Hot Code Functionality?

[MRB]

Greetings,

A few questions regarding hot codes.  I'm new at PM and haven't used it much yet, mostly reading and some minor experimentation.

I'll be going on a trip and I would like to I'd like to caption pictures with as little manual input a possible   I'd like create a file of destination names and dates from the itinerary - and use the image creation date to automatically enter in the lookup location into a caption.

Each day may have four destinations.   

- Is it possible to use hot code lookups on two or more fields at the same time values together, such as date and time?
Is there a way to pick a value based on the date, and creation time between a time range?
So pictures taken on day 1 and between 10am and 12pm would map to certain values, and pictures taken on day 1 from 12:01 to 3:00pm would map to other values and pictures taken on day 2 and time would map to a third destination?

Is it possible to use logic on hot code fields? particularly numeric fields such as creation time? ie. greater than and less than tests? not just an exact match?

Or is the wrong approach and just hope reverse geocoding will narrow down the location and sublocation and just use code replacement like  {creationdate}#1,2,3,4  to manually enter destinations?

Also, if I apply a template to previously ingested pictures that have GPS data -- will the GPS data be overwritten?  How can I prevent GPS data from ever being accidently being overwritten - something I seemed to accidently have done?!

Thanks for any suggestions.
-Mark

[Maxime]

Hi Mark,

From my experience with hot codes you cannot use this sort of logic. It has to be YES or NO. So no time range unfortunately...I hope this will be something available in the future, would be soooooo useful!

You have the following option but it isn't perfect:
You can look at date and hour (just combine two variables like {dats}{hour}) and create a hot code for each date-hour. The issue is if you change location within the same hour...

If you want to solve this you should create a hotcode for each minute of the day ({dats}{hour}{min})  and if you change location within a minute, you need seconds...that is a looooot of hotcode lines, so it doesn't make sense to me as it get too cumbersome.

Hope that helps, let me know if any question.

All the best,
Maxime

[Max Lemesh]

There are limits of what you could do, but still it is doable.
what I did last year while shooting a conference is created a combined code out of folder name, time and minute

Code: [Select]

={foldernum}{hour24}{minute:0,1}=
and then used sheets/excel to create 6 entries per each hour to roughly specify what's going to happen in each 10 minute slot. I also used folder number to specify which of the assigned 2 rooms I am shooting at the moment

So example of code replacement file looked like, shooting at room BEIJING 2 into folder 101

Code: [Select]


// - [ ] 10:00-11:00 — IPO Examples - 6speakers

101100 IPO Examples Beijing 2
101101 IPO Examples Beijing 2
101102 IPO Examples Beijing 2
101103 IPO Examples Beijing 2
101104 IPO Examples Beijing 2
101105 IPO Examples Beijing 2


hope that sets you on the right path )

[MRB]

Thank you both! This approach should work fine!
-Mark

[PeterM]

Jeff Vogan https://www.jeffvoganphotography.com/ suggested assigning one of the function keys (Fn on Nikon cameras) to advance the camera folder number e.g. DSC_100, DSC_101 etc.

Either before (using sports photography as an example, where the list of athletes is known in advance, or if the different locations are predictable) or after, prepare the hot code replacement file as shown above.

When shooting at each change of venue, advance the folder number by pressing the assigned Fn key.

(On my Nikon, this is not so obvious, but once set, it works well. Custom Settings Bank -> f Controls -> f3 Assign Fn button -> Access top item in My Menu; then My Menu -> Add items -> Storage folder; Rank items)

e.g. DSC_100 is Kyoto; is DSC_101 Osaka etc

[Max Lemesh]

Another thing you need to be aware of is that folder updates every 10000 images, so if you are at IMG_9950 and in folder 102, in 50 images you gonna be in folder 103 and image IMG_0001 and that would happed in the background.

But only if your workflow heavily relies on folder numbers

[MRB]

Thanks!