Never delete images 'in camera'
- Thread starter Kiboko
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That's funny. Only need one card each year. Easy to buy for at Christmas!
briansquibb said:He could buy a 128Gb card and shoot in jpeg. When it fill he could just replace it with another 128gb card and keep the first as a backup copy
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Everyone has their own way of doing things. I can edit/sort/rank/delete files way faster back in the studio on a 30 inch monitor than making those assessments while out on a shoot. On a shoot I'm more interested in locking into the project rather than doing "on the fly" edits.
Memory cards have been so inexpensive for years now; I just take more than I figure I'll ever need, a couple of 32 Gb and a few older 16Gb cards.
My workflow moved to this "no deletes" approach a few years ago when I did a couple of accidental deletes, regretted mistakes made while under pressure. Also, occasionally a blurry out-take may make the perfect background for one of your hero shots.
An important part of your post production workflow is to become a ruthless editor. With practice it's not hard to pull a 1000 file shoot down to the sweet top 20, depending of course on your project and client requirements, but you get my point.
Deleting in camera is totally valid and important if you are shooting news or sports for a wire service and use the opportunity for editing-down during lulls or shorts breaks. This can mean vitally quicker image delivery of your most relevant images.
Paul Wright
Memory cards have been so inexpensive for years now; I just take more than I figure I'll ever need, a couple of 32 Gb and a few older 16Gb cards.
My workflow moved to this "no deletes" approach a few years ago when I did a couple of accidental deletes, regretted mistakes made while under pressure. Also, occasionally a blurry out-take may make the perfect background for one of your hero shots.
An important part of your post production workflow is to become a ruthless editor. With practice it's not hard to pull a 1000 file shoot down to the sweet top 20, depending of course on your project and client requirements, but you get my point.
Deleting in camera is totally valid and important if you are shooting news or sports for a wire service and use the opportunity for editing-down during lulls or shorts breaks. This can mean vitally quicker image delivery of your most relevant images.
Paul Wright
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unfocused said:
To be honest, I think all the popular card types use FAT32 as their filesystem now (I know there's been some push toward ext2 for microSD, but that's not really relevant to the question). I would recommend formatting in-camera only because certain cameras with certain firmware might only be designed to read/write one filesystem or another. I suspect on modern cameras that isn't much of an issue, but the point is that there is no way to format in camera and end up with a filesystem that the camera can't read, whereas it would be possible, formatting on the computer.
There's no actual way to "damage" the card by formatting it (other than normal wear from write cycles), but it's just guaranteed to work if you do it in the camera versus on the computer.
Finally, there's no need to reformat your card every time you dump images off it. Compared to just erasing all images, reformatting rebuilds the filesystem, which is unnecessary since a filesystem never "expires". The only times I'd bother reformatting is the first time you use a card, if you switch that card to primarily be used in another device, and of course if the camera is having trouble reading/writing the card. Otherwise you're just spending extra time and putting extra wear on the card for no real benefit.
Edit: As regards "the camera's specs", all major filesystems are standard, so the camera can't somehow "do something different" as regards the filesystem. The only reason that would ever happen is if the camera's manufacturer wanted to make it proprietary to force you to buy their cards (which would no longer actually be CF, SD, etc., even if they were the same shape), which none of the big manufacturers do.
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Positron said:
Actually, it's exFAT I believe, which is an Microsoft filesystem, designed for removable flash memory based drives for higher capacities and larger file sizes (e.g. >4GB video files). ext2 is a Linux filesystem, which is actually quite old. ext3 and now ext4 exist, which basically just extend ext2 and, generally, provide a degree of backwards compatibility with ext2.
Also, it's not the cards that use FAT32, it's the camera's that use FAT32. If the camera's start supporting exFAT, then I could use that instead (provided my computer can read exFAT, which all >=Win Vista can, not sure about OS X) and be fine.
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I agree with this approach. While in the ideal world it wouldn't make any difference there are a lot of optional fields in FAT32 and some latitude to where things are stored on the card within the spec. One day Microsoft or Apple might decide to move something around in a perfectly valid way within the spec that Canon doesn't handle properly 100% of the time. I also think a format is better than a delete, once again this shouldn't happen but for example:unfocused said:
There's a part in FAT32 that hints where the next free cluster is likely to be, if you've been deleting as you go that may very well be right at the end of the card. The firmware should wrap back and start looking at the beginning. But does it work, has it ever been tested, maybe the code errantly wraps back to sector 0 and wipes out the volume information, who knows? Those are the sort of bugs that happen so rarely they can go undetected a long time.
I always think there's a lot to be said for starting from a known point each time which puts everything on the best tested code path. Having said that it's all unlikely to cause problems and no doubt some would do it for years without ever having a problem.
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N
NotABunny
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This problem may occur not only when images are deleted, but when images are written as well (there is no difference, you know).
I've heard that once the camera writes the image numbered 25673, the memory corruption gets so bad that from that moment on all the photographed people are recorded naked!!!
Also note that this is 2012, so at some point the memory corruption might get so bad that the world will really end (for that memory card, I mean). The best advice that I've heard is to not shoot with a memory card in the camera.
I've heard that once the camera writes the image numbered 25673, the memory corruption gets so bad that from that moment on all the photographed people are recorded naked!!!
Also note that this is 2012, so at some point the memory corruption might get so bad that the world will really end (for that memory card, I mean). The best advice that I've heard is to not shoot with a memory card in the camera.
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unfocused said:
There can be a difference between the two methods, via computer being more "thorough" format.
As crazy as this sounds, I had a problem with my old Olympus gear that got solved only when I formatted the card with a card reader. Hold the pitchforks on why I used Olympus.
I started out with the E-520 and had two 8Gb CF-cards to go with it. When I upgraded to the E-3, I did what probably most of us would do. I popped one of the cards in, formatted it in-camera and tested that it functioned right. The problem didn't show itself every time and it made me think that the body itself was faulty. It would work just as normal for a few shots and then it would freeze, mirror locked up and shut itself down. Battery had to be taken out to clear the camera and in a while it would do it again.
There was some talk on Oly forums about similar issues and the CF-card was thought to be one possibility for these problems. I formatted both my cards in the card reader (quick format didn't help either) and never had that problem again. And that's two years of carefree operation after that.
So yes, I think there's a difference between formatting in-camera or with a computer. To be on the safe side I usually format my cards in the computer from time to time and when I put them back in the camera I format them again in-camera. I also did this when I moved to Canon (since I still use the cards) and had 0 problems with this transition.
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I'm no expert, but as far as I know ...
Memory cards are optimized for sequential writing. After a format, the camera can write sequentially from start to end. When files are deleted, 'bubbles' of free space are created. When the camera records to those areas, it may be forced to write non-sequentially once the bubble is filled, taking a performance hit.
In SD cards, this is part of what makes the difference between the X rating and the class rating.
I've deleted files on Canon cameras (powershot A460, EOS 450D, EOS 600D, and an EOS 5D mark 2) for at least three years, and I've never CPU problems or card corruptions. The only time I had photos corrupted was due to a card reader which had intermittent problem - copying the file a 2nd time got an image with correct contents, proving the image on the card was not corrupted.
Memory cards are optimized for sequential writing. After a format, the camera can write sequentially from start to end. When files are deleted, 'bubbles' of free space are created. When the camera records to those areas, it may be forced to write non-sequentially once the bubble is filled, taking a performance hit.
In SD cards, this is part of what makes the difference between the X rating and the class rating.
I've deleted files on Canon cameras (powershot A460, EOS 450D, EOS 600D, and an EOS 5D mark 2) for at least three years, and I've never CPU problems or card corruptions. The only time I had photos corrupted was due to a card reader which had intermittent problem - copying the file a 2nd time got an image with correct contents, proving the image on the card was not corrupted.
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japhoto said:
exactly... I've heard people who say when you get drives for the first time, such as a backup hard drive, flash card, etc... that you should first format it in computer in case it has some manufacturer software/backup/whatever... but after that, in camera formatting on occasion (after transferring all the pictures you want onto your computer) should be fine. In camera formatting is nice because it sets up the card the way the camera wants it, but then again, formatting in computer, once plugged back into the camera and you start taking pics, the camera automatically sets up the card anyways... Also consider the in camera formatting, on average, takes a matter of seconds... maybe 20-30 seconds if you have one of the bigger/slower cards on the market... whereas the computer can take hours, so it could say how thorough and destructive it is to old files. I'm admittedly not as computer geeky to be able to explain why, but it is what it is.
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I was told never to do it just in case you mistakenly do something stupid like delete wrong image or really crazy like format your card...
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I delete a ton of images "in camera" especially when I am starting a shoot and dialing my my light set-up. If you know the image is junk, why keep it.
I think you are far more likely to "miss a moment" by having a full card than you are deleting an image you wanted.
I think you are far more likely to "miss a moment" by having a full card than you are deleting an image you wanted.
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