Time Stamps

. . .start a "timetrack" and then immediately set a waypoint and then edit the wp description by entering the local time in that timezone when you made that waypoint. After a few seconds you can stop and save the track. That will make a gps track record that you know the correct local time for.

Thanks for a helpful suggestion. I like it. I could even go back into my saved files (in MS, of course) and do the same thing, using a route entry to verify the appropriate time zone adjustment for each portion of a trip in a distant zone.

I haven't found the need to photograph the GPS time screen as I pretty much know where I am and about what time it is! I have my GPSMAP 62s set to auto archive daily so, I have a separate track for each day and of course, I know the date/time the images were taken. I am careful about making sure the camera clock is set correctly - I usually "sync" it to the computer time with the Canon EOS Utility before heading out somewhere. As far as time zones go, its only the hour that needs to be changed. I use Basecamp to geotag photos and haven't done this different time zone thing enough to remember what (+) and (-) actually does! I'll tag the images and then choose an image and look up its location in Google Earth to see if it is in the expected location. If not, I'll reverse the plus to minus (or vice versa) and do it again. I'm looking at a couple of other geotagging programs because BC will not tag RAW files and it will be interesting to see how their time offset works.

I've used RoboGEO for years (before BC existed) to geotag images. It can work with RAW images. It can use waypoints/tracks to automatically obtain position information.

Display the local time zone where tracks & waypoints were collected

I can't believe it is not obvious that there needs to be a way in BaseCamp to DISPLAY THE LOCAL TIME ZONE WHERE TRACKS & WAYPOINTS WERE COLLECTED. The time zone where my home computer is completely irrelevant. I am working on an ecology field project in Central America where it is a different time zone and does not have daylight savings. Naturally, all my field notes and photos are recorded with the local time zone, so it is very aggravating that Basecamp changes the "apparent" track times displayed INSTEAD OF WHAT THE GPS DISPLAYED IN THE FIELD AT THE TIME. I end up exporting the gpx files into other programs where I can calculate the local time from the GMT and work with my data. People travel to other time zones with their GPS's all the time and they shouldn't have to think in Zulu time or puzzle out how many hours to time shift tracks when geotagging photos.

I think there are a couple solutions. The most elegant would be to have an option to calculate and display the local time because the time zone can be determined from the coordinates and the date. Then add a field for either GMT or the time shift from GMT so people will know what zone is displayed. I get that this is more complicated for Garmin to address than is immediately apparent (e.g. over time may people will have tracks from trips multiple time zones and having them in the same collection my be confusing). Configure BaseCamp so users, if they chose, can save data in separate projects and that a project's time zone can be set by the user.

A related point about WAYPOINTS. The properties should show the TIME CREATED, NOT time MODIFIED. One often enters a short name in the field which isn't always sufficient when imported in a collection, but the original time and date is no longer displayed if one renames it inside BaseCamp. Again when the waypoint was created is important, not when it was renamed on the computer!

I do have to wonder why Garmin assumes everybody will want to have all their data in one file. Even with folders and lists to organize and consolidate data, over time it could become complicated for active users. If a user wants to access data from separate projects, perhaps they could be opened in separate tabs, and either copy the data to be compared into a new tab or if tabs can be displayed simultaneously allow folders and lists to be selectively displayed in the map window (ability to hide others).

I hope my thoughts are helpful.

Here is a very cool solution to anyone's time and zone dilemma.

http://www.barnabu.co.uk/google-earth-5-world-time-zone-clock-javascript-and-kml/

Click "Download" and then "Open".
It will place a kml file in Google Earth that overlays all the world with interactive time zones.
You click anywhere in the world and a box pops up with the current time and zone at that location.
It can be turned off and on with a click of the box and saved to My Places for use at any time.

Using BaseCamp or MapSource, just select your file and "View" and "Google Earth".
Your track will be plotted on the GE world in its timezone and you will know the current time and zone and offset to UTC for that track.