Shooting order in multi camera mode Smartshooter 5

#1

I am shooting in Multiple camera mode. One camera is “left”, on camera is “right”. Capturing at the same time. I need the Left to be first in image order so that all images are in the correct order.

The way it was setup it was putting the images in the order I wanted, but then it was swapping them randomly. I thought maybe the trigger controls might influence this, so set Left to 1 and Right to 2, but it is still randomly swapping them.

Can you please help, is there a setting to ensure these getting captured in correct order?
Thanks

#2

What is the main thing you are trying to achieve here? Is it that you precisely need the left camera to be triggered before the right camera? Or is it that you only care that the photos are being naming in a consistent sequence?

If it is about the naming of the photos, then it is better you use the “Filename Expression” option to control this. This allows you to control exactly what the filename of the photos will be, regardless of order in which the cameras were triggered.

For Smart Shooter 5 the documentation for this is here:
https://smartshooter5.com/name_policy.html

And for CaptureGRID, the docs are here:
https://capturegrid.com/name_policy.html

In short, please look at the tokens:

  • [C] for camera name
  • [B] for batch number

You can set the name for each camera in the app UI by right-clicking the camera in the Cameras table. The batch number is a per-camera sequence number that increments each time that specific camera takes a photo.

So for example, if the left camera is naming “LEFT” and the right camera is named “RIGHT”, and you use a Filename Expression of:

 camera_[C]_photo_[B]

Then when you trigger both cameras, you will get photos with the names:

camera_LEFT_photo_1.jpg
camera_RIGHT_photo_1.jpg

and when you trigger them again:

camera_LEFT_photo_2.jpg
camera_RIGHT_photo_2.jpg
#3

Thanks for your response Francis.

It’s both really, as the left needs to always be before the right. But this filename expression will definitely help. I tried the camera naming yesterday but I used sequence for the numbering, so it was the same issue, as it put it in the sequence order, which wasn’t consistent. I was able to at least recognise left/right to reorder them which helped.
Your suggestion should definitely achieve what I want.

I’ll test this out now.

Thanks for your help.

#4

Thanks for your help Francis,

I just tested this and adapted so it does what I needed. Using batch was the key!

FYI, I used [N]-[B5][C] as the filename expression, which put the image number first before the camera name. (I use Session name also in file naming)
So image order:
Sessionname-00001L; Sessionname-00001R; Sessionname-00002L; Sessionname-00002R; etc
So this way it put the left before the right, as it ordered by number then letter. Then I can rename to sequential numbering later, without the lettering, for our naming standard.
Works perfectly.

Thanks again :slight_smile: