Using the os.path functions ensures that your code will continue to work correctly on different operating systems, even if the path separators are different.
In Python 3.4 or newer (or as a separate backport install), you can also use the pathlib library, which offers a more object-oriented approach to path handling. pathlib.Path() objects have a .stem attribute, which is the final component without the extension suffix:
try:
import pathlib
except ImportError:
# older Python version, import the backport instead
import pathlib2 as pathlib
basename = pathlib.Path(f.name).stem