Database Develop

[Q] Camera file name numbering

The XZ camera names the pictures in the usual manner: DSC_0001.jpg, DSC_0002.jpg, etc. So far so good. But as soon as I move the photos to my computer (and delete them from my phone), the camera starts all over again. 0001, 0002, etc.
Is there any way to stop the camera from starting the numbering all over and instead continue from where it left off? My phone is rooted, so I do have access to my system files.
I know it should be somehow possible, because all my previous Android phones do so. I've owned Samsungs and Motorolas. This is my first Sony.

Hi!
You can follow the following tips:
1) Keep the last shot (with the greatest number) in the phone, don't erase it. The next files will be numbered incrementally starting by the number of the left shot +1. At least Xperia Z is doing it this way.
2) Install an alternative camera software, for example lgCamera or CameraZOOM. They have better choices of file naming, for example you can use timestamps, which never repeat .
With regards, Pavel

Don MC said:
... Is there any way to stop the camera from starting the numbering all over and instead continue from where it left off? ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same problem here with Z3C. Very annoying and time waster. Interested in a good solution!
Have tried keeping the last file but even Sony's own pre-installed app that moves photos to SD card removes *all* files and effectively stuffs this up completely. How stupid idea can this be Sony?

Guys, this app solved my problem in regards to the filename being reset: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ro.ciubex.dscautorename

It's as easy as this:
Just put a jpg file into the DCIM/100ANDRO folder (where your photos are stored) and name it with the number before the one you wish to start on. For example, if you want your photos to begin at DSC_0501.JPG, name the file DSC_0500.JPG and the camera will begin counting from there. I tested this on a Sony Xperia Z5 Compact.

[Q] SONY: Wrong method of naming Photos in xperia.

For the past 15 years I used Nokia mobiles, I was very happy the way Nokia named newly shot photos (e.g. 21062010128, i.e. 21 June, 2010 0128, the current date and then an increment number). This gave me a lot of flexibility in sorting, organising and finding photos (I know that the exif data of a photo does contain the photo shot time).
But sony, gives the numbers like 'DSC_0295'. Just the useless word DSC and an increment number. This gives me a lot of problems while finding and storing the photos. E.g. when I move some photos from my phone to a photo storing folder on my hdd, then the phone again starts naming photos like dsc0001, 002 etc. And when 2nd time I try to move these photos to my storing place, then I've to rename all the new photos so as to avoid to overwrite the earlier ones. What say fella!
VERY POOR SONY. Pls give us the proper naming method having date time included in photos title. It won't hurt you and help us a lot.

i agree with you but you can use another camera app from play store

That's because they use the same naming scheme as their Digital cameras, I think its because of the camera software, as DSC is Digital Still Camera? That prefix is common among most Digital cameras, even DSLRs from Nikon use the same naming scheme and even HTC Phones.. You can use image importing software to fix that otherwise yeah, the manual method works. You could folder them by date.

I haven't tried them but you could check this app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=it.smartphoneapps.jcrename
or this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cyb.satheesh.filerenamer .
They both claim that you can batch rename files. Hope it helps.

Use dropbox camera upload.. it changes filename to date from EXIF and you can keep using stock camera.

gerickjohn said:
That's because they use the same naming scheme as their Digital cameras, I think its because of the camera software, as DSC is Digital Still Camera? That prefix is common among most Digital cameras, even DSLRs from Nikon use the same naming scheme and even HTC Phones.. You can use image importing software to fix that otherwise yeah, the manual method works. You could folder them by date.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
'The Free Photos & File Renamer' seems to be an alternative.
But my post was not a question. It was a remark regarding the deficiency of this file naming system of different manufacturers EXCEPT NOKIA!
Using 3rd party apps is never as efficient as the built in function. I don't know what is problem in implementing this thing in all sony devices. It is very very beneficial to many users.
And I know the full form of DSC. But what I don't know why they would write to the beginning of every photo shot. And particularly when there are problems in this (as enumerated in my starting post).
So, pls be kind enough to understand the spirit of my post before replying. Thanks all!

It appears you have a problem with the naming scheme because it makes it difficult to sort by date.
So in the default album app, pictures are already sorted by date.
In windows explorer you can easily set it to thumbnail then arrange by date as well....

I too think the current naming system is crap. As I file photos in folders and sometimes make a camera dump many times a day, there will be overlaps.
I'd rather see they'd be named something like this:
XXX_yyyyMMdd_hhmmss_nn.jpg
"XXX_" would be a prefix you yourself could choose. I would have it read "XZ_" because i take pictures with many different cameras and I'd like to tell the cameras apart. If no prefix is entered in the camera settings, it will be left out. (Default may be "DSC" if Sony so wishes, but please give us the choice.)
"_nn" would be a serial number (_01, _02...) IF there are multiple pictures on that same second. Otherwise the serial would be left out.

Don MC said:
I too think the current naming system is crap. As I file photos in folders and sometimes make a camera dump many times a day, there will be overlaps.
I'd rather see they'd be named something like this:
XXX_yyyyMMdd_hhmmss_nn.jpg
"XXX_" would be a prefix you yourself could choose. I would have it read "XZ_" because i take pictures with many different cameras and I'd like to tell the cameras apart. If no prefix is entered in the camera settings, it will be left out. (Default may be "DSC" if Sony so wishes, but please give us the choice.)
"_nn" would be a serial number (_01, _02...) IF there are multiple pictures on that same second. Otherwise the serial would be left out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed, it couldn't get any more stupid than this ****ed up naming scheme. Sony should really do something about it.

To be honest, I like the way it is. It is consistent, clean (not a buch of digits). Is specially helpful when filtering the good and bad photos on the computer, to them move or delete them... The Nokia method would make me really confused and bothered.

Felimenta97 said:
To be honest, I like the way it is. It is consistent, clean (not a buch of digits). Is specially helpful when filtering the good and bad photos on the computer, to them move or delete them... The Nokia method would make me really confused and bothered.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be great if we could choose how it names the pictures, wouldn't it?

I posted about this some time ago. Mainly because when I transfer photos to other place and delete them from phone, the camera starts counting from 0001 again. It's really bothersome if you upload photos to cloud directly from the phone.
Sent from my eXposed C6603

bloodsuckingcomputer said:
Agreed, it couldn't get any more stupid than this ****ed up naming scheme. Sony should really do something about it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the DSC_xxxxx is for Digital Camera Shutter counts. it usually used in professional photographer to judge the life of lens and shutter etc. and sometime they make many shot in studio and it may less than a second 3-4 shot. so the dsc_xxxx may help them to tell their stuff which is the final desicion to be use as their project. compare to date they more prefer shutter count.

I would be ok with this naming scheme, because I had some Sony Cameras (DSC-P73, DSC-W120 and now DSC-HX5), but the biggest problem is either not storing the next photo number like the cameras do, relying just in the last number found instead (if you leave a DSC_1594.JPG in /sdcard/DCIM/100ANDRO, the next photo will named as DSC_1595.JPG), and not allowing you to change this number (except by doing the way I explained, which is very inconvenient).

why not looking in the exif tag?

DoubleYouPee said:
Use dropbox camera upload.. it changes filename to date from EXIF and you can keep using stock camera.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
excellent suggestion!
I spent a few frustrated hours with my new Xperia ZR trying to figure out how to archive different project related pics in folders without messing everything and dropbox not only does that automatically so I have reasonably named photos now, but I don't even need to bother xfering the files over, using the cable to connect etc. As soon as I'm at home or at work on wifi it moves them over
many thanks!
cheers
V.

virtuvas said:
excellent suggestion!
I spent a few frustrated hours with my new Xperia ZR trying to figure out how to archive different project related pics in folders without messing everything and dropbox not only does that automatically so I have reasonably named photos now, but I don't even need to bother xfering the files over, using the cable to connect etc. As soon as I'm at home or at work on wifi it moves them over
many thanks!
cheers
V.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes
And then you write a .bat script to automatically move the photos based on EXIF information to your \pictures\ folder on HDD .
Never bother with organizing pictures again.

you are right
zopfan said:
For the past 15 years I used Nokia mobiles, I was very happy the way Nokia named newly shot photos (e.g. 21062010128, i.e. 21 June, 2010 0128, the current date and then an increment number). This gave me a lot of flexibility in sorting, organising and finding photos (I know that the exif data of a photo does contain the photo shot time).
But sony, gives the numbers like 'DSC_0295'. Just the useless word DSC and an increment number. This gives me a lot of problems while finding and storing the photos. E.g. when I move some photos from my phone to a photo storing folder on my hdd, then the phone again starts naming photos like dsc0001, 002 etc. And when 2nd time I try to move these photos to my storing place, then I've to rename all the new photos so as to avoid to overwrite the earlier ones. What say fella!
VERY POOR SONY. Pls give us the proper naming method having date time included in photos title. It won't hurt you and help us a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ZOPFAN
You are right
I m having the same problem when organizing pictures... At least it should be squential from the beginnig of the phone life, like canon does. I think the nokia method is the best because it organises time oriented.
Like this ,its a mess... i dont want to lose time renaming fotos, and i need to put them in existent folders by subject...
PLZ if you find a solution, upgrade software or any app that can rename them by daTe will be great..
Thanx~
SONY XPERIA e4 DUAL, 2015

Nice necro-thread bumping...
And if we talk about topic its most... useless whining I heard. Every app and every system have sorting methods by date of creation/modify/name so dsc prefix is not a problem at all.
Also if you work with images for most of time, maybe you should use apps that deal with such prefix, even free IrfanView dont have problem with that.
Not to mention sorting by exif data, if you take image management serious you would know that there is such thing and this topic would be unnecessary, because there is looots of apps for that.

[Q] Camera pictures sharp then soft

I've posted http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/z3-compact-camera-z1-compact-t2899172 but having spent a couple of days I wanted to see if other are having the same issue.
Basically.. when I take a photo in any mode, the initial capture looks great, but then 0.5-1 second later Sony 'processes' the image and it looks worse 9 times out of 10. Example is if you take a picture of your hand, the initial capture shows all the skins imperfections and looks really good on the screen, a second later, it looks softer... I am not using 'face soften' or anything like that either.
Why is this the case? Can you disable the processing? I can't believe this got through Quality Control, surely people in the product testing group would have noticed this? Seems a weird flaw in the software...

rcbmulder said:
I've posted http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/z3-compact-camera-z1-compact-t2899172 but having spent a couple of days I wanted to see if other are having the same issue.
Basically.. when I take a photo in any mode, the initial capture looks great, but then 0.5-1 second later Sony 'processes' the image and it looks worse 9 times out of 10. Example is if you take a picture of your hand, the initial capture shows all the skins imperfections and looks really good on the screen, a second later, it looks softer... I am not using 'face soften' or anything like that either.
Why is this the case? Can you disable the processing? I can't believe this got through Quality Control, surely people in the product testing group would have noticed this? Seems a weird flaw in the software...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I totally get what you mean. It's as though when the shutter is half pressed, everything is in focus. Then when you snap, all goes blur.
I was attributing this maybe to my shaky hands, but apparently I'm not the only one having this problem.
More often I experience what you said in Manual mode. My photos are better in SA mode.

Sony Soft skin effect ruins all pictures of people
You are 100% correct. Sony has put a soft skin effect (some asian girls love it) on all pictures of faces. It automatically ruins your picture and makes it look fake.
I'm a professional photographer, but the new Xperia phones are so "smart" that they are useless on portrait pictures. Sony MUST fix this.
You can not take a normal picture of any face with the Xperia Z3 or Z3 Compact. Nobody should buy this phone before Sony fixes the issue with "Soft skin".
rcbmulder said:
I've posted http://forum.xda-developers.com/z3-compact/help/z3-compact-camera-z1-compact-t2899172 but having spent a couple of days I wanted to see if other are having the same issue.
Basically.. when I take a photo in any mode, the initial capture looks great, but then 0.5-1 second later Sony 'processes' the image and it looks worse 9 times out of 10. Example is if you take a picture of your hand, the initial capture shows all the skins imperfections and looks really good on the screen, a second later, it looks softer... I am not using 'face soften' or anything like that either.
Why is this the case? Can you disable the processing? I can't believe this got through Quality Control, surely people in the product testing group would have noticed this? Seems a weird flaw in the software...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I've experienced the same thing as the OP on occasion. Sony has always had rubbish jpeg processing that destroys details, even in its high-end cameras. I really wish it would offer the option of switching noise reduction and other processing algorithms off. The Z3c camera is capable of very good quality, but the software makes taking any photo a hit-or-miss experience (janky white balance, incorrect shutter speed/ISO for scene, over processing of jpegs, etc.).
I renamed the iAuto mode to uAuto (aka Unintelligent Auto)

Does this processing still happen if you use the Google Camera app instead? My understanding is that these processing algorithms are sony-app specific and if you unlock the BL and lose your DRM keys (thanks a lot sony), you no longer get sony's denoisification/etc processing, at which point the sony camera app will behave just like any other camera app that doesn't have access to sony's processing.
This is a terrible "workaround" as sony doesn't give us a way to set google camera is default - and we can't disable these features in the sony camera app.

I've got the same problem even if I use the google's camera instead of the default one. I don't understand why we're allowed to turn off this soft skin effect even if we "turn off" with the button on option. I really hope Sony is going to fix this because it's so annoying.

Lets wait for the new android L as it will come with raw image support, so hopefully this will be a fix .
http://www.androidauthority.com/nexus-5-lollipop-camera-api-samples-540858/

And have hdr mode on 20meg pics with a toggle option. In fact the whole hdr function needs work. Its currently pathetic.

I also hate this softening. I was wondering if it would be deactivated by loosing drmkeys.

2mal16 said:
Lets wait for the new android L as it will come with raw image support, so hopefully this will be a fix .
http://www.androidauthority.com/nexus-5-lollipop-camera-api-samples-540858/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be preferable if Sony had software that took decent auto-mode photos in the first place. RAW support would be nice, but half the time I don't want to be editing photos, I just want to take a quick photo and post it online. Preferably an photo that's sharp, with decent white balance, some detail left at high-ISO, and no pink spot in the middle -- four major things that are not guaranteed with the camera now. Not to mention the fact that the file size for a RAW 20MP image (often over 30MB) will lead to storage space filling up fast.

pipspeak said:
It would be preferable if Sony had software that took decent auto-mode photos in the first place. RAW support would be nice, but half the time I don't want to be editing photos, I just want to take a quick photo and post it online. Preferably an photo that's sharp, with decent white balance, some detail left at high-ISO, and no pink spot in the middle -- four major things that are not guaranteed with the camera now. Not to mention the fact that the file size for a RAW 20MP image (often over 30MB) will lead to storage space filling up fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Storage should not be that much of a problem as you always can expand with the SD card if you need to.
Nevertheless i agree with you, but since this softening effect can also be observed on Sony cameras i doubt that your wish will come true.
What RAW Image support will hopefully bring is better camera apps which process and compress exactly in the way you want without further modification on a computer (as we are basically already running around with a small computer). This of course will still take some time and effort but is very likely to happen.
So i guess we still have to live with this a couple of months .

[Q] No/wrong EXIF "date taken" in Android - Windows reads just fine

Hi
I recently came home from a long trip, carrying home 3000+ pictures from several cameras. Unfortunately I have experienced that my phone Z3 Compact misreads the time the picture was taken (EXIF - "Date taken").
The error is on all pictures captured with my mobile and my pocket camera. There are no problems reading the times stamp with the pictures taken with another camera. Windows 7 reads all pictures, from all cameras, correct. (See attached pictures.) The error is present on both my Z3 Compact and my Z3 Tablet Compact, and on both Kitkat - Android 4.4.4 and Lollipop - Android 5.0.2.
How to I remove/bypass the error, such I can get my phone and tablet to read the time stamp and sort the pictures in correct order??
Any comments, solutions etc. are welcomed!

I'm having the same issue! Exif date of photos from other smartphones are not read correctly. Instead the timestamp of the file is taken as date.
Update:
Tested on Z3, Z3C and Z3TC. Also with 4.4.4 and new 5.0.2!

No one knows a solution or have an idea to a workaround?

reply
Hi,
in your last screenshot I don't see Date. You might have scroll it down. Could you please take sreenshot with Date. Please also share Album version which you can find in Settings->Apps->All->Album.
If it's not a problem please attach one of your pics. In your screenshots I also see that year is "0002" but month is November. Is month ok or are both incorrect?

Btw, you can also try this:
1. Go to Settings -> Apps -> All -> Media Storage
2. Click "Clear Data" button
3. Restart the phone

PuentoMarro said:
Hi,
in your last screenshot I don't see Date. You might have scroll it down. Could you please take sreenshot with Date. Please also share Album version which you can find in Settings->Apps->All->Album.
If it's not a problem please attach one of your pics. In your screenshots I also see that year is "0002" but month is November. Is month ok or are both incorrect?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for helping. The date is not present for the pictures that are misread with respect to time, that's why it's not on the screenshot.
I'm using Album 7.1.A.0.22. The correct month is February. I think November year 2 is just the earliest time the app can use, and that's why this time is picked when it cannot read the time/date.
I had a long conversation with Sony support. We found out that the problem is a bug in the Album app because QuickPic can read the time just fine. Sony have now recorded the bug, and I hope it with be fixed in a resent update - but my hopes are not high.
I tried to clear the data in medie storage, but it did not fix the problem. I can upload a picture, I just need to resize it first. How do I easily resize it on Android while keeping the Date taken?

QuickPic can read exif directly from file while Album app reads it from database, but if you say that after clearing Media Storage it's still reproducible then it's most probably Album.
Anyway resizing image shouldn't change Date Taken exif, so you can resize on Windows (I think there is no resize option in Album). Or maybe don't resize and upload it to sendspace or somewhere.
Please also write how you have moved those pictures? Was it using Sony PC Companion or in some other way? And what happens if you take picture with Camera app? Will it also appear under "November 0002" ?

PuentoMarro said:
QuickPic can read exif directly from file while Album app reads it from database, but if you say that after clearing Media Storage it's still reproducible then it's most probably Album.
Anyway resizing image shouldn't change Date Taken exif, so you can resize on Windows (I think there is no resize option in Album). Or maybe don't resize and upload it to sendspace or somewhere.
Please also write how you have moved those pictures? Was it using Sony PC Companion or in some other way? And what happens if you take picture with Camera app? Will it also appear under "November 0002" ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have shared a picture here: http://1drv.ms/1bTtBp7
What database is Album using, and why don't it read exif directly??
I have not used Sony PC Companion.
I have uploaded half of the pictures that have problems to Onedrive via Windows as backup. I have then downloaded the pictures to Windows and copied them to a SD-card. I have also tried to download directly from the Onedrive app. -No change.
The second half of the pictures are from an old Z3 Compact (died in water). These pictures where stored directly on the SD-card. They have been moved to a Windows computer and backed up on SD-cards.
New pictures (from the new phone) seems to have no problem. However the old photos did not have problems on the old Z3c.

Hi again,
unfortunately the problem is with your camera, not with Sony phone. You can use online exif checker like:
www[dot]regex[dot]info/exif[dot]cgi
(sorry for stupid link but xda doesn't allow me to paste links ...)
and find "GPS Date Stamp". In case of your image it's set to "0000:00:00" while according to documentation (www[dot]exiv2[dot]org/Exif2-2[dot]PDF) it should be set to "none" if it's not used. Since your camera sets it to "0000:00:00" (which btw is valid time stamp) your Z3 tries to use it and that's why you get weird date. It works the same on Nexus 5 (Android 5.1) in Google Photos app.
The reason why you see correct time on Windows is that Windows probably prefers different time info (modification date or something).

[Q] Need help deleting photos.

Does anyone know how to delete photos off of the Nexus 6. Everytime I try to delete a photo from the device a warning comes up and tells me it will be deleted from Google Drive as well. I just want it off the phone to save space.

I do want things synced so for local deletes I use Quick Pic https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alensw.PicFolder
The other thing I like about that program is all the photos snapshots videos in any directory are immediately available, regardless of whether it was synced or not. Also has better sorting options for looking at previews. I would probably delete photos app entirely if quick pics would sync to Google Drive.
I would definitely like more options or if somebody has a better solution I would like to hear it. It seems silly having to run two "gallery" programs.
Sent from my Google N6 on VZ

Is there a way to do it without having to add an app. Not being able to delete from the device seems quite ridiculous. If not possible through the photo app on Lollipop this seems like a MAJOR flaw that needs to be fixed.

Esantry78 said:
Is there a way to do it without having to add an app. Not being able to delete from the device seems quite ridiculous. If not possible through the photo app on Lollipop this seems like a MAJOR flaw that needs to be fixed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I might have a solution for you: open your stock camera app. Instead of taking a photo, just swipe toward the left. That'll give yourself access to photos without going into the Google Photos app. You can delete photos from there. It's not as efficient as it could be, but you won't lose your photos in the Google Photos app. Good luck.