Card full: Late yesterday evening I; 1. Uploaded/copied all photos from the memory card to my Mac. 2. With the card in the computer slot I deleted all, "cleaned" it. No photos left on...

Boris Ekner Loc: From Sweden, living in Guatemala

Late yesterday evening I;
1. Uploaded/copied all photos from the memory card to my Mac.
2. With the card in the computer slot I deleted all, "cleaned" it. No photos left on the card. None!
3. Today at a shoot at my sons school the card was full after 36 pictures taken!
4. WTF!!??
5. Lesson learned; always format card after picture upload to computer.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Do the format in camera.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Carry spare cards

AK Grandpa Loc: Anchorage, AK

It's recommended to ALWAYS format the card in the camera because often the computer and camera formats are not the same. . .

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

AK Grandpa wrote:

It's recommended to ALWAYS format the card in the camera because often the computer and camera formats are not the same. . .

Not sure who you heard this from. You are correct in that camera formats are different, but with the correct utility it is more convenient to format when the card is still in the readers and it will provide the exact same format that the in camera format will do. You can download the utility from the SD Association website for free.

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

Boris Ekner wrote:

Late yesterday evening I;
1. Uploaded/copied all photos from the memory card to my Mac.
2. With the card in the computer slot I deleted all, "cleaned" it. No photos left on the card. None!
3. Today at a shoot at my sons school the card was full after 36 pictures taken!
4. WTF!!??
5. Lesson learned; always format card after picture upload to computer.

Boris, Boris, Boris, the only computer ever to be used to delete photos from a card is the computer that was used to make them, practice, practice. practice.

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

Emptied the trash?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Boris Ekner wrote:

Late yesterday evening I;
1. Uploaded/copied all photos from the memory card to my Mac.
2. With the card in the computer slot I deleted all, "cleaned" it. No photos left on the card. None!
3. Today at a shoot at my sons school the card was full after 36 pictures taken!
4. WTF!!??
5. Lesson learned; always format card after picture upload to computer.

"cleaned" it? Camera maker recommend formatting before using the card for the first time. If you've deleted the images, you should have a "cleaned" card.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

Boris Ekner wrote:

5. Lesson learned; always format card after picture upload to computer.

YES!!!
So what if there are programs you can download to your computer?
Unless you can come up with a good reason NOT to format in the camera ... FORMAT IN THE CAMERA.
There is one possible problem; perhaps this is what happened. Yesterday I used the two buttons
on my Nikon to reformat the card in slot 1 by pressing the Garbage & Mode buttons ... it did not
re-format the card; I checked by pulling out the card in slot 2 and then checking for images ...
they were still there; on card 1. I reinserted the second card and used the reformat option in the
menu ... it worked.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Howard5252 wrote:

... Yesterday I used the two buttons
on my Nikon to reformat the card in slot 1 by pressing the Garbage & Mode buttons ... it did not
re-format the card; I checked by pulling out the card in slot 2 and then checking for images ...
they were still there; on card 1. I reinserted the second card and used the reformat option in the
menu ... it worked.

When you press the two-buttons to format the card it only reformats one of the two cards. You have to do it twice and you have to use one of the wheels to select which card you are reformatting. The selected card will be displayed on the top window.

peterg Loc: Santa Rosa, CA

sloscheider wrote:

Emptied the trash?

On a Mac, moving files/photos to the trash does not delete them from the card. To delete them, one must also empty the trash with the card still open in the computer. Also, just because a card is "cleaned", whatever that means or even formatted by a computer, does not mean it will work OK in all cameras. As others said, formatting by the camera that will use the card is the only sure way. If you look at the contents of a camera-formatted card, you will probably see folders/files on that card before before you take a single shot. Cameras of different models but by the same manufacturer may have different files/folders. Experiment to see. Bottom line: KISS (keep it simple). Format only in the camera that will use the card.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Boris Ekner wrote:

Late yesterday evening I;
1. Uploaded/copied all photos from the memory card to my Mac.
2. With the card in the computer slot I deleted all, "cleaned" it. No photos left on the card. None!
3. Today at a shoot at my sons school the card was full after 36 pictures taken!
4. WTF!!??
5. Lesson learned; always format card after picture upload to computer.

Yes use the camera to reformat. Your computer obviously did not actually clear the card. I always reformat after downloading and verifying I have the photos saved on the computer.

David Kay Loc: Arlington Heights IL

Deleting photos on a card is a misnomer, you never delete them you only remove the address where they are located and when taking new photos it puts a new address on the new photos and overwrites, hopefully, the old information. Therefore you always format when you put the card in the camera. This makes the card like a new card and does add some proprietary camera info to the card. You also carry extra cards in case that does not work. The cards are electronic storage devices and therefore can fail at anytime.

Howard5252 Loc: New York / Florida (now)

DirtFarmer wrote:

When you press the two-buttons to format the card it only reformats one of the two cards. You have to do it twice and you have to use one of the wheels to select which card you are reformatting. The selected card will be displayed on the top window.

I only reformat the first card - the second card serves as a backup and is never reformatted; I just change it when it's full. The point I was trying to make is that the camera failed to format the #1 card using the two button method. It just didn't, and so I went to the menu method.

Jamers Loc: Michigan

RichardTaylor wrote:

Do the format in camera.