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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