D50 File Numbering

Up until now I haven't had enough files on a card to cause the camera
to create a second folder. Today I didn't clear the card after
downloading a bunch of shots and went out to take a few shots of
tonight's sunset.

Looking at the card I have a second folder - no surprise there.

But while copying the photos from the second folder I get asked if I
want to overwrite a file.

Looking at the first folder, I had 230 files ending with file number
5308. In a second folder there were 4 files for 2 photos numbered
5251 and 5252. These numbers were of course in the first folder as
well.

I popped the card back in the camera and formatted it to see what
would be the next number and it's 5253.

The only thing that I did during the shoot was change the battery, but
it was long after the original 5251 and 5252 were taken.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

That doesn't explain it. The duplicate number happened within 15
minutes and the card didn't come out of the camera and the camera
wasn't connected to a computer. My D50 is the only camera I have that
uses SD cards.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

"Ed Ruf (REPLY to E-MAIL IN SIG!)" wrote in
message ...
: On Thu, 1 Jun 2006 17:53:53 +1000, in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems
"Joan"
: wrote:
:
: Up until now I haven't had enough files on a card to cause the
camera
: to create a second folder. Today I didn't clear the card after
: downloading a bunch of shots and went out to take a few shots of
: tonight's sunset.
:
: Looking at the card I have a second folder - no surprise there.
:
: But while copying the photos from the second folder I get asked if
I
: want to overwrite a file.
:
: Looking at the first folder, I had 230 files ending with file
number
: 5308. In a second folder there were 4 files for 2 photos numbered
: 5251 and 5252. These numbers were of course in the first folder as
: well.
:
: I popped the card back in the camera and formatted it to see what
: would be the next number and it's 5253.
:
: The only thing that I did during the shoot was change the battery,
but
: it was long after the original 5251 and 5252 were taken.
:
:
: And your point or question is?
:
: Ok a stab, why/how did this happen? One thing you need to be aware
of is
: that it is possible to get the camera to change the sequence by
putting the
: card back in with a different image number on it. The camera checks
the
: card for the highest number on it and can rest it's numbering
starting off
: from than number. An issue to be aware of if you routinely don't
clean
: cards or if you swap cards between cameras with cleaning them out.
:
: For instance, delete all the files on the card then transfer
#500.jpg back
: and you could find the next number in sequence will be reset to 501.
: --
: Ed Ruf )

I don't know why you would have dup numbers on the same card, but if
you use the camera to delete pictures as you are taking them, it
sometimes makes the numbering go funny, especially if you take some
pictures, sit down and delete what you don't want, then take more pix,
etc.

Pat wrote:
especially if you take some
pictures, sit down and delete what you don't want, then take more pix,
etc.

You just described *exactly* how I use my D70s. Is this not good
practice, then?

I do recall having an issue, once only, but I never connected it with
this habit. I do it if I'm shooting horses, particularly,to dump the
eye shut/tongue hanging out inevitables - It just seems logical to dump
the dross in favour of memory space.

At least it explains that little glitch that day (similar to the one
discussed here, but I don't recall the details)

It's a glitch on my camera and I have no idea why. So I stopped
deleting bad ones to avoid it.

Anothe similar issue is how images are copied off the card to the HD.
For some reason, the order of the folders sometimes get screwed up.
But that generally happen more when a folder starts in the middle of a
count and doesn't have a full 100 images in it.For example, if forlder
1 has XX56 to X100 and folder 2 had X101 to X138 then you remove the
card and folder 3 had X139 to X200, etc. Then I've had pix all of of
order.

Smarter people than me will tell you why, but I just avoid it to keep
out of trouble.

Good luck.

Peter A wrote:
Pat wrote:
especially if you take some pictures, sit down and delete what you don't
want, then take more pix, etc.

You just described *exactly* how I use my D70s. Is this not good
practice, then?

I do that all the time, and have never once seen anything like that happen,
with a D70 and a D2X.

--
Jeremy |

Nothing there explains the cause. Photos 5243 to 5308 were in folder
100 along with a few from the day before.
From folder 100
5243 was taken at 4:30PM
.... more at short intervals and then
5251 was taken at 4:41PM
5252 was taken at 4:41PM
.... more at short intervals and then the last one
5308 was taken at 5:00PM

In folder 101
5251 taken at 5:03PM
5252 taken at 5:03PM

The card didn't come out of the camera in that time and no photos were
deleted. I have them all on the PC. It was sunset and I took lots of
shots, a sequence of 11 of them are on Flickr, but the exif is
removed.

After that, as I said, I formatted the card and took another photo and
it's 5253. So it looks like the numbers up to 5308 will be re-used.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
...
: According to Joan :
: Up until now I haven't had enough files on a card to cause the
camera
: to create a second folder. Today I didn't clear the card after
: downloading a bunch of shots and went out to take a few shots of
: tonight's sunset.
:
: Do you mean that when you downloaded *some* shots, you deleted
: those from the media and left others which might have had higher and
: lower image numbers?
:
: And did you do this with the card in the camera, or by moving to
: to a card reader and then moving it back.
:
: Note that I use the D70, not the D50, and thus use CF cards, not
: SD cards, but otherwise things should be about the same.
:
: Looking at the card I have a second folder - no surprise there.
:
: But while copying the photos from the second folder I get asked if
I
: want to overwrite a file.
:
: Looking at the first folder, I had 230 files ending with file
number
: 5308. In a second folder there were 4 files for 2 photos numbered
: 5251 and 5252. These numbers were of course in the first folder
as
: well.
:
: O.K. There are not enough images in that first folder to
: account for the creation of a second folder. Normally, that happens
: either when there are 999 images in a folder, or when the image
number
: reaches 9999.
:
: What I *think* happened here is (assuming that you deleted some
: images in a card reader on the computer and then re-inserted the
card in
: the camera) that the camera started reading through the
highest-numbered
: folder looking for the end after finding the first image number in
that
: folder. What happened is that it reached (say 5250) and saw that
5251
: was not present, it set the number to 5251, without bothering to see
: whether there was anything beyond that (after all, that takes longer
to
: get the camera started up if it does that). Then you took 5251, and
the
: next shot (5252) it discovered was already present in that folder,
so it
: created a new folder and put the remaining images from that session
: there. This prevents overwriting of existing image files, though it
: does confuse the image-numbering sequence somewhat.
:
: I've not encountered this, yet, with my D70, in part because
: I've been using 1GB CF cards, and an image size which will not get
as
: many as 999 images on the whole card, let alone in a single folder.
: However, I've added a 4GB CF card to my collection, and depending on
the
: image size, I can get well over 1000 images to a single CF card. (I
had
: been shooting with Medium/Fine settings, and going to RAW only for
: special cases. On the 4GB card, that will get over 2K images.
: Large/Fine gets over 1.1K, and only full-time RAW will get be below
1000
: images about 716).
:
: I used to have a script (unix system) which downloaded the
: contents of the DCIM/100NCD70 folder (yes, I know that on Windows,
it
: would be seen as DCIM\100NCD70).
:
: Now, since that risks not downloading everything from the card,
: my script uses tar to copy the entire tree of directories and their
: contents into the unix system, so I don't have to worry about any
: accidental duplication of filenames resulting in something lost.
:
: And, as soon as the download (and duplication to a second hard
: disk) is complete and verified, I put the CF card back into the
camera
: and format it to start over.
:
: I also reset the image number back to 0001 at the beginning of
: each year.
:
: If the image number goes past 9999 in a shooting session, it
: will (of course) create a new folder to make sure that things do not
get
: overwritten. If I need to combine them back to maintain a proper
: sequence later, I can rename the later ones from DSC_???? to
DSC1????
: and on as needed.
:
: I popped the card back in the camera and formatted it to see what
: would be the next number and it's 5253.
:
: I presume that you first safely copied the duplicated filenames
: to separate directories -- or renamed them first? I have this image
of
: the files being lost when you reformatted the card.
:
: I do sometimes delete obviously bad images from the card, if
: there is a question of room, but I tend to keep the card in the
camera
: until I am out of room or have another reason to change CF cards. I
: suspect that your problem occurred when you re-inserted the card
after
: deleting some files via an external computer. (It may be that the
camera
: keeps some information on the card to keep it from duplicating
numbers,
: and this was corrupted by the computer downloading the files.) I've
got
: things set up so my cards mount read-only (again, a unix system), so
I
: *can't* corrupt the filesystem -- and this forces me to always use
the
: camera itself to format the cards. (Besides, on a unix system, I
have
: too many options for how to format a card -- not just the FAT
: filesystems which the cameras use. :-)
:
: The only thing that I did during the shoot was change the battery,
but
: it was long after the original 5251 and 5252 were taken.
:
: That should not be the cause of the problem -- but if you did
: delete images from the CF card in an external computer, and then
: re-install it in the camera, *that* might have triggered the problem
as
: I described above.
:
: As I mentioned above, I *do* delete images from the CF card
: before I am done with it -- but I do so using the camera, and I've
never
: had the camera loop back to re-use some deleted numbers.
:
: I hope that this helps,
: DoN.
:
: --
: Email: | Voice (all times): (703)
938-4564
: (too) near Washington D.C. |
http://www.d-and-d.com/dnichols/DoN.html
: --- Black Holes are where God is dividing by zero ---

Maybe it is, Ed. Certainly it never happened on the CP5700 which
frequently used multiple folders on the card.

I think I'll just not format the card for a while and see what it does
next time it wants another folder. I might even switch back to just
JPG so that more photos will fit on the card.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

"Ed Ruf (REPLY to E-MAIL IN SIG!)" wrote in
message ...
: On Fri, 2 Jun 2006 19:01:58 +1000, in rec.photo.digital.slr-systems
"Joan"
: wrote:
:
: Nothing there explains the cause. Photos 5243 to 5308 were in
folder
: 100 along with a few from the day before.
: From folder 100
: 5243 was taken at 4:30PM
: ... more at short intervals and then
: 5251 was taken at 4:41PM
: 5252 was taken at 4:41PM
: ... more at short intervals and then the last one
: 5308 was taken at 5:00PM
:
: In folder 101
: 5251 taken at 5:03PM
: 5252 taken at 5:03PM
:
: The card didn't come out of the camera in that time and no photos
were
: deleted. I have them all on the PC. It was sunset and I took lots
of
: shots, a sequence of 11 of them are on Flickr, but the exif is
: removed.
:
: After that, as I said, I formatted the card and took another photo
and
: it's 5253. So it looks like the numbers up to 5308 will be
re-used.
:
: I haven ever experienced anything like this with my
CP990/CP5700/D70/D200
: all using the same numbering system. Time to call Nikon Tech
support, imo.
: --
: Ed Ruf )

Joan wrote:
Up until now I haven't had enough files on a card to cause the camera
to create a second folder. Today I didn't clear the card after
downloading a bunch of shots and went out to take a few shots of
tonight's sunset.

Looking at the card I have a second folder - no surprise there.

But while copying the photos from the second folder I get asked if I
want to overwrite a file.

Looking at the first folder, I had 230 files ending with file number
5308. In a second folder there were 4 files for 2 photos numbered
5251 and 5252. These numbers were of course in the first folder as
well.

I popped the card back in the camera and formatted it to see what
would be the next number and it's 5253.

The only thing that I did during the shoot was change the battery, but
it was long after the original 5251 and 5252 were taken.


Simple fix
Set the camera to consecutive file numbering instead of having it start
from scratch each time you format the card. This also helps you ID how
many clicks the shutter has done so you can replace the camera before
reaching the shutter life expectancy... 60,000 for most consumer DSLRs.
The rate some people around here take pictures that'll equate to end of
life in about 3000 AD. Except for Anika1980 - AKA Bret Douglas. He
reaches that count every second lunch time.!

How do you think the file numbers got to over 5000? I've had the
camera since October 2005 and I shoot mostly raw+jpg.

--
Joan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joan-in-manly

"Dmac" wrote in message
...
:
: Simple fix
: Set the camera to consecutive file numbering instead of having it
start
: from scratch each time you format the card. This also helps you ID
how
: many clicks the shutter has done so you can replace the camera
before
: reaching the shutter life expectancy... 60,000 for most consumer
DSLRs.
: The rate some people around here take pictures that'll equate to end
of
: life in about 3000 AD. Except for Anika1980 - AKA Bret Douglas. He
: reaches that count every second lunch time.!