johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

Tips for Photographers - The Do's and Don'ts of Memory Cards.
This is a worthwhile read about how to look after the memory card in your cameras.

http://petapixel.com/2016/12/07/dos-donts-memory-cards-tips-photographers/

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Thank you John
This is what I have been doing since day one and have only had one problem.
Don't want to go through that again, the program I used recovered almost every image I had taken from the day I got the card 4 month before and "renamed" each image with what appeared to be a random number. It took me close to 10 hrs to sort them out. This card had been reformatted in camera after every shoot.
This was 10-15 yrs ago.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Excellent!

NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

Thanks for the article. I am sure most of us don't give their cards a second thought

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

Thanks, I learned something.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

Good article. I'm guilty of erasing images in my camera by hitting the delete button. I knew already that you format you memory card in your camera and not your computer. I keep a SD card in each of my cameras. No need to keep switching from camera to camera. Quality SD cards are no longer expensive as they were just 6 years ago. No need to keep switching.

MikeMck Loc: Southern Maryland on the Bay

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

Amandy

Did anyone read the comments left after the article? It just confused me even more. I formatted when I first got the card then I have been deleting. Should I format every time after downloading photos to hard drive? Is it going to hurt to delete pictures when you know the picture isn't good during a photo shoot?

MikeMck Loc: Southern Maryland on the Bay

I format memory cards only after I have transferred the images onto my PC. I always format the memory cards in the camera. I never delete images in the camera.

alandg46 Loc: Boerne, Texas

You can ignore most of this article. I switch cards from Pentax to Nikon to Canon and back again. Fat 32 is fat 32. I delete some images in camera. I delete all the images from my cards in a computer. Sometimes I format them in camera sometimes not. I have had only two card failures since 2004. Both of those were PNY SD cards I bought in a Portland, OR Staples store. It turned out that both were counterfeit. Both failed after offloading the pictures to my computer. They never worked again. None of my computers recognized them nor my cameras which, at that time were two Pentax K-5's.

The only problem with deleting in camera is that the capacity of the card will be slightly reduced due to file fragments. The next time you format the card in either a computer of a camera that will be cured.

I do agree with not filling a card. That can cause problems with the last one or two images on the card. Pulling the card out while it is writing or reading is just plain stupid. I do agree that for CF cards a good reader is important otherwise bent pins in the reader will ensue. I know. The same is true for XQD's, but when I bought a Nikon D500, only good ones were available and are available. All my cards except the XQD's are Sandisk. Lexar had the least expensive XQD's when I bought the D500. Sony and Lexar are the only choices for XQD's with Lexar being the less expensive.

When I bought the D500 only 64GB cards were available for about $100, the 32's were on back order from both Sony and Lexar, so I bought a single 64. The card reader was $40. They are down to $25 now. I had to spend nearly another $150 to fully use the D500 causing me to question my jdgment.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Amandy - I read the article yesterday when received directly to my email via a newsletter. I didn't read comments. One place my experiences differ from the author's recommendations are the comments about deleting in camera. Although I have several CF cards, I'm occasional caught in the field with a full or nearly full card and not another card on hand. A quick run through images and I can clean out a hundred or so to get space when viewing images via the camera for things that would immediately be deleted when viewed on the computer. I also use the 'delete all' menu command in the camera to clean a card rather than format.

The author's comments would be characterized as "best practices". There I don't disagree: follow these best practices to avoid ever having a problem. Does every topic apply to every camera from all manufactures? Probably not. But, there's no way nor reason to set-up a decision tree based on camera type (if body x, do x, else if body y, do q ... ect).

I've never had a problem deleting images in camera across multiple Canon and Nikon camera bodies, although as a best practice, I do not normally perform in-camera deletes of individual images. On a Canon 5DIII, I've never had a problem in 3+ years using the delete-all-images-on-card menu option rather than format. If I was using different bodies, say 70D and 6D, I would then, as a best practice, reformat the card in camera when sharing cards between these bodies.

When transferring images, my Dell workstation has slots for both SD and CF cards to transfer images from the card onto the computer. But, my laptop does not have slots. So for the laptop, when needed, I use a USB cable to the camera body. There's a lot of different variables and options where a "best practice" suggestion of purchasing a high quality 3rd party card reader is a valid blanket statement that applies to all situations even though it's unnecessary for most (or mine, at least).

waltchilds Loc: Central Florida

Jwshelton Loc: Denver,CO

Great article. I signed up for the blog.

Bugfan Loc: Toronto, Canada

Very helpful tips. I think these should be included in every card package so that people will become aware of them whenever they buy a card.

And yes some of the points seem dumb like not using the card in more than one camera at a time or using a high quality card reader. However there is wisdom to this. Everything that is manufactured is made to comply with various tolerances. If you know anything about toleraces you will recall that they are "+" or "-" a certain value. Basically a tolerance is always a range. What is worse is that cheaper products tend to have a wider range of tolerances than more expensive high quality ones which can further adversly affect how an assembled devide will work.

What sometimes happens is that you end up with two tolerances on two parts that are at opposite extremes of their range. When that happens sometimes the device doesn't work properly. If you switch cameras there is the risk like this, that the camera's tolerances may be a bit out just enough to prevent a different camera from accessing the data you've written or to prevent your card reader from accessing the data from the second camera.

There are often subtle issues that we are not aware of since we don't design products as a rule, we only use them. However those who know offer tips out of personal experience and often as a result of having designed some of the products. We are wise to pay attention to those people and to listen to their advice even if it seems extreme. We can be lucky for years ignoring the tips until one way we're doing a "one of" event and when we get home we discover we can't read the images. That's not the time to discover the tips you should have been using all along.