Getting a Casio camera to change it's auto-naming style.

Hi;

I've got two Casio Exilim EX-S600's. One for me, one for my wife. Nice
little brutes. But they both produce photos that are called "CIMGXXXX"
where XXXX is a four figure number. This leads to some confusion when
we both download to the same computer. Ideally, I'd get one to call
it's pictures "CIMGXXXX" and the other, "CIMFXXXX", for example. But I
can't see any way of changing the initial string; there's nothing in
the manual, or the IAQ's (Infrequently asked questions) on Casio's
site.
Has anyone managed it in another way? Or know how it can be done?
Thanks;
Tim

<pike_by_nature@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:076dacd5-1581-4746-b683-87510a4f2cc8@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> Hi;
>
> I've got two Casio Exilim EX-S600's. One for me, one for my wife. Nice
> little brutes. But they both produce photos that are called "CIMGXXXX"
> where XXXX is a four figure number. This leads to some confusion when
> we both download to the same computer. Ideally, I'd get one to call
> it's pictures "CIMGXXXX" and the other, "CIMFXXXX", for example. But I
> can't see any way of changing the initial string; there's nothing in
> the manual, or the IAQ's (Infrequently asked questions) on Casio's
> site.
> Has anyone managed it in another way? Or know how it can be done?
> Thanks;
> Tim

You may be out of luck. As far as I know, without hacking the internal
programming in the camera there is no way to change the naming protocols
beyond the basics available in the menu system (such as reset numbers with a
new memory or continue numbers across memory cards). Most cameras use the
naming of files folders and image numbers to denote which manufacturer. So
your CIMG is a Canon IMaGe.

There is a solution. Make a new sub folder for each download. So if you have
a folder for all your photos, the first person that downloads their images
makes a sub folder named 001. You could even denote whos camera by puting
001M for the male's camera. Then the next person would make a new sub folder
in the photos folder named 002. This way it won't make a difference if there
are duplications of image number either between cameras or even if a single
camera starts over in its numbering.

BTW, if you are using large memory cards you may find that the camera not
only starts over on numbers much more often that you think but makes several
folders to put them in. My Pentax will make a folder called 100 and put the
first 500 images in it, then makes a folder 101 for the next 500 and so on.
So when I am using my larger memory cards and taking loads of photos I may
have 3 seperate "IMG001" files on it. I just copy these sub folders with
their associated image numbers into the individual download folders. So I
would have a tree that looks like this.

PHOTOS
001
100
img001
img002
etc.
101
img001
img002
etc.
002
100
img001
img002

Since each download is in a seperate folder it makes no difference (at that
time) if there are duplications of file names (or even sub-sub folder
names). When you get home to do the editing and sorting of your images you
can use one of the easily available renaming programs out there to make each
image number individual. Some of them can use the path to combine the info
in a single name. So after rename (at home where you have more time) you may
have an image named "001M-100-CIMG001.jpg". Which would be the first image
taken and downloaded from the males camera.

Randy

In article <fl9s1r$lpe$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu>,
"Randy Berbaum" <rberbaum@prairienet.org> wrote:

> <pike_by_nature@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:076dacd5-1581-4746-b683-87510a4f2cc8@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> > Hi;
> >
> > I've got two Casio Exilim EX-S600's. One for me, one for my wife. Nice
> > little brutes. But they both produce photos that are called "CIMGXXXX"
> > where XXXX is a four figure number. This leads to some confusion when
> > we both download to the same computer. Ideally, I'd get one to call
> > it's pictures "CIMGXXXX" and the other, "CIMFXXXX", for example. But I
> > can't see any way of changing the initial string; there's nothing in
> > the manual, or the IAQ's (Infrequently asked questions) on Casio's
> > site.
> > Has anyone managed it in another way? Or know how it can be done?
> > Thanks;
> > Tim

I missed the beginning of this thread so someone may have suggested
this. Check out Downloader Pro $29.95 from
http://www.breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm. It's a pretty advanced
downloading software which can do all sorts of renaming actions. I
suspect that it must have some way to assign a different prefix to the
name of images from different cameras. Good luck.

TH O wrote:
> In article <fl9s1r$lpe$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu>,
> "Randy Berbaum" <rberbaum@prairienet.org> wrote:
>
>> <pike_by_nature@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:076dacd5-1581-4746-b683-87510a4f2cc8@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
>>> Hi;
>>>
>>> I've got two Casio Exilim EX-S600's. One for me, one for my wife. Nice
>>> little brutes. But they both produce photos that are called "CIMGXXXX"
>>> where XXXX is a four figure number. This leads to some confusion when
>>> we both download to the same computer. Ideally, I'd get one to call
>>> it's pictures "CIMGXXXX" and the other, "CIMFXXXX", for example. But I
>>> can't see any way of changing the initial string; there's nothing in
>>> the manual, or the IAQ's (Infrequently asked questions) on Casio's
>>> site.
>>> Has anyone managed it in another way? Or know how it can be done?
>>> Thanks;
>>> Tim
>
> I missed the beginning of this thread so someone may have suggested
> this. Check out Downloader Pro $29.95 from
> http://www.breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm. It's a pretty advanced
> downloading software which can do all sorts of renaming actions. I
> suspect that it must have some way to assign a different prefix to the
> name of images from different cameras. Good luck.

$30! Just take 2000 shots with the lens cap on

Thanks all - I suspected I was slightly shafted. The prospect of
suggesting to my wife that she downloads photos to a particular folder
is pretty scary - it won't happen, and she'll click on "Yes" when
asked if she wants to overwrite a file of the same name. At present,
I've got round it in exactly that way - but it becomes unwieldy after
a while, when I want to make an album of our holiday in Italy, for
example.

I'll take a look at Downloader Pro, but I can't see how it will rename
according to a camera identity, when neither camera had any way of
setting said identity up.....


Tim

In article
<313d3bcd-3a67-48dd-8bfa-78c06c97cece@f3g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
"pike_by_nature@hotmail.com" <pike_by_nature@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks all - I suspected I was slightly shafted. The prospect of
> suggesting to my wife that she downloads photos to a particular folder
> is pretty scary - it won't happen, and she'll click on "Yes" when
> asked if she wants to overwrite a file of the same name. At present,
> I've got round it in exactly that way - but it becomes unwieldy after
> a while, when I want to make an album of our holiday in Italy, for
> example.

Be careful ... you're going to lose photos.

> I'll take a look at Downloader Pro, but I can't see how it will rename
> according to a camera identity, when neither camera had any way of
> setting said identity up.....
>

Here's a line from their web page:

"Download images from different cameras to different folders using
tokens to specify camera model"

At the least I would read the manual to see if it'll do what you want. I
vaguely recall hearing a pro writing that he used it so he could keep
the images separate from the 2 SLRs he carried - one mounted with a
wide-angle and the other with a telephoto.

Thanks all; I eventually got a response from Casio, who simply say it
can't be done. Downloader Pro does what it can do depending upon the
spec of the camera in question - the Exilim S600 doesn't allow you to
distinguish between the cameras, so DP can't either.

May be able to do something via the SD card though. I'll let you know.

Tim

Well, Downloader Pro can't do it, either. The only cameras it takes
serial numbers off are Digitals SLR Canons, for point and shoot stuff,
there's nothing it can do. I'll simply have to do it manually, which
is not ideal; and keep looking.

Tim