as we were on the couple miles of blacktop before we hit the wilderness, we met them in the road.

They thought they were there in plenty of time.

Back to the camera/GPS/Time:

Thanks again for that bit about the Daylight Savings Time switch/button; I probably would have been another couple years learning it was there.

I went into manual time set and purposefully messed up the date and time by several days and several hours/minutes/seconds; I left it on Daylight Savings.

I stepped outside to get a GPS lock and, of all the times, met a deer staring back at me about twenty feet off the porch; I took as many photos of him as the camera would fire as, tail in the air, he went across the open yard and into the woods.

Now, my deer shots are going to be way off on the timestamp and I get to correct that.

Anyway, deer gone and excitement over, I selected Update Now; I let it do it's thing and it corrected my way off date and time and set the clock an hour ahead of current time.

I went back into the menu and clicked the Daylight/not-Daylight button, and then Update Now; and, it set the clock back one hour to the current non-Daylight time.

That Daylight Savings button/switch was the piece of the puzzle that I was missing earlier today.

I assumed the satellite would make the change, but obviously it does not.

Now, if I can just remember all this in February when we have to go the other way.

The various GPS constellations are actually based on UTC (coordinated universal time, essentially Greenwich Mean Time):
https://gssc.esa.int …p/Time_Referenc​es_in_GNSS
Oddly, this includes BeiDou (China) and GLONASS (Russia). So it is up to the user to determine the offset from UTC and then add DST if needed. You'll be a month early if you change in February, DST starts 13 March next year.

The reason I mention the other global navigation constellations is because many devices, including the 7D2, use multiple constellations. The 7D2 uses the USA GPS, and the Russian GLONASS. I don't think we get the Michibiki system from Japan here.

Capn Jack wrote in post #19304422
Read the post above yours.

Yes, my post echo'd yours, in terms of the menu setting moving the cameras's clock +1hr or +0hr.
I went beyond to include the practical data about the specific case of my own 7DII camera's lack of 'automatic' adjustment (unlike what happens in PC clocks), and it also stated the unknown of what interacation (if any) between GPS time vs. camera time.

We have seen enough examples where the first guy says it, but the OP does not seem to believe what is written until two or three others post the same information! Not unreasonable, since sometimes false 'facts' are stated.

Since the GPS system works worldwide, it does of course have to have a coordinated time base. Universal Time Coordinated. Regardless of whom puts the satellites in orbit.

Only a white man would think that you can cut a foot off of a blanket, sew it on the other end, and come up with a longer blanket.

I doubt that, since it implies that only white men would realize that it makes sense to do outdoor work in daylight.

Thanks for sharing that; it is interesting that the Chinese have enough sense to leave the whole place on one time zone and us Americans have nothing but a mess.

So maybe there is something into this color thing anyway. In reality in China, people tend to do the same thing at different times of day, depending on where you are. Because daylight doesn't care what the government in Beijing decides. To simplify this, that dictator should be global and have UTC everywhere. Then Americans would go to work between 13 and 22, or 12 and 21, or whatever, depending on where they are. UTC is 24 hour clock, so USA would get the benefit of that at the same time. In some places, you would go to work late one day and end the next. Like working shifts, but still not.

The main reason for Canon introducing GPS in the cameras I've been told is that those who cover large events, like the Olympics, they work for agencies with several photographers. They are online and transmit pictures taken from the arena to the editors all the time. If their camera's clocks are off, then the images coming in get sorted in the wrong order.
Canon first made it possible to sync camera's clocks over a network, but introducing a time reference from GPS made that unnecessary. It also made it possible to sync time without ever bringing the cameras close to each other.
Georeferencing the images is a possibility that comes with the function.

apersson850 wrote in post #19304623
Since the GPS system works worldwide, it does of course have to have a coordinated time base. Universal Time Coordinated. Regardless of whom puts the satellites in orbit.

Only a white man would think that you can cut a foot off of a blanket, sew it on the other end, and come up with a longer blanket.

I doubt that, since it implies that only white men would realize that it makes sense to do outdoor work in daylight.

Thanks for sharing that; it is interesting that the Chinese have enough sense to leave the whole place on one time zone and us Americans have nothing but a mess.

So maybe there is something into this color thing anyway. In reality in China, people tend to do the same thing at different times of day, depending on where you are. Because daylight doesn't care what the government in Beijing decides. To simplify this, that dictator should be global and have UTC everywhere. Then Americans would go to work between 13 and 22, or 12 and 21, or whatever, depending on where they are. UTC is 24 hour clock, so USA would get the benefit of that at the same time. In some places, you would go to work late one day and end the next. Like working shifts, but still not.

The main reason for Canon introducing GPS in the cameras I've been told is that those who cover large events, like the Olympics, they work for agencies with several photographers. They are online and transmit pictures taken from the arena to the editors all the time. If their camera's clocks are off, then the images coming in get sorted in the wrong order.
Canon first made it possible to sync camera's clocks over a network, but introducing a time reference from GPS made that unnecessary. It also made it possible to sync time without ever bringing the cameras close to each other.
Georeferencing the images is a possibility that comes with the function.

To the first highlighted comment, the countries could reference the time to Beijing or Moscow, and the GNSS would still work. Other users would just offset the time as needed. We just need to know the time the signal was sent (encoded in the signal), and the time we received the signal, correct for relativistic effects, and calculate the time difference to get the distance from the satellite.

To the second highlighted statement, I vote for sidereal time so everyone gets a chance at daylight when awake

As for the reference time thing, the images may still be out of order if photographers don't use a consistent time zone although that can be handled by corporate directive to set all the cameras up the same way. Also, not everyone uses the Canon GPS cameras.

True about the time, but only a fool would design it to use something else than UTC.

Yeah, sure, sidereal time would very much simplify life in the society, wouldn't it?

The image agency aren't fools either, so they do of course make sure everybody has the right time zone. Apart from that, UTC is always recorded in the image too. And for those requesting this, they do use cameras with GPS.