How can I make a Panasonic LX5 continue file numbering from an existing SD card?
Asked 3/31/2011
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I moved an SD card from a Panasonic LX3 to a new LX5. The card already contains folders 100 through 116 with existing image files. I expected the LX5 to continue numbering from the next available folder/file number, but it started again at 1000000 and began saving new photos alongside older files. Is there a way to force the LX5 to resume numbering from the card’s existing sequence, or otherwise avoid duplicate filenames?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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I'm glad it worked out for you. I'm not sure what exactly made it decide to continue from the number the third time — it's always creepy when software behaves non-deterministically.
I know you said you didn't want to rename your old files, but I find it really convenient to do so. There are a number of free (open source and otherwise) cross-platform programs which will do it for you systematically based on the EXIF metadata in the image files. I use jhead, with the options
jhead -autorot -nf%Y%m%d-%f *
Which losslessly rotates the images based on the embedded rotation flag and then prefixes them with a date-based filename.
Originally by user1943. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1943
15y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Based on the reported outcome, the LX5 may eventually detect the existing numbering on the card and continue from the next available number, but it does not appear to provide a reliable manual way to set the starting file number directly. In this case, reinserting the SD card and trying again led the camera to start at 1170000 as expected.
So the practical answer is: there may not be a user-settable option for this, and the simplest fix is to reinsert the card and let the camera re-read the existing folder/file structure.
If duplicate filenames remain a concern, a common workaround is to rename older or imported images on your computer using EXIF-based batch renaming tools. That can give every file a unique, date-based name without changing the image content.
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