Tuesday 15 January 2008

I have noticed a few hits to my site from people looking for information on resetting the file sequence number on a Nikon D300. I suspect they made the same mistake as I made when they got their new cameras. I will document it here in this article so they don't have to wade through my D300 one.

The D300 has a "Reset" setting the File Number Sequence (d6 in the Custom Menu - page 283 in the manual). This allows you to either reset the number for the next photograph to 0001 or to one plus the number of the largest number in the current folder on the CompactFlash card in the camera.

When I first used my D300, I forgot to format the card which I had previously used in the D70. This meant that the filename of my very first photograph was DSC_3641 instead of DSC_0001. I had taken two photographs already so I formatted the card and took a third. It was named DSC_3643 so the numbering was stuck. I put the card in the USB card reader attached to my PC and renamed the third image which was still on the card to DSC_0003 and put the card back in the camera. On the camera changed d6 in the Custom menu (File Number Sequence) to "Reset" and took another photograph, which was DSC_0004. The camera automatically goes back to "On" for the File Number Sequence so that was all fixed.

This technique could be used at any time to change the File Number Sequence used by the camera.