Photos overwritten by Video on GF1?

[harry66]

Had my GF1 for a few weeks but not really used it much due to lack of time.
My main card is a Sandisk 8Gb Ultra II SDHC purchased from Amazon uk.

I thought I had previously noticed some photos had gone missing from my card a short while after taking them but I just thought I had imagined it.

But today I seem to have certain proof that over 50 photos I took a short while before taking a few video recordings were overwritten / lost.

I went walkabout in Epping Forest and took around 50 JPG photos - they were definitely recorded as I stopped on several occasions and viewed the photos and showed some to my wife as well - going back quite a few shots each time - so they were definitely there. And at No time did I use the delete function on any of the photos.

Right at the end of the walk I remembered the Video function so decided to take some video footage - 4 individual clips totalling about 4.5 mins.

I got home and tried to download the photos and found no photos from today. Only the video footage and photos from a few weeks ago.

The card is still showing nearly 5GB free - so its not a case of running out of space or something!

My wife was gutted and wishes she had taken her compact Sony instead. She hates when I change gadgets and wonders why I switched from Nikon to Lumix - never lost any shots on the Nikon!

I am planning to go on holiday soon and was looking forward to using the GF1 - now I just don't know what to do.

Is it the camera or the card??

 

[harry66]

I even tried a disk recovery tool 'Recuva' on the card but it did not find any deleted files!

 

[SlideAV]

Hello Harry,

this is strange to me, I use a GH1, so I cannot compare, but I do not believe it is the question of the type of cam ... until somone knows better.
I know that some cards have problems in cold weather conditions, but I guess it was not freezing ?
Even the card you have in use should not have a problem at all with Temperatures.

Just one question for better understanding :
Have you deleted some Vids over the day, could it be that the card was full during recording in between, or were the 5Gb spare all time ?

Best regards,
Frank

 

[photoSmart42]

That's odd. On my GH1, videos are recorded in a separate folder on the card from the photos, and I've never experienced anything like what you're describing. I suppose the first thing should be to make sure you're using a card that's been formatted by your GF-1, not externally. Something else to consider is perhaps your card quality. You took 50 JPEGs and you only have 5GB left on the card, which means you're using a small capacity card. Not sure of the brand you're using, but not all cards are equal.

 

[harry66]

Thanks for the replies...this gets weirder..

I can assure I was completely sober and checked this several times - ie cycled through the photos using the camera preview button at least twice, cos I just could not believe the photos had vanished. Between each instance of checking the photos using the camera I also reinserted the card into the built in card reader on my Thinkpad laptop. I ran two different file recovery tools but neither of them reported any deleted files. I sorted the available files by date etc both in Explorer and in the recovery tool - searched the card using the Windows Search option etc - but absolutely no sign of the missing photos.

I tried to test the card to see if I could re-create the situation - I started snapping away objects round the house, and then recording 3-4min video clips and taking some more photos etc and more clips - randomly checking the photos were still present. Despite trying for 15mins or so I could not recreate the problem.

I then tried a different expresscard card reader - I know this does not make sense if the camera itself cant see the photos but I was desperate. I viewed the photos again with the expresscard reader and I was completely gobsmacked to find that around 15 of the 50 lost photos suddenly reappeared!!

By this time it was getting late in the evening so I re-inserted the card into the GF1 and now I could see the 15 photos using the Camera LCD screen too! Still no sign of the other 35 or so shots.

It was now getting late so I decided to call it a day - perhaps the other missing photos may magically appear overnight - havent checked yet!

All I can assume is the card is faulty and somehow recording the additional photos and videos restored something somehow

Just to address some of the points raised in the replies:
Its a 8GB Sandisk Ultra II card purchased from a Amazon UK and was definitely formatted via the GF1 in camera menu option.
Yes the photos and the video are in separate folders on the card. It already had some photos on there from a previous occasion and these were still present.
And the temperature was probably around 9*C so not that cold.

I have now ordered some Genuine Panasonic Silver 8GB cards - and am going try and get a refund on the Sandisk.

 

[davemillier]

I have a GF1 and use sandisk Ultra II (in my case a 4GB) and shoot a mix of stills and video. I have had no issues.

It is also unlikely to be the brand of the card that is the problem - afterall Sandisk invented compact flash so know what they are doing - and SD has been around long enough for the bugs to be ironed out. Occasionally I have read of there being incompatabilities between cameras and cards as a result of firmware errors.

8GB is also one of the larger cards and larger cards to sometimes cause issues for older devices (my father's video/CD/card recorder for his HD TV can't play SD cards larger than 2GB for example).

It would be worth fully reformatting the card and shooting some more test shots just to be sure. If the problem is the camera rather than the card, you don't want to take it on an unrepeatedable trip...

 

[harry66]

If the problem is the camera rather than the card, you don't want to take it on an unrepeatedable trip...

Thanks for the reply...

I was initially worried it might be the camera, but looking at the evidence I am not sure if that can be the case. Just does not make sense how some of the photos eventually re-appeared after some further shooting.

Anyways, the thinking behind getting Panasonic cards is that if I do have further issues then Panasonic cant pass the buck by blaming compatibility if I am using their own brand. Besides the Panasonic Silver is roughly the same price and yet claims to have a max 20MB/s transfer rate which is higher than the Sandisk cards claimed rate of 15MB/s

I will off course keep testing before I go on holiday - will be gutted if the camera is faulty!

 

[Diane B]

I use an 8GB Sandisk (as well as 2 4GB). I don't take a lot of video, but when I do it is mixed. In reviewing, it just comes up in the order of the files to be seen on the LCD. When copying to my computer, I use a card reader, copy the files (the videos are in a separate folder). I've never had any incident of not seeing the stills and video.

Since I had a series of stills and a little short video clip from the weekend still in my GF1, I checked the review. The video comes up in the file numbers first as 'play video' and then reverts to its proper file number in sequence. I do know, however, when I go to copy it will have to be found in the separate folder.

I almost always format in camera after each copy to my external drive. I just checked the SD card--Sandisk Ultra II 8GB.

Diane

 

[harry66]

Thanks for the reply. I really think I have a duff card here as I had double checked all the folders and subfolders on the card and had done a search on the whole card - no photo files for the day. Also the Data recovery tools I used listed all the existing files it found and I sorted them by date order etc and there were no new photo files for that day.

The photos I took later at home for testing appeared on the card all fine in the PANA_100 folder - along with the older existing photos.

 

[harry66]

I emailed Sandisk and they suggested I run their RescuePro Recovery demo and sure enough this founds loads of deleted files (I had previously ran Recuva and PcTools Recovery and neither had found anything). The only problem is RescuePro costs money and I wasnt going to pay Sandisk money to recover files its card had lost....

Anyway I found another Open Source tool PhotoRec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec which has a very poor UI but also managed to recover most of my missing photos!

I know there is no way I deleted these as I would have had to confirm the deletion of each file so I still believe the Sandisk card is faulty!

 

[Tim]

Harry,

good news that you got some images back. Could there be any dirt or fingerprints on the SD card contacts? This may make a bad contact and cause issues - Just a thought.

Is the GF1 your only camera?, if going away on holidays I'd take a spare if possible.

 

[harry66]

Harry,

good news that you got some images back. Could there be any dirt or fingerprints on the SD card contacts? This may make a bad contact and cause issues - Just a thought.

Is the GF1 your only camera?, if going away on holidays I'd take a spare if possible.

Thanks - I checked the contacts very early on.
The only spare I have is a basic Sony compact which will be coming with us.