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Thought I'd put a combined question / warning / comment up.

I've got a Pentax istDS, and its standard (JPG) file names are in the format IMPG_####.jpg. One thing I've noticed (three times now) is that when you take the photo AFTER #9999, and the camera continues to shoot, it will go to #0001 as expected on that card. HOWEVER, if you then put any other SD card into the camera which has even a single photo stored on it, it will CONTINUE THE COUNT from the last number on that card. (This only seems to happen when you pass 10000 - at all other times you can change cards and it will keep count as normal.)

Of course, this will play absolute *(#&$ing havoc with your ability to organise your holiday photos when you change cards every day, and keep copies of your better photos on the card for backup purposes. More so if you're swapping between seven 1Gb+ cards. As happened to me in Europe...

(Hence I have about 6 different photos with the name IMGP_9980 all taken within about a week of each other)

... is there any way around this? any fix for it? (anybody else suffering?)

Having been through this with a Canon 300D after playing with the files that it stores image numbers in, I can only suggest that when you do go to change cards after the clock over, you need to format all your cards in a computer before any of them go in the camera again. Even if that means reformatting them in the camera again afterwards - the goal is to get rid of any hidden files the camera puts on the card.

Tedious for you with that many cards, but it does work.

Thanks - I thought so!

It wouldn't have been so much of a problem if I hadn't turned all mega-paranoid on holiday, what with wanting to make sure there were multiple points of redundancy in the photos I was taking (backed up all photos taken in the first 2/3 of the trip to friends' computer in London - however the clocking happened prior to that; copied those files to my iRiver; then in Spain used my hostel's computer to backup to my iRiver again, changed cards every day and/or when they were full). I made the right call.... but it caused problems in the aftermath of the trip!

I'm a big fan of using internet cafes to burn DVDs. If you buy 10 or 25 in a shop and burn them in cafes you can often avoid the silly burning fee they charge, but regardless it's worth burning a few copies and posting them home.

BT*ist wrote:(Hence I have about 6 different photos with the name IMGP_9980 all taken within about a week of each other)

... is there any way around this? any fix for it? (anybody else suffering?)

G'day

I've just been told about the batch renaming options in Adobe Bridge. It fixed my problems quick smart. Have you looked at Tools, Batch Rename? It may help you too !!

the trick is to make sure your cards are emptied before putting them in the camera but if you do get out of synch, take a pic, chuck it in a card reader then change the file number on the pic and re-insert the card into the camera and it will then take the next pic with the next number.

its really bad when you have three cameras

moz wrote:I'm a big fan of using internet cafes to burn DVDs. If you buy 10 or 25 in a shop and burn them in cafes you can often avoid the silly burning fee they charge, but regardless it's worth burning a few copies and posting them home.

excellent advice indeed. at work, we charge $9.95 for memory card to CD (single cd, extra cd is $4 or something) and $14.95 for card to dvd.
its mainly the labour and cost to productivity i guess. even though it doesnt take that long

-j

when travelling around the ouback i found most could not do a multiple disc burn and stuffed them all up by changing sizes or resolution etc...

Using a 512 card was the safest way to go as it made it easy for them to just do 1 card for 1 cd.

1 place [cairns photoshop] took 8 hours to do about 3 gig of cards and when i finally picked it up as the place closed they had fitted them all to 1 cd even though i specifically asked them to not change anything.

when i got home i managed to recover all but about 170 photos which were still on the CD but at a much smaller size.

ouch, stuffing 3gb onto one CD, that is really bad.

aim54x wrote:ouch, stuffing 3gb onto one CD, that is really bad.

not only that but it took them 8 hours to do it

luckily i only took 170 pics on the way home from cairns so all the other cards still had the previous weeks images still on them.

took a laptop on my last trip but it wasn't big enough so just bought one with 200Gb and that should last the fortnight .

Big Red wrote:not only that but it took them 8 hours to do it

luckily i only took 170 pics on the way home from cairns so all the other cards still had the previous weeks images still on them.

took a laptop on my last trip but it wasn't big enough so just bought one with 200Gb and that should last the fortnight .

That is lucky that you managed to get most of the photos back, maybe it would be an idea to just buy another card when you fill up your last one. Other than the cost, it seems better than to have to face shops that change the size of your photos. I cant imagine what took them 8hrs to burn your 3gbs to disk.

aim54x wrote:

Big Red wrote:not only that but it took them 8 hours to do it

luckily i only took 170 pics on the way home from cairns so all the other cards still had the previous weeks images still on them.

took a laptop on my last trip but it wasn't big enough so just bought one with 200Gb and that should last the fortnight .

That is lucky that you managed to get most of the photos back, maybe it would be an idea to just buy another card when you fill up your last one. Other than the cost, it seems better than to have to face shops that change the size of your photos. I cant imagine what took them 8hrs to burn your 3gbs to disk.

the K20D on RAW+JPEG is around 30mb per pic and i only have about 30Gb of cards so the laptop is my best option with the added advantage of downloading the days pics and getting a pretty good view of them while sitting round the campfire that night.

can pic up any probs early !!

its no fun spot healing half a dozen dust bunnies off a few thousand pics like one of my trips

That is true, downloading to a laptop is the best solution. I find that I will often do the same when I have access to a computer. I carry 14gb of card with me when I go out, but I must shoot a lot less because I hardly even fill the first card. But then again I mainly shoot in JPG, going to RAW + JPG when it is important.

being outback trips and travelling every day means i like to grab the best possible quality as its too bloody far to go back and take it again.

the JPEGs can be viewed and even posted as they come from the camera with the RAW as back ups and i can then work the RAWS for magazines etc later if l'm lucky.

i copy the numbered cards and only start to format the cards when i have used them all so i should still have 30Gb of pics on cards if something happens to the laptop.