Doing the test of the UHS-II card the other day I accidentally (or thoughtlessly) erased a card that was half full of new images from new shooting. Pictures I really wanted. And can't take again.
Augh.
In my early days with digital I inadvertently deleted one file that I really wanted. Fortunately I have a print of it, and still have the print. So the image isn't lost. (My son's first day of second grade.)
But I'm pretty sure that's the first time I ever deleted a card before downloading it. Is that kind of mistake just inevitable, or what?
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Dick Drake: "I think you should be able to recover those images from the card with software."
Mike replies: I'm going to try that.
Carl: "Commercial shooting got me in the habit of having exact procedures, almost rituals, to failsafe equipment and film. For memory cards my rule is never to format a card until I've checked to see that the downloaded files have been backed up. Just downloaded isn't good enough. Also, this kind of mistake is most likely to happen when we're doing something different from our usual routines—something just like the write-speed test you were running."
Gordon: "My camera, a Nikon D750, comes with two card slots, and I have configured the second slot to capture duplicates of images stored on the first. When it comes time to delete images from the cards the camera requires me to delete from each slot separately, an added measure of protection. I have so far managed not to accidentally delete anything with previous cameras, but I am always concerned that a card may go bad so having the dupes gives me at least a little piece of mind. I try to take the same care, for similar reasons, with images transferred to disk...although I'd like to find a good and inexpensive cloud solution to that problem."
Henning: "Yes, it's inevitable. I've done it once, and that was a strong lesson that made me pay more attention. It's of course akin to all the ways that film could get ruined or the shots not recorded prior to getting put safely into a negative sleeve after development.
"Years ago, on the last day I saw my grandfather go out on his bike and shop at the local outdoor market, and talk to all the people I knew, I took a roll of film to document this, as I was going to go home the next day and likely not see him for a couple of years. After we left the market I realized that the film had not caught on the take up spool. I think that was the last time I made that mistake."
Stephen Gilbert: "Maybe everyone has to do it once, and you're good from now on."
Robert: "As has been mentioned, the way to prevent this is workflow. I use Downloader Pro for the download and for the deleting: the programme does not let you delete a file that has not been downloaded. The other essential part of the workflow is that I do not delete in camera. About formatting: formatting in camera only replaces the folder structure, something to remember if you ever want to get rid of a card."
Hi Mike,
As long as you have not overwritten on the card you formatted, you can recover them through some software. This is what I have used: http://www.stellarphotorecoverysoftware.com/memory-cardrecovery/?gclid=CjwKEAiA8_KlBRD9z_jl_fKBhQkSJABDKqiXSDtCYuSoIeyTj-f55Q77pqWzrWd6XM3q9Ia_BNNBRRoCmsjw_wcB
Worked and I got everything back. Good luck and as they say s&%# happens.
Posted by: Jim Gamblin | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 08:43 AM
Photorescue has never failed to recover images from a recently formatted card for me. I was recovering cards for others at work until it got to the point where they just had to have it. You can download it and try it on your card, if it works pay for it and recover the card.
Posted by: Steve | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 08:44 AM
With film cameras, I've opened the back on 35mm rolls not rewound, had 35mm and medium format film fail to advance, shot with flash without the shutter synched and, with large format, I've loaded film holders backwards. Several times on several occasions on all counts. It is inevitable that you will make mistakes and the more you engage in any activity the more mistakes you will make. To err is human and all that.
I follow Carl's procedure with digital files. Don't reformat the card until the images are downloaded and backed up--in my case I use three portable hard drives for backup. Too much redundancy is not enough. Prior to adopting this procedure, being human and all, I have deleted images and complete folders from the computer before backing them up. Stuff I wanted to keep. Good stuff...at least good stuff in my memory.
Hope you can recover the photos, Mike.
Posted by: Dogman | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 08:45 AM
The impact can be reduced by using multiple smaller cards rather than a single big one (photographer's equivalent of "don't put all your eggs in the same basket").
Another thing is that recovery is easier when you always remove all pictures at once, since that avoids fragmentation.
When you start shooting with an empty card, the pictures are laid out on the card one after the other, each in a single contiguous block.
If you remove some pictures and then take some more, the new pictures get fragmented, with parts put in the holes left by the pictures that were removed; that makes can make recovery impossible.
When they are always removed all at once, there's no fragmentation since each image is again stored as a single contiguous block on the card.
I once recovered pictures by searching the raw data on the card for the .jpg headers; when the pictures are all stored in single blocks one after the other, the .jpg header of a next picture indicates the end of the previous one. I got most of my pictures back this way, but it wouldn't have worked on a fragmented card.
The various recovery tools don't have to go this far when recovering from an accidentally reformatted card, but if the card itself got corrupted in the wrong place, this can be the last straw you have left...
Posted by: Gert-Jan | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 09:36 AM
Most comments ever on a TOP post?
Posted by: Dave | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 10:19 AM
This brings back my memory of a film mishap that occurred many years ago.
My wife and I had traveled to Florida and while we were there we went to an "alligator farm." We walked around for a while looking at the reptiles but were soon attracted to an enclosure of "babies" - alligators only about 4-5 feet long. While we were standing there watching, one of the guides reached in, picked up a small gator with rubber bands around his jaws and handed it to my wife with a laugh. She was terrified of course but she had enough wits about her to turn slowly to me and say under her breath, "take my picture." I obliged, of course, and ran off 5-6 quick shots.
When we got home I sent the vacation rolls to Kodak to be developed but the slides were returned with a note and a free roll of film: one of my rolls had been misplaced and couldn't be located. Guess which roll it was? I tried everything - even called the lab - but the film couldn't be found. We never did see those alligator pictures.
Posted by: Frankpix | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 11:13 AM
Yes it is inevitable. It's Murphy's Law: If you can delete unsaved Photos, in the long run you will...
Even a worklflow that is designed to eliminate those mistakes may reduce the risk but never keep you from deleting unsaved files (If you can mess up with your workflow...). There are two kinds of photographers: Those that have erased and those that will erase unsaved files.
Posted by: HaJe | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 11:39 AM
With RAW files being so large, I usually give people copies of "their" pictures on USB sticks or on small memory cards. In most instances these sticks/cards are returned to me and I reuse them to give somebody else other pictures. I take it that in many instances the second user could read the first user's files if he is familiar with recovery programs. Obviously this is not my intention, and its has (probably) not happened.
Is there a way to prevent unauthorised access to "deleted" files on sticks and cards? Like "safe delete" on Apple computers.
This was never a problem when using CD-ROMs as a vehicle, but you feel like a disc jockey when transferring 100 or 200 36 MB RAW files to CD-ROMs. Safe but slow.
Posted by: Christer Almqvist | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 12:35 PM
"Gordon...cloud solution"...
May be this:
chrome://mega/content/secure.html#
Posted by: pedro-rafael | Monday, 19 January 2015 at 07:33 PM