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Manually adjusting the photo count


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14 replies to this topic

#1
okcmurals

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I have contacted Nikon support and they tell me there's no way to do it, but I am hoping some of you have a clever or insightful idea that will help me.

I do imaging of documents and need to keep track of my image numbers so that I can label a masterlist. I format my SD card before each project and write down what document starts at what image number. In post, I rename the images in batch operations through adobe bridge, so that they match the image numbers.

No big deal. Pics start at image 1, and renaming the batch starting with 00001 and it all lines up.

BUT sometimes deep into a few thousand image sections of documents, I come across something I have already shot that might be 800 images long. Instead of reshooting it, it's nice to just insert my old images in the run. However, I need to be able to add those to the image counter so that the next document starts at the proper number.

I can't just throw the images on the SD card and have my Nikon B500 add them to the image count.

Right now it looks like my only option to "stitch in" a few1000 images and adjust the image count is to just take however many thousand photos of nothing just to run the pic counter up to the correct number. This cannot be good for the camera.

Today I had to drop my quality to VGA (lowest) and set it to BURST Mode and take literally 4000 pics of a window to drive up the image count so that the sequence number was in order.

Is there no way to adjust the image # manually? is there no way to add images to the camera that will bump the image count to where you need it to be?

What are my options?



#2
Adam

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On some cameras, placing a file in the current folder will cause the counter to start the the number of that file, plus one.  If this doesn't work with Nikon cameras, you could instead try messing with the camera's clock as a workaround.



#3
TBonz

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I would find some way other than actually firing the shutter for X number of images...All shutters have a "lifetime" and while some shutters may last quite a bit longer than their expected lifetime, they will eventually fail...And I expect that the B500 shutter isn't built to last like some of the higher end Nikon DSLR shutters...

 

Adam has some good ideas to try...

 

You could fairly easily write a script on the system as you are doing now for the first group of images then have a similar script for the "inserted" images that starts at the appropriate # and lastly a 3rd script that picks up the remaining images from your current shoot.  Actually it could be the same script with inputs for the number to start with in addition to the source and output destinations...



#4
okcmurals

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I don't understand what scripts--I can write scripts within the camera?

The problem I'm finding with the B500 vs my dSLR D60 is the B500 is "dumbed way down" and has a lot fewer custom control options.

To be clear, the problem is I need to artificially raise the image count OR be able to add images to the SD card that, when inserted, would cause either the file name or the image count to start from the last number added to the a SD card going forward.

So if I add 100 pics to the SD card, I would like for the camera to pick up from photo 101 upon taking the next photo.

Right now the pic counter is not affected (and for that matter, images added to the SD card outside the camera are not reviewable inside the camera at all and do not register as existing in the camera).

As best I can tell, the image file name is not adjustable--you can change the image title number after inserting the SD card in a computer, but when you put it back in the camera, it just continues where you left off and will not register the changed image title images at all (they will not show up in the review window).

I'll be honest, this seems like a pretty basic and useful function that apparently is 100% impossible. So far the only solution from Nikon is I can reset the image count and file name to 0001 but you cannot control anything moving forward.

Pretty frustrating.



#5
Merco_61

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Why struggle with the camera's file names?

If you use a good DAM solution, which you should do anyway for archival purposes, you can rename your files using a parametric filename convention and set descriptive keywords on ingestion. A good keywording scheme will save you considerable time when producing the masterlist.



#6
TBonz

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I was suggesting putting the images onto the computer and running a script there...Peter has your best solution...



#7
okcmurals

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Perhaps it hasn't been made clear that I need to "protocol" (that is, hand-label the index with the image number for each document) as I shoot, in the camera.

I have all manners of post software to change any files to any name I need, including batch renumbering by whatever sequence I want. But it's *absolutely imperative* that I look at the first image of each document I'm shooting on my camera's screen and use that number to label the master-list. Renaming the images in post and scanning through to find the new image name/number for each document would add literally days of work and would not be acceptable from an efficiency standpoint.

For example, the first page of Document 1 is photo 1, as can be seen on my camera's screen image count. I label it "1." as you go on, the first page of Document 202 might be Image number 310 depending on the length of the various documents. "Document 202 starts with image 310." Since each document has many pages, I can only rely on looking at the image number in camera for each document.

Let's say the next document I need to shoot, 203, is 1055 pages long, but I've already taken photos of it from previous sessions (there is a lot of over-lap between sessions, and it's not efficient to RESHOOT a thousand page document. It's best to just INSERT the previous photos into the NEW sequence). Except now the number on my camera won't match the whatever the NEXT document will be--I'll be off by 1055.

I can stop and do some post-editing in this case but it really doesn't matter unless I can in some way add 1055 to the camera count or image numbers in the camera, so that the next document I shoot will pick up in the correct number sequence. Otherwise I'll have to just do math and hope I didn't mess up, instead of just looking at my camera screen and writing down EXACTLY the correct number.

When you get up to 14,000 images per session, there's just too much room for error unless you can look directly at the image number and write it down. My current section will have over 8,000 pages across at least 10 documents that have already been shot and will be needed to stitch in.

I hope this makes sense



#8
Merco_61

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Why not store using a documentnumber_pagenumber  format and  just record a session ID with the camera-generated filename? To make sure that you find the start when batch renaming, just shoot a blank paper in some obnoxious colour between documents.



#9
okcmurals

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Why not store using a documentnumber_pagenumber  format and  just record a session ID with the camera-generated filename? To make sure that you find the start when batch renaming, just shoot a blank paper in some obnoxious colour between documents.

this is actually how i shoot probates, esp. when traveling between multiple counties in a single day. It would work for full-section imaging but it would add an enormous amount of time to my workload.

I'm leaning towards shooting everything previously unshot in sequence and numbering the documents in that order, then leaving the stitched in "long documents" I have already shot blank and just numbering them at the END of the session and marking the index with whatever that number is. It won't be sequential, so it will be "doc 202 is image 2000, doc 203 is image 10,881, doc 204 is image 2001," or something like that, where the inserted doc will be the highest numbers, but as long as they can reference it correctly it should work. I will just look...less professional.

I'm just going to point out now that you can do what I need with Sony and Cannon cameras. You can stop mid session, add X amount of photos to the SD card and have the camera think it should pick up where those images left off. It appears that Nikon won't let you, but other brands do. Nikon responded to my inquiries addressing that this is a useful feature but one they don't offer, but perhaps in the future...

I'm just going to have to make do as i can.



#10
TBonz

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Yea...I had thought about the paper as well Peter - seems simple and fast - "Document 108 Start"...or "Document 115 Start - insert previously captured images"...then quick renames in post!



#11
okcmurals

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Yea...I had thought about the paper as well Peter - seems simple and fast - "Document 108 Start"...or "Document 115 Start - insert previously captured images"...then quick renames in post!

I appreciate the brainstorming but you're fundamentally missing the problem I'm trying to solve. There's no "quick renames in post"--that would require me to scan through 1000s of documents, find the re-named first page of each and mark the index with the new number. This defeats the entire purpose.

I have done this, it is literally an extra day's labor, which is hard to justify in billing when I can just mark the images by the number IN CAMERA as I shoot them.

Saying "doc X starts at X" and marking that number on the index only saves time if I don't have to rename it and search out the new numbers

Resetting the camera counter to 1 at the first of each section works because if the camera count is 300, I can batch rename all images on the SD card 1-300 and know that I can mark the next document as starting at 301 because the camera counter aligns with the batch rename.

inserting a big amount of pages throws this off. This is the problem I am trying to solve.

EDIT  TO ADD: So to paint a clearer picture, here is what I'm doing--the "index" is a printed land ownership index that shows the courthouse book and page of a document. The index is a full property section, such as section 22. Each book and page, I write out the image number in red that corresponds to that document. If the doc is 100 pages, the next line will have 101 in red ink. and so on.

The index IS a written sheet of paper in ink, which is archived and used so people know which image to look at for each document.

So unless I can mark that in real time as I shoot, no time is saved. renaming in post means scanning to find the first page and image number, which again adds a day of work.



#12
ScottinPollock

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Seems like you're stuck in a rut and making this harder than it needs to be. I would just write protect the first photo of each shoot... then you'll know when each set begins and ends.

Write a script to batch rename each set and you're done.

#13
TBonz

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Oh well...I have to agree with Scott...what we are suggesting is that modifying the process would address the issue you asked about and likely make it more efficient at the same time.  If you are not interested in modifying the process, then you really aren't asking for help, but rather complaining about something you consider an issue.  You mentioned previously that Canon and Sony both allow the fix you want so it seems to me like your best choice would be to switch brands.  



#14
Malice

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If the tools you have don't let you do the work you need to do, it might be worth considering getting different tools...

 

Apart from that, what you're doing sounds to me like a pretty static indoor-sy setup. Maybe tethered shooting might be an option. On a laptop it should be easy to move sets of exposures to folders with the (e.g.) the section numbers they belong to.

 

I don't know how many sections you're dealing with, but maybe having a separate memory card for each section would be an idea to pre-sort everything as you go.



#15
okcmurals

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Hey Everyone,

I'm pleased to have figured out the solution--and it's very simple.

All you have to do is go into the exif properties for the photos you want to add to the SD card and remove the "program name" in the origin data (this is usually named for the camera the file is married to having been created on that camera).

Simply remove *any* program info, throw whatever images you want on the SD card, and the camera reads them in the photo counter exactly as I need it to.

So far I've been able to erase the "Canon" or "Sony" exif data and my Nikon will read and add in sequence all of the images I want--including downloaded scans--even letting me review them in camera as if taken by it.

I can see why Nikon didn't suggest this as they probably don't want their proprietary exif info removed, but this solves my problem 100%. No complicated solutions, no learning how to write computer scripts or reprogramming things, just a simple "select all, remove data" and that's it.