Advice needed
 

I just had 2 8 gig Compact Flash Memory Cards that I used to shoot an Engagument session display a warning on my computer saying "files corrupted". Should I throw the cards out and buy new ones?

The cards are only about 2 months old and are a brand name. This is the first time I have ever run into this situation. I gave the cards to my "mentor" fresh out of my camera when the session was done and he returned them to me this morning after he copied the files.

Thanks,
Jim

How bad were the errors, and how many pics did you lose ??


Decision depends on what any lost pics would cost you.

If you decide to keep the cards, reformat them in your camera (not in your computer).

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I've seen minor corruption happen when camera batteries went down while the camera was saving a pic. So problems could be the camera, or user actions, in addition to actual card failures. I don't know which are more likely.

:shots:

Thanks for replying.

I don't have the cards in front of me but I believe there are about 75 out of 280 on the one card and 25 out of 175 on the second that aren't showing up on my computer. All were shot in RAW, so they are HUGE files.

I KNOW that there wasn't any "power" problems when I pulled the cards as I ALWAYS power down the camera (Canon 5dII) EVERYTIME before I open the door to pull the card and I make certain that the camera has had plenty of time to save the pictures before powering it down also. I got into that habit years ago.

I am just starting out as a "second shooter" for a professional photographer and am in the process of learning Wedding Photography thru him so MOST of my pictures will never see the light of day but I DON'T want to work as hard as I did Sunday and have NOTHING to show for it. I have been using Canon DSLRs for 8 years now so I am experianced with handling my equipment and this is the FIRST time I have encountered this type of a problem in the tens of thousands of pictures I have taken.

Thanks for taking the time to try to help, it's appreciated!!!

Jim

P.S. I ALWAYS format my cards in the camera after I download the shots to my hard drive. Another habit I got into years ago.

It sounds like you've got your procedures under control, so that likely narrows down problem to the cards vs the camera.

Think I'd buy replacement cards from a different place (for an experiment), and see what happens. If problem happens again, you can blame the camera. But if that eliminates the problem, you can blame the two suspect cards.



Problem could be a bad lot of cards (or some counterfeit cards that sneaked into the supply chain), and buying from a different place reduces chance of getting more of the same. Or, could be something going bad in the camera.

Or, could even be something related to the computer. With the cold dry weather in many places recently, could somebody have static-zapped the cards while handling them ?? (Hopefully your mentor has his procedures under control too, but it's worth asking the question.)

:cert: