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A900 Reasons not to purchase

fotografz

Well-known member
Well done Edward - Marc - sometimes intended humour doesn't work, nice to see it resolved so nicely.

I was shooting a wedding in Holland a few weeks ago - all the ceremony shots were on a digital M. right at the end I was chimping and it came up with 'card read error' -scrolling back all I could see were the file names.

I had time to nip back to the hotel before the reception and had a cold shower whilst the images downloaded . . . they were all fine, but I don't want to go through that again.

You can't protect yourself against everything, and of course, if you have a camera fault it could be writing garbage to both cards:eek:. There isn't a perfect solution, but covering one's backside is a special requirement at weddings!
I know the feeling. I once went to open a wedding file folder I had downloaded from a CF and there was nothing there. Put the card back into the camera ... no images! None! After the panic attack subsided, I jumped through hoops looking for the shots somewhere, anywhere on my computer. Nothing. Even opened the trash. No love.

Later I restarted my computer and didn't realize I had left the CF in the reader ... during start-up my old virus scan was working and I noticed it scanning the camera files. I opened the CF card and then looked in the trash and there they were. Somehow, all the images had been deleted ... probably user error but darned if I remember doing anything of the sort.
 
Something that hasn't come up in this discussion yet, but should -- you should occasionally perform a "full" format on your cards using a computer -- deselect the "Quick Format" option. Doing so will force an examination of all blocks on the storage device and mark any bad blocks so they don't get used for data. You should do this periodically regardless of whatever redundancies you have built into your "system"("system" here means everything from hardware to processes & procedures).

I do think about storage a lot, since I work for a storage company. If you value your data, find a way to fit the above into your process.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Something that hasn't come up in this discussion yet, but should -- you should occasionally perform a "full" format on your cards using a computer -- deselect the "Quick Format" option. Doing so will force an examination of all blocks on the storage device and mark any bad blocks so they don't get used for data. You should do this periodically regardless of whatever redundancies you have built into your "system"("system" here means everything from hardware to processes & procedures).

I do think about storage a lot, since I work for a storage company. If you value your data, find a way to fit the above into your process.
It should be added that after you clean a card like that, also reformat it in the camera before using.
 

dhsimmonds

New member
Another potential card failure possibility is to change cards with the camera still switched on. It's never happened to me but I have heard of it happening to others. It is very easy to do this in the middle of a shoot paarticularly with the a900.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Another potential card failure possibility is to change cards with the camera still switched on. It's never happened to me but I have heard of it happening to others. It is very easy to do this in the middle of a shoot particularly with the a900.
Easy to do with the 5D also. The side mount type card slots without safety button are vulnerable to being accidently opened during a shoot.

The way the dual card cameras are designed you can accidently remove the card with the camera still on, but not both cards. You have to remove them one at a time. When I've done that (which is easy to do after 7 hours of continuous shooting under pressure), I immediately replace both cards with fresh ones to preserve the good one.
 
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