James May

A friend at the; local store said he was talking to a Nikon rep and he said never delete photos in-camera it can corrupt the card.
I have just got my new Nikon Z9 and shooting 20 frames per second it would be nice to review which one or two photos came out 100% clear and delete the rest. then keep going on your shoot. Then when you get home you only have to download the good images to work on.
What is everyone's thought and have they heard from a Nikon tech that's a bad idea to delete photos in-camera?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Two things happen when you review and delete images in the camera:

1) You waste valuable battery.

2) You miss action you should be capturing.

BTW: even with the mirrorless ability to zoom the display of images in the view finder, that display is nothing as accurate as viewing the images later on your large computer monitor.

So, isn't capturing more images far, far more important bothering about how long it takes to offload images later? If your primary concern is time to offload images, maybe there's other solutions that are more relevant, like why burst 20?

IsoBob Loc: Hamilton, NJ

James, for what it’s worth I’m 95 yrs young and have been deleting my pictures in camera most every day for more yrs than I can remember! Not only Nikon but other makes as well. Never ever had a problem. Can’t believe he said this. Maybe the Z9 is different than all the cameras I have owned😃😃
Bob

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

The comment about corrupting cards might have been relevant in 2001, but not in 2022. The technology has moved on, but maybe not that chap.

Fred Harwood Loc: Sheffield, Mass.

Flash cards weren't always as reliable as they are now. However, I delete from the card only those obviously bad ones. The rest I inspect on my iMac 24, discarding as may be desired.

Also, one can reformat an empty card anytime to verify its function.

BebuLamar

I wouldn't know if it would corrupt the card as I never delete images in the camera. I don't have time to do that when I am out taking pictures. I have a lot more time when I am home. I never fill up a card any way so I wouldn't save any room deleting pictures in the field.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

yep keep 'em, put them on your desktop in a temporary folder delete the ones you don't like then import to your catalog.

kpmac Loc: Ragley, La

At times I will delete in-camera if I know I have a complete miss. Usually, I do as Toment suggested and import to a temporary folder and review them there before sending them to my processing software.

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

Unless you are using small capacity cards, don't bother deleting anything in the field. Time taken to delete images is opportunity wasted for shots.

flyboy61 Loc: The Great American Desert

Ancient stuff from the film days seems to rear its ugly head unsuspectedly. An "instructor" at a photo class I took once said that you need to format cards en camera several times to clear out "electronic trash" that builds up(?) That was the last time I took one of his classes.
That appears to be directly related to the ooooold film washing instructions...Half of the fixer is removed in 2 minutes, then half of the remainder in the next two, Ditto for the next two, but never reaching 100 % without some sort of chemical assist.
You need to pick your "experts" carefully!

Hip Coyote

Delete later. It just takes up too much time to do it in camera. In fact, I import all photos into LR, then quickly cull the bad shots out from there...takes minutes. I am not sure why people go to all the trouble of temporary folders, extra viewing options, special programs, etc. In LR, look at the shot, hit P for pick or x for delete. I wipe the sd card in camera once I am sure I have my pics backed up, in LR, etc...deleting in camera could cause an oops where a shot is unintentionally deleted and cannot be retrieved. Pretty simple.

Robertl594 Loc: Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Nantucket

You might consider protecting the shots you really like on your camera. These will be flagged so you can delete all unprotected images that you don’t want in one go. This will save you loads of time when you transfer them to your computer.

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I do primarily wildlife photography, and I can tell you that most all wildlife action photographers prefer higher and higher frame rates.
Lets talk Osprey's catching fish, did you know that an Osprey will have it's talons forward of it's body just before hitting the water, have you even seen an Osprey flip it's catch in mid air if the fish is not facing facing forward, have you ever seen a bird fight in mid air where the talons catch each other in mid air? Ever seen a male bird bring in a stick for the new nest and how it passes that stick off to the female?
If you have seen any of this then you have seen a camera that has a high frame rate. High frame rates are essential for every type of fast action, a game winning catch in the end zone, a pole vaulter at it's peak, a great stop by a soccer goalie. These are just a few examples of the newer camera's ability to expose that perfect shot with a high frame rate. Thank you Canon for bringing these high frame rates to photography. And others, like the new, great, never mated high frame rate of the new Z9. Great advances in camera's cannot be marginalized. It is a great step forward for all of us. Do you not agree with Canon engineers?

Jimmy T Loc: Virginia

In the evening while on travel and a computer is not available I will aggressively delete the obviously bad pics from a day of shooting, clean my front elements, and lastly, charge up the batts.
The files which I delete are usually my spray and pray pics only. The rest may have potential and make me . . . .
Smile,
Jimmy T Sends

Edit: I have never had a card failure attributable to this routine.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

This "Do not delete in camera" warning has been circulating for years. Do you really think, if it were actually an issue, that Nikon and every other manufacturer wouldn't have long ago either rectified the problem or removed the ability to delete in camera?
My guess would be that some manufacturer, years ago, didn't catch a bit of bad code in the firmware of a new model or an update and this problem arose, just like countless other firmware bugs. Just like countless other firmware bugs the issue would have been identified and resolved.