Panasonic Camera Frame numbering System : Why so complex ?

[Dave Reynell]

My first digital camera was a Nikon Coolpix 8400. The first picture (image) that it recorded was numbered DSCN 0001 - Following on this were DSCN 0002, 0003, 0004 etc. Easy to understand as we all (well, most of us) can count to ten-thousand or beyond.

My second digital camera is a Panasonic DMC-G1 which I have had (and used) for five years and three months. I am presently in Australia on holiday and have been taking a lot of photographs, today I was informed, by my camera, that the last frame of the day was numbered 113-0013 (???). Meaningless !

Can anyone explain how many frames my G1 has exposed in its lifetime (to put it in "film" language) ? Why the complexity ? Or am I missing something ?

Dave

 

[Ellsass]

First, if you want to know the true shutter count, you can google how to do that for your model. Remember that the file names can be reset back to zero so even if you decode the file naming pattern you still can’t be sure it matches the number of shots actually fired.

The numbering on my GF5 goes like this (I’ve added dashes here for clarity):

P101-0000
P101-0001
P101-0002
…
P101-9999
P102-0000
P102-0001
P102-0002
…
P102-9999
P103-0000

And so on. Not sure why, but there are essentially two numbers: the three digit P100, and the four digit ‘normal’ counter. When the normal counter maxes out at 9999, the P-number increments.

 

[Dan Ka]

The system is simple but not real helpful. The P indicates the photo was taken in sRGB mode, if you use Adobe RGB an underscore (_) will be the prefix. The first 3 numbers are the folder number, 113 in your example. The next 0 is a spacer. The last 3 digits is the photo number in that folder. When you get to 999 the folder number increases by one. So when you get to P1130999 the next photo will be P1140000. 1000 photos per folder (0-999).
Hope this helps understand the numbering system, but, it doesn't make the system any more understandable.

edit; correction bolded.

 

[Luckypenguin]

For some reason my GH1 jumped straight from P105 to P107 and skipped the P106s entirely.

 

[Dan Ka]

For some reason my GH1 jumped straight from P105 to P107 and skipped the P106s entirely.

If you yes to "No.Reset" (Setup menu) take 1 photo, enter Setup -and yes to "No.Reset" again, the folder number will increase by 1.

 

[endure]

I've just bought myself a G3 to have a play with. My other camera is a Pentax. One thing I like very much about my Pentax is that it creates a new folder for each day with the date encoded into the folder name. Is there any way to make the G3 do this please?

 

[Petrochemist]

I've just bought myself a G3 to have a play with. My other camera is a Pentax. One thing I like very much about my Pentax is that it creates a new folder for each day with the date encoded into the folder name. Is there any way to make the G3 do this please?

It is one of the many features I like with my K7, but I've not found a similar option on any of my other cameras. (Pentax seem to be the only ones including shutter counts in the full EXIF too!)

 

[Dave Reynell]

For some reason my GH1 jumped straight from P105 to P107 and skipped the P106s entirely.

I too had this happen somewhere about 105...106 ? ?

 

[Luckypenguin]

If you yes to "No.Reset" (Setup menu) take 1 photo, enter Setup -and yes to "No.Reset" again, the folder number will increase by 1.

I'm not sure how it happened. In the folder I have from one session of shooting a couple of years ago there is an image numbered P1050999 with the next being P1070005 taken only five minutes later, with the few intermediate numbered images most likely to have been deleted.

 

[palombasso]

I don't know the logic behind the numbering, but it's been very long since I've cared.

I think the best suggestion is to make sure the date-time on your cameras are set right and use some kind of software to rename the files based on EXIF when you transfer then to your computer.

Some software that does this: Lightroom, Faststone , Downloader Pro, Amok Exif Sorter, etc

I rename my pictures do YYYYMMDD_hhmmss_XX and the software organize my pictures in folders like YYYY\YYYYMM

This kind of process is simple once you decide on a workflow and saves a lot of time when copying pictures from multiple cameras (for example returning from a trip).

This way you easily have your pictures in chronological order, without duplicate names, and you can organize it further if you'd like (for example give more meaningful descriptions to the folders).

Hope it helps.