A digital camera question I have never been asked before

One of the first classes I taught when I started Noobie was a digital camera class. Back then it was called Point, Shoot, Now What? Now I refer to it just as Digital Camera Basics.

What I love about teaching the class is that every time I teach it, I am sure to get at least one question from someone in the audience that I have never been asked before.

Do pictures get jumbled?

This last time around I was asked if your digital pictures will all get jumbled together if you delete certain pictures in between vacations. In other words, let’s say you travel to Hawaii and take 100 pictures. When you get back you delete 15 you don’t like but leave the other 85 on the digital camera’s memory card.

A few months later you travel to Disney World and take another 100 pictures. The question is, will the first 15 Disney World pictures fill the empty “slots” in your memory card from the Hawaii pictures you deleted resulting in your Hawaii and Disney World pictures being jumbled together?

The answer is absolutely not. Your digital camera will show all 85 remaining Hawaii pictures followed by all 100 Disney World pictures. If you are into keeping track of the file numbers and names your digital camera generates you will notice the gaps in file numbers (ie, IMG00079.jpg followed by IMG00081.jpg because IMG00080.jpg was deleted) but that’s about it.

Quickly find the beginning of your trip

Now, if you want a quick way to visually jump to the start of each trip, take out a couple pieces of white paper and write with a black marker “Hawaii trip” on one and “Disney World trip” on the other. Then before you leave for your Hawaii trip take a picture of the Hawaii trip paper. And before you leave for your Disney World trip take a picture of the Disney World trip paper. Then just looks for these pictures when trying to locate the start of each respective trip.

Of course, you have to remember to do this before you leave. And no one is ever stressed out trying to remember 1000 things before leaving on vacation, right?