or three or more.....and if / when you upgrade...are you going to start at file 1 folder 1 all over again????...and then years later....consolidating files ...you will overwrite whole folders if the files in them have identical names.....so why worry about letting that happen at all?
why not....rename w/ unique names everytime you download the files to your computer????
I have at least 6 digital cameras in the household...and have unique names for all the images....by who and when taken....(but not by camera).....
first lets start with an assumption that...most of the time...you will not be taking more than 1000 shots per day.....
if you want to keep within the OLD DOS 8+3 nomenclature, to maximize compatability w/ different OSs......
what I use is:
one letter for the year ( I know after 26 years it will repeat)
one letter for the month A=Jan/B=Feb etc..
two letters for the day of the month 1st=01, 31st=31
underscore, or Person's first name letter ....here at my house......R=Richard/N=Nancy/J=Julia
three numbers for sequence of photos taken that day....
iL28_986
would be the 986th photo I took on Dec 28, 2006...and since I synchonize all the cameras date/times I can just download them all ....rename them all w/ temp names to avoid any chane of overwriting when I put them all in one folder....then....combine them all in a single folder....sort by date taken....and then rename the whole mess using the nomenclature above. This sorts the files by the order in which they were taken...and renames them all with unique names that I will not repeat ever again.
If Julia took the photos on her camera.....
iL28J986 would make her file number unique from mine...still identifies the date....and the person .....and would not overwrite files taken by me on the same day....
iL28N986 for Nancy....and if I need more on the same day....that I took....
iL28R986 ....or all the rest of the letters in the alphabet would take me up to about 24000 photos in that day for me alone.... I really don't see the wife or daughter ever exceeding 1000 pics in a day.....
If you don't worry about the 8+3 nomenclature....heck use the date itself followed by however big a number you want.... I sometimes write the file number on the backs of prints...and want to keep from getting writers cramp....so want to minimize the file name length for more reasons than just the 8+3 nomenclature recognized by DOS.
As a side note....when and if I run out of year letters?... I will go to the next 12 letters of the alphabet for the months....and start back over with A for the year again...and that way I should be able to extend the file system out another 26 years......after which I figure I probably won't still be shooting......
I rename all files FIRST thing after copying them all over on the laptop. Then copy/resave/write/convert from raw etc., so all copies will thereafter have the same file name for the same photos....and NONE will be repeated.
Next about searching for particular photos....If you keep old calendars....note what you did that day....then a search of all the photos coded for that day...years later will find you the pics you want. Second....name the folders, and possibly subfolders, with key words that will help you remember what the photos are ....rather than adding that info to each file name....and making it HUGE.....
Sure...you can add all this info to the exif of each file...and newer software is progresively making this a more viable option...but it still can't hurt to have even more intuitive seach tools at your hands when trying to find photos from among literally 100,000s of images....and with digital we are all getting those huge numbers....(heck I had over 500,000 images before digital came along...you want to talk filing problems!)
--
Richard Katris aka Chanan
