File Numbering

Just a question regarding how to correlate images shot using more than

one camera body. I am going to start using btoh of my bodies (a 20D and 30D),

rather than have a back-up sitting in a bag, and to help expediency. Now that

I have officially hired an assistant to help carry some of my other equipment

and actually have a bit more freedom to shoot pictures:):):) My question is

how to you keep the pictures in order when shot with 2 bodies, so the pic you

shot with your 50mm/30d is right after the pic you shot with the 70-200mm/ 20d

combo in order of the day. Thanks in advance:)

 

Sean

You could use a cataloging program that can sort by EXIF time... or you can use a renamer utility that can rename with EXIF variables. I use Albert Bertilsson's excellent Renamer utility, which can indeed do so. My namin convention goes date_camera model_original image number, so I end up with file names like:

 

2006-08-18_30D_02945.CRW

 

You could use the Renamer utility to add the hour and minute and second values from the EXIF data to the name. Granted you'll end up with long file names that may be unwieldy...

The key here is to make very sure that the date and time on all of the bodies being used is

synchronized before you start the shoot.

 

Are you using Photoshop CS2? Good! That means you have Bridge and Bridge does this

kind of sorting very, very easily. When getting ready to edit, bring them into one folder,

select all and then use Adobe Bridge to sort by date created:

 

View > Sort > Date Created

 

it is as easy as 1-2-3.

I think the 20D and 30D can generate the same file numbers so be careful when bringing files to the same folder. The chance for this to happen can be large if you share a CF between bodies. I avoided this when using 2 10D bodies on a recent trip by using 1Gb CF cards on 1 body and all other cards (512 Mb and 2 Gb) on the other one. As mentioned, check the time & date regularly. I noticed that the 10D bodies are not very good in keeping the same time.

Here's what I do with a 20D and 5D:

 

- Synchronise clocks immediately prior to the shoot (because the bodies drift out of sync quite quickly)

 

- Download files using Downloader Pro into a single folder - it will assign unique filenames to different images, even if the times are identical, to the second

 

- Use Breezebrowser Pro to filter images. It will allow you to sort by camera body, if you need to process images slightly differently to get a consistent look

 

- Never swap CF cards between different body types (e.g. cards formatted in a 5D never get used in a 20D)

 

Steve