Photography Thailand Forum

[Jeff Campion]

At the moment I am using a Canon EOS 400 D with a Tamron AF 18-200MM F/3.5-6.3 LD aspherical Dii, my problem is that twice now while in the middle of shooting, I get a message on the camera's LCD that the memory card has a problem and needs to be replaced. I am then unable to take any more photographs and can not view what I have already shot( tells me card is empty). I have removed the card many times and got the same message. I have also tried to view the photos from the memory card on my PC via a card reader but still get told the the card is empty. Twice this has happened under normal shooting conditions and twice I have lost many great photos...both the memory card ( Kingston 1 GB) and the Camera are only one month old....any ideas?

[Marc Schultz]

The card is most likely defective. But before you go and replace the card, make sure each time you reuse the card you reformat it in the camera rather than just deleting the old images to empty the card. This can be a source of many types of card and shooting problems and I had shooting related problems before because of this too.

I am moving this message to the Camera Talk section because the topic is related to cameras.

[Jeff Campion]

Thanks Marc....any advice on a better quality memory card?....and thanks for the move...

[David Salmanowitz]

Jeff--I use Sandisk cards with Canon cameras and have had no problems. I also have some older Lexar cards and have no problem with those as well, though I do recall with some cards and Canon cameras there was a problem for awhile. I know a friend encountered this and Lexar replaced the cards as it was a glitch or quality control issue.

[kombizz]

Always it would be advisable to format the card before use.

[Gus]

Hi Jeff

I have heard of other people having the same problems with Kingston cards in the past.  I know of at least 2 people who have had the same problems

I now almost exclusively use Scandisk except for a few older cards, and haven't had a problem.

Marc might be able to verify this but one of the students on the lighting workshop also had a similar problem and I think they were using a Kingston card as well.

[bkkdave]

I have had the Err message more than once and I have turned the camera power off, removed the card, and removed the battery. This always worked.
Usually in my case it has happened during a long shoot with a lot of exposures using the flash.

[Marc Schultz]

There was a girl in the workshop who is using Nikon and lost everything on a Kingston card during the workshop. Luckily she had just done a backup to my assistant's laptop.

I also have another friend who has the Nikon D80 and he has had repeated problems, first with a Kingston card that went bad and now a Transcend card. Not sure if it is just his misfortune with cards or if his camera is a card killer. Lets hope its not the later.

[David Salmanowitz]

I had a friend who just had a Transcend card go bad in Indonesia. He thinks all the cards are only made by 2 or 3 manufacturers anyway, so no need to pay the higher price for Sandisk, Lexar, ...He tried about 3 or 4 rescue programs with no luck, then I showed him Photorescue--it worked where all the others failed. I had read reviews that said the same thing, and I can personally vouch for it now. At US $29 it is well worth it, and available for download online.

[gregoire]

Been using cheapo Transcend/Kingston cards since forever and never had a problem.

[Marc Schultz]

David, that is good news on Photorescue being a reliable photo recovery program. Your friend is right about their being only 2-3 or manufacturers of Flash Memory cards though. Samsung being one of the biggest at the moment and most other manufactures being Korea based as well I believe.

I just ordered a 16GB CF Card made by Sandisk because no one else is really making them in that size yet except for a few really off brands. It will be the first Sandisk I own, but normally I am not brand sensitive on these things either. I have been using Transcend and Kingston almost exclusively and, as Gregoire mentioned, I have also never had a problem with them.

Sandisk bundles a file recovery program with their cards called Rescue Pro. Not sure if it is any better than Photorescue, but we might at least interpret Sandisk's support of this product a validation:

http://www.lc-tech.com/software/rescueprodetail.html

[David Salmanowitz]

Marc--the Sandisk rescue program did not work on the Transcend card, but Photorescue did.   http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/index.htm

[Marc Schultz]

Good to know that too David. Apparently there is also a pro version of that software. I assume it is the same company as the one you mentioned: http://www.objectrescue.com/products/photorescuepro/

[David Salmanowitz]

Marc--Looked at your link and it is another company. I see it only works on Windows bases systems and is $29.95.  They are probably trying to get people to think it is the company I was referring to. The Photorescue I use (though happily it has just been for others now) is good for Windows and Mac and is a flat $29. Try this link. http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/v3/index.htm   One can download trial versions and see how well it works, but then you need to cough up the $ to actually save the images.

[Marc Schultz]

Great David, thanks for the clarification.