Managing 2 cameras

[dan_tripp]

<p>Sorry I have not posted in a long time. I have been very busy with school. Anyway, I have been using my new Pentax 50-135mm for weddings, and have had great results. Thanks for everyones suggestion when I made my purchase. Next on the list is a super wide. The post the other day has me leaning toward the Sigma 10-20. <br>

I'm now carrying 2 cameras K200 and K100. When I download the pictures and try to edit them, I was hoping to find a better way to sort all the photos in order. I have set the times to match on both cameras, but still no luck with Adobe Bridge when I select sort to date (there is no sort time). Would Adobe Lightroom help?<br>

Here is my main question: Can I setup my cameras so the image numbers do not start over with IMGP0001?<br>

Any other thoughts for managing pics from 2 cameras?</p>

 

[andrewg_ny]

<p>I'm pretty sure that Lightroom can sort by image capture/create time as can ACDSee (don't know whether you're using Mac or PC). I normally have pictures automatically renamed on import to incorporate the date and a sequence number--theoretically this could include the timestamp as well which might work better. I had used date (YYYYMMDD-###) where ### is a sequence# but this has caused naming trouble with multiple cameras/cards/imports, so a pattern like YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS would probably work better. Because the program is capable of sorting on the metadata create time however I haven't been sweating occasionally ugly names when an extra "-1" has been appended for the duplicate.</p>

<p>Ok, I've started rambling. Anyway my $0.02--forget the camera's naming and have your software rename on import. Use software that allows you to sort by time, and you won't care about the names as much.</p>

<p>One other thing--a benefit of having the date in the filename is that in the event you end up doing something to a file (or version of the file) and its EXIF metadata is stripped, at least the filename will help identify what set it came from.</p>

[mcmanamey]

<p>Well - I know this has nothing to do w/ Lightroom or Bridge, but APERTURE does allow time sorting. Huge help when trying to put weddings in order (now if only the cameras were calibrated to each other....)</p>

<p>Also - Aperture allows batch renaming, and you can customize the name to include all kinds of info. I'm going to answer while being a tad lazy (meaning I don't have Aperture open), but I'm positive the time stamp is one of the pieces of info you can include in your naming scheme. It's totally customizable. I love Aperture. It really does save us a lot of time.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>(don't know whether you're using Mac or PC)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't either, so if you're using a PC, sorry.....</p>

 

[pbarnes]

<p>Dan, I have no trouble sorting images by date and time using Adobe Bridge (CS3 and now CS4). I use the menu item View>Sort>By Date Created. It is true that there is no menu item for sorting by time, but sorting by date sorts by time as well (I assume that the cameras stamp each file with a single number that represents both the date and the time, as is common in many computing applications).</p>

<p><br />To sort images from 2 or more cameras in the order they were taken at an event you will need to make sure that the cameras are set to the same date as well as the same time. That done, Bridge should work fine.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>I am pretty sure FastStone sorts by time, not just date. (FastStone is free, and does almost everything, if not more than ACDSee, except for RAW conversion, but can batch convert RAW-->JPEG from the embedded images).</p>

<p>I also believe lightroom does.</p>

<p>So if the clocks are synced you should see the photos in order in both those programs.</p>

<p>Actually light room is ridiculous in the possibilities to sort. You can sort by lens, f/stop, shutter speed, ISO or any # of other ways.<br>

<br /> <br /> While I don't think everyone needs to spend $200 on lightroom, I do think if you are shooting events, and have to prune out large amounts of images and then edit them, you are better off with a program like Lightroom. I think mostly everyone else can get by just fine with FastStone, and I still use FastStone for the bulk of my image management.</p>