managing different file types

back in the film days, when i started carrying 2 bodies, it was relative easy to keep groups of shots together if i was trying to do a photo story. when i printed, regardless of which body-lens combo the image came from, it was easily paired with a different body-lens combo. the negatives or slides were notched or marked so they could be easily filed together.

with the difference in "stuff" between the RAW files from say a 5D3 and a 5D4, how do photographers "group together" related images, especially since the file names may be worlds apart? i.e. X0A00xxx and B1V00xxx? if you put them all in a folder on the computer its going to store them (usually by name, correct?) so all of the images from the B1 camera will file first followed by the X0, even though some of the shots will necessarily need to be mixed between the two file names. does everyone then just rename the files 0001 through whatever the last file would be?

also if running a legacy version of editing software, and some files are from a newer body with different "stuff" that cant be handled (say LR can do 5D3 RAW files but not 5D4 RAW files withough conversion to dnp) do photographers just convert the files from both cameras to dnp, or just the unsupported RAWs, or do they just upgrade their LR (or software of choice)?

I use DPP for all raw, and Photoshop CS5 for processing. This has proven to stand the test of time over the past decade, without paying for upgrades, etc.

My folders are broken down by family, events, scenery, wildlife, sports, etc then by person and or year, etc and files placed accordingly.

Thousands upon thousands now, just too many to remember!

I use Lightroom, that way I don't have to bother sorting the files into relevant folders by subject or remember which particular subject (out of the several that might apply to a particular image) I put a particular image under.

I just keyword the image and have Lightroom automatically sort them into any number of virtual collections for all the subjects that apply.

john crossley wrote in post #18920078
Sort by TIME.

Does that actually work for you with using 2 bodies? I can't get either Bridge CS6 or DPP4 to properly sort by date created when using 2 bodies. It seems to always sort by body then by time. I don't have LR so maybe it works like it should.

**works as it should once I actually synced the time. Dang bifocals! **

On the rare occasions when I shoot with two bodies I rename the files to <date>_<time>_<body-id>_<original name> ,
then sort by filename.

in Creative Cloud LightRoom, can one use the meta-data for sorting? The camera and lens are saved, with the date and time.

I have all my bodies set to UTC and sort by date/time taken. I never change the time, even when I travel.

scriveyn wrote in post #18920168
On the rare occasions when I shoot with two bodies I rename the files to <date>_<time>_<body-id>_<original name> , then sort by filename.

Similar strategy.

I have an LR import template for each camera. Directories are named YYYY-MM-DD. Files are named YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_BODY_F​ILENAME.ext

For events where I'm shooting with 2 bodies or a second shooter this is the output:

D 2019-06-15
F 20190615_135427_5D4_IM​G_2184.cr2
F 20190615_135457_5D3_IM​G_3812.cr2

I prefer to organize files chronologically. We synchronize the clocks on the cameras before the event and use keywords & collections to keep track of events by name/other criteria.

Unsupported cameras are a pain in LR. I purchased C1 for my XT3 which isn't supported in LR 6.14. Still learning C1 so currently importing & culling Fuji files using Fastone Image Viewer, importing raf files into C1, process/export, then import jpgs into LR to maintain a centralized catalog.

john crossley wrote in post #18920540
That's seems to be a rather convoluted way of working. All you have to do is import into Lightroom by date - which LR does by default - and then sort by capture time. Once you have done that you can then add a few judicious keywords.

Yeah that is what's happening in my case. File renaming prevents naming collisions and makes it easier to differentiate files in the filesystem since I keep all files for a given day in the same directory. LR import is date/capture time like you said.

john crossley wrote in post #18920540
... . All you have to do is import into Lightroom by date - ...

... on the assumption that we use LR, which I don't.

john crossley wrote in post #18920549
But each camera has a unique filename prefix. The only way you can get any filename collisions is if you shoot more than 9999 images on the same camera in one day.

If you have the cameras set up that way, which I didn't in the past. The collisions occurred when I copy/export images taken over a number of years. This goes back to point & shoot days where the kids had the same HP cameras. They named the files img_whatever.jpg. I've got 4 or 5 files from 2008-2012 ish that all have the same file name in different directories. Didn't really consider that a problem at the time. Our phones name files the same way.

I do have my Canon DSLRs set up to all name files IMG_NNNN.ext, which is kinda dumb but it doesn't matter since LR renames the files anyway. The cameras don't share cards so I don't need to worry about files mingling. But maybe I'll add a unique prefix in camera since we're discussing it.

It's one click to select an import template in LR once they're set up. It's nice to have the date/time in the filename for archival purposes in Windows. I don't plan on using LR forever so having as much information in the individual file names makes sense (to me) for the long term.

D Thompson wrote in post #18920156
Does that actually work for you with using 2 bodies? I can't get either Bridge CS6 or DPP4 to properly sort by date created when using 2 bodies. It seems to always sort by body then by time. I don't have LR so maybe it works like it should. It's not a big deal now for me as I rarely use 2 bodies, but it would've been nice when I was doing weddings.

Do you have your clocks synchronized?
I use sort by time often, and love it. The app I use to do this is ACDSee,. after doing this I can do a batch rename of the files if I want to,. and thus make the time stamp sorting work for everything.

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #18920786
Do you have your clocks synchronized?

Well, I thought I did, even double/triple checking. Evidently it's time to get the bifocals changed!