Displaying photos without segregating by album

[BensonBear]

We have about 30,000 photos from ten cameras (four still active, some
occasionally used, some retired).   They are stored using one directory per
camera, with the exact file names and structure employed by each camera.  
However, we would like to organize and select by tags and date independent
of the camera, in other words, so that the photos from the different cameras
appear, not in separate albums, but mixed in together when sorted by time,
for example (as they often are about the same subject in time).

What is the best way to do this in digikam?  The only was I can see to do it
as a potential new user is to actually put all of the photos in the same
directory (and not even in subdirectories).  Otherwise the folder structure
appears to be mirrored in the album and  cannot be gotten rid of.

I don't really like the idea of putting 30,000 photos (and then more later
on) into one directory.   Also, in at least some cases the names will
overlap since they come from two identical phones.  
 
I was thinking of writing a python script to make new names for all the
files and store the old names in exif, with these names being links in a
new, single, directory (or maybe just renaming the files and moving to one
directory).  Something like YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS-CAMERA-VERSION (where
version will define photos that are derived from the original). 

Is there some better way to do it?




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