New EOS R7 numbering makes no sense

[TimmyLee]

I just started shooting with my new R7 today and cannot figure out where the image numbers are coming from... they did not start with 0001 as I thought they would..  they started somewhere around 1M4A7950 and it makes no sense to me at all.  I do not like this numbering system...  I need it to start at 0001 and it would be ideal and I don't understand why we cannot code them ourselves to the event, like SCCA0001  I'm still looking for help and understanding.

[rs-eos]

Where did you purchase from? Yes, it should have started at 0001 if brand new.

I think Canon is now using, by default a random prefix. For my EOS R5 II, the very first image had a name of "326A0001".  I haven't bothered changing the prefix yet.

For your R7, see the seconds on File Numbering (page 791) and File Naming (page 796) in the User Manual.

[TomRamsey]

I use Adobe LR Classic and have set it up to rename the files upon import to the date, camera, and shot number for the day, therefore a typical image number is : 20250414-Canon EOS R6m2-032.  This works well for me, much better than the camera generated names.  Therefore the name of the file gives me some basic information, having the camera name is nice when you have different cameras.  I would imaginbe that many editor programs can do this.  

[p4pictures]

Your EOS R7 has a factory assigned 4-character code that is used as the first four characters in the filename, yours appears to be 1M4A. 

In the camera setup menus you can choose to use this factory set code, or another 4-character code of your choosing. Here's some screens from my EOS R6 Mark II that has the same capability. I chose to use R62_ as the initial four characters of the filename. You'll see there is a third option really designed for use with JPGs, where you can choose the first 3-characters, then the camera will put L, M or S depending on the JPG size the picture was captured at.

I used the menu option Change user setting 1 to allow me to input R62_ as below. 

Here is the relevant section of the EOS R7 manual

https://cam.start.canon/en/C005/manual/html/UG-08_Set-up_0060.html 

[TimmyLee]

Purchased new from Canon... I tried changing the prefix to the event initials and it doesn't work.  Still came up with something I'm not familiar with.  I did finally get it to rename them to IMG_ but after reformatting the SD card and resetting it in the camera settings it still started at 3400 something....

[p4pictures]

The file numbering works like this.

The camera remembers the number of the next file to be written.

if the cameras number is less than the highest numbered image on the memory card, the camera updates it’s number to be one more than the card image. So if camera has number 1234 and card has image 3456 the next image will be 3457 and the camera continues from there. 

You can reset the camera count automatically or manually from the menu. This section of the manual explains it. 

https://cam.start.canon/en/C005/manual/html/UG-08_Set-up_0050.html

[jrhoffman75]

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@TimmyLee wrote:

I just started shooting with my new R7 today and cannot figure out where the image numbers are coming from... they did not start with 0001 as I thought they would..  they started somewhere around 1M4A7950 and it makes no sense to me at all.  I do not like this numbering system...  I need it to start at 0001 and it would be ideal and I don't understand why we cannot code them ourselves to the event, like SCCA0001  I'm still looking for help and understanding.

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Did you put a card in the camera that had previous images on it?

[TimmyLee]

Yes, but I reformatted it first.  Still didn't start at 0001. I'll keep working on it when I get time.

[p4pictures]

If you have two cards in the camera, format both - after you make sure to copy all the images off.

Then go to the Setup menu, and select File numbering, then choose Manual reset. This reset the camera counter to 0000 and the next image captured will be 0001.

[TimmyLee]

I have decided to live with starting in the 3400 range since nothing I've tried works for resetting it to 0001.  Followed all suggestions, thanks.  As I understood, starting with a new SD card or a newly formatted one should start to 0.  I tried the settings on the camera to 0001 also.  Very odd.