When does a Sony camera overflow from one folder to another?

[AlphaWorld]

I've seen something happen that surprised me. I think I saw it before, but I forgot. This time I know I saw it!

I was using a Sony A9 III, and as you can imagine, shooting a lot of image

I put the memory card in the card reader and saw two folders for today's date, called 10140126 and 10240126. I've set folder naming to the weird "date" format, so those are folders 101 and 102 for date (202) 4 01 26 (in other words 2024-01-26).

"Gee", I thought, "I didn't expect to go over 10000 frames!"

And I hadn't. The first folder held only 4000 images (well, 8000 files, because I was shooting RAW-L + JPEG (something I will changing immediately after verifying that ACR can read my RAW files.

My understanding was the the event that causes the camera to go from one folder to the next was when the image number passes 9999 - when we take another photo it creates a new folder and put 0001 into that new folder. That I have seem many times before - I know that rule is true.

This folder had exactly 4000 images in stand the last one wasn't numbered 9999 (it was only just past 4000, in fact).

Has anyone else seen a new folder created after 4000 images in the current folder? Or is it due to the 8000 files? Makes me suspect that maybe DCIM only allows enough directory space in a folder for 8000 files.

 

[Unframed Dave]

Happens with the A1 too. 4000 shots and a new folder is created.

 

[AlphaWorld]

I thought I'd seen it before!

Thank you for confirming that it's normal. It seemed odd.

BTW: I have confirmed that Adobe Camera RAW does support the A9III (yay!).

 

[spudhead]

I've seen something happen that surprised me. I think I saw it before, but I forgot. This time I know I saw it!

I was using a Sony A9 III, and as you can imagine, shooting a lot of image

I put the memory card in the card reader and saw two folders for today's date, called 10140126 and 10240126. I've set folder naming to the weird "date" format, so those are folders 101 and 102 for date (202) 4 01 26 (in other words 2024-01-26).

"Gee", I thought, "I didn't expect to go over 10000 frames!"

And I hadn't. The first folder held only 4000 images (well, 8000 files, because I was shooting RAW-L + JPEG (something I will changing immediately after verifying that ACR can read my RAW files.

My understanding was the the event that causes the camera to go from one folder to the next was when the image number passes 9999 - when we take another photo it creates a new folder and put 0001 into that new folder. That I have seem many times before - I know that rule is true.

This folder had exactly 4000 images in stand the last one wasn't numbered 9999 (it was only just past 4000, in fact).

Has anyone else seen a new folder created after 4000 images in the current folder? Or is it due to the 8000 files? Makes me suspect that maybe DCIM only allows enough directory space in a folder for 8000 files.

Try setting single shot it helps

 

[AlphaWorld]

Oh, you wanna take all the fun out of it!

I lowered Hi+ to 60fps and Hi to 30fps - didn't even use 120fps except once.

I had fun tracking moving animals and birds, though

 

[iamdlewis]

I've never noticed but then again I usually transfer the files through cap1 and never look at the folders.

 

[iain clyne]

Strange my A1 just started a new folder today but the last photo in the old folder was 9999.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Strange my A1 just started a new folder today but the last photo in the old folder was 9999.

That is the expected behaviour - I thought it was the only case. It makes perfect sense. It helps you keep the later files separate from the earlier ones. I've seen this many times.

What surprised me was the folder change after 4000 images.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Oh, I had forgotten this thread.

The firmware updates for the A9 III and the A1 have "fixed" this - one of the features added was to increase the number of files per folder to 9999. And it works.

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

A9 III ... ... ... increase the number of files per folder to 9999

Seems astonishing to me to need more than 999 per folder. But hold on... A9iii... That could be just a couple of bursts!

And...

Oh, if only... We could get away from the awful standard naming convention based on the absurd restrictions of the dreadful MSDOS operating system! Even the ghastly Windows did that.

(a bit negative?)

But I do like... That I get a new folder every day. So, if I have only one event in one day, I can't forget to create it.

 

[AlphaWorld]

Seems astonishing to me to need more than 999 per folder. But hold on... A9iii... That could be just a couple of bursts!

And...

Oh, if only... We could get away from the awful standard naming convention based on the absurd restrictions of the dreadful MSDOS operating system! Even the ghastly Windows did that.

(a bit negative?)

But I do like... That I get a new folder every day. So, if I have only one event in one day, I can't forget to create it.

I completely agree that the "dated" folders are a lovely thing. It amuses me that a lot of people don't spot the last digit of the year in the folder name (I guess they decided that they needed to keep three digits for folder numbers)

The Japanese committee who came up with the whole format for stills decided to make it easy to support even on the most basic cameras, that's why it uses a basic filename layout, and limited folder management.

It's the same rationale as was used in the designing the CD-ROM file system, for similar reasons (starting with High Sierra, eventually coming out as ISO 9660 - I wrote code to read CD-ROMs pre-High Sierra, and I can tell you it's far easier to use the file system!).

They deliberately went for simple file names with quite strict rules, You aren't going to see that change any time soon.

Oh, and allowing for 9999 files per folder is a good thing - there's a stricter limit on the number of folders. If they limited to 999 files per folder, they'd need 10x as many folders (and you'd need to gather files from a lot more folders!).

And I frequently use more than 999 files in a folder (yes, using the A9 III, but even with the A1) - 3000 or 4000 is common for me. I do have to copy file from two folders; with 999 per folder I'd be routinely copying from 4 or 5 folders and dealing the missing 000 files for each (as far as I'm concerned, the first file should be 0000, not 0001 - I've spent too long writing in lower level languages)

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

They deliberately went for simple file names with quite strict rules, You aren't going to see that change any time soon.

Oh shame. Well... one day!

as far as I'm concerned, the first file should be 0000, not 0001

I'm agnostic on that. I don't mind at all. What is the street-level floor called in your country? When I was a British child I was baffled that the floor above street level was the first floor. I think USA numbered from "1" at street level, much more sensible. Now a lot of lifts seem to have "0" at street level... which should satisfy all of us!

 

[AlphaWorld]

Oh shame. Well... one day!

I'm agnostic on that. I don't mind at all. What is the street-level floor called in your country? When I was a British child I was baffled that the floor above street level was the first floor. I think USA numbered from "1" at street level, much more sensible. Now a lot of lifts seem to have "0" at street level... which should satisfy all of us!

It is a fairly recent development, but I now see (in some European countries, and even in my home country) some buildings where ground level is labelled zero, and subterranean levels are even labelled with negative numbers! Makes complete sense to me, but it does appear to be a fairly recent thing.

In my country, ground level used to be (and often still is) labelled as G. Floors above were labelled from 1. Floors below were often labelled B1, B2, etc (or sometimes P1, P2, etc in commercial buildings).