1 Shoot, 2 Cameras, Duplicate file names "problem"

[Raymond Lin]

So I just did a wedding and in the process of putting the files fromt he memory cards into my computer and then into Lightroom subsequently...

Before that I have hit a snag. I used Two 5Dii for the wedding and my first 5Dii had hit 10,000 shots already so it went back to being 0000 again in the image count. The new 5Dii started at 0000 anyway and that's where the problem is, I can't put them into the same folder for storage, normally I just call it "Bride & Groom Name RAW" and then out put the processed images into another folder and I never touch that RAW folder.

I have for the moment got around this by putting them in to 2 separate RAW Folders (Raw 1 & Raw 2), but how do I create 1 single collection/folder in Lightroom? As I planned to sort them by time shot in Lightroom so the entire wedding goes in a sequence. (I synced the time in the camera so they should be fine sorting by time.)

Help anyone?

p.s. manually renaming files is out of the question, I shot over 80G of photos!

 

[Raymond Lin]

I think there is a shareware utility which can rename files in bulk, just add a suffix to the end of all files - this way when sorting them you should get them all in time sequence. I have had this issue once before (a long time ago), and done this, althoguh cannot recall the name of the application. Actually, thinking about it more, if you copy/paste the whole of the second set of photos Windows will actually tell you that you have duplicates, you can choose the option which 'keeps both files'. Windows will add a suffix onto the end for you.

Hope I am making sense.

I use Mac, the options are Replace, Replace All or Stop.

I chose Stop. lol

 

[Raymond Lin]

When you import the photos into Lightroom (And therefore into the folders) can you not specify the naming convention? Ie, set the name to say Cam1xxxx.cr2 & Cam2xxxx.cr2?

Edit, Or even if they end up in 2 physically different folders, you could still create a collection with all the photos from both folders can't you?

I am trying to avoide renaming the original files if possible, there is no need if i can see them as 1 single collection in LR. But i have never done this before, as I have only ever shot with 1 camera at a time.

Can you do this?

 

[Raymond Lin]

What version of lightroom? I've only used v3 on the PC. A simple way to view these in LR would be to create a top level folder, place the RAW 1 and RAW 2 folder into it. Selecting the top level folder in LR will display all child folder contents as well (after syncing the folder).

You could also just add them to a new collection? I'm guessing you're not using LR3?!

I'm not a MAC user but a quick Google shows quite a few ways of batch renaming files if you need to go the rename route.

I am usnig LR3 on the Mac, will give it a go tonight. I was still downloading them til 2am last night ! It takes roughly 1 minute to download 1 gig.

If you copy the files to the same folder, there should be an option to 'keep both files' where it just adds (1) to the end of any duplicates

That option is not there for OSX

 

[Raymond Lin]

I would tread carefully as I ended up loosing really nice shots due to switching from a 20D to a 30D.. however back then my import / save system wasn't as polished as it is today.

I thought it was possible to tell the camera how to write file names?

You can but i didn't think of that :/

It will be the first thing i do when i get home tonight as I have another wedding this weekend !

 

[Raymond Lin]

ok, as someone suggested, it seems lightroom can import a "root directory" thus putting both Raw 1 & Raw 2 in the same collection without any trouble and doesn't rename the files.

I will just rename them with unique names (sequence) upon export.

Problem solved

Now, where is the prefix name changes in the Canon menu ??? i can't find it ? !