sparkie102 Loc: New Jersey

It has been poping up randomly?

OnDSnap Loc: NE New Jersey

Are you formatting your card in camera?

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

♪ ♫ Memories ♫ ♪... I had this issue a while back and after much try this and that I discovered it was the card that was (exaggeration alert) in it's final death throes. I use Sandisk Extremes with lifetime warranty so they replaced the card with little hassle. Mine are CF cards but the issue is the same among all card types. Replace it at your earliest convenience and start enjoying photography again.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

That's a corrupted file...

I've had those occur... but never due to a "failing memory card".

One time it was my mistake opening removing a memory card from a camera too quickly, while the camera was still writing to it. All the images on the card were effected, not just the ones being written last. I had to use image recovery software and was able to fully recover about 2/3 of the images on the card. That was an older, slower camera.... I think it would be pretty hard to do with the newer, faster cameras I use now.

Another time it was a connectivity issue, between my card reader and computer. I'd added something and had installed a USB hub, routing several things including the card reader through it. As soon as I re-installed the card reader directly connected to one of the computer's USB ports, problem solved (and no images were lost because I only "copy" images off memory cards... I don't "move" them... so the originals were still on the cards to download again).

I've also seen images corrupted in a similar manner on a failing hard drive. There's no recovering those (so be sure to backup!).

I've never had a memory card failure, in 25 years shooting digital (over 15 years shooting it pretty much exclusively), around 20 different cameras, probably more than 100 memory cards of various types and up to 50,000 images a year. Some days I'll fill 8 or 10 or more cards (I don't use huge cards, to avoid "putting all my eggs in one basket"... just in case a card is lost or damaged or fails.) I'm sure some of my cards have been reused many dozens of times without any problem, per in partaps because I always make a point of formatting each card before use, as soon as it's in in the camera.

Okay, I should say that I've had two cards fail... But both were brand new. One simply wouldn't format at all, camera wouldn't recognize it, so it was completely unusable and no images were ever recorded to it. The other worked once exactly , then seemed to lock up after part of the images were downloaded from it. Unfortunately, that card was being used by a second shooter and I can only wonder if he mishandled it in some way, causing the problem. I assume it was a card failure, but still have to think it's possibly no fault of the card at all.

Hope this helps you figure it out, recover the images, or at least avoid it continuing to happen.

sparkie102 Loc: New Jersey

Yes I format my card in camera.

sparkie102 Loc: New Jersey

The picture looks normal when I use fast stone (image viewer)

pbradin Loc: Florida

Do you record in more than one format (jpeg and Raw) and do you always compare the raw to the jpeg? I find card failures to be almost non-existent. I have been shooting digital since 2002 with no card failures or issues and have run them through wash and dry laundry cycles and had one get dented by an angry bull (shooting rodeos). I still use that card, but the camera didn't fare so well (squashed, but Canon "L" 70-200 2.8 was fine). Sometimes we get in a hurry and do something different in our reformat procedure. I did that once, but reformatted it again in camera and it has been fine ever since.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

What program make it look like what you posted? Whoops! I see it in your title - Lightroom. LR makes it look bad, but Faststone makes it look good. Interesting.

agillot

my old D300 is doing this randomly on 1 or 2 pics .camera store said the sensor that record the pics is going .no fix to this anymore .

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I've had two memory cards fail. Both were old CF Cards. One had loose pin slots that were not making contact with the pins in the cameras. It failed in both the Canon and the Nikon I was using at the time, even after re-formatting it in each camera. Random images would be incomplete. The other card failed when my coworker pulled it out of the camera prematurely, camera on, still downloading the buffer. (We were in a huge hurry to meet a plane.) It never worked at all after that. Neither camera nor computer would recognize it. We took later flights...

Besides those, when I was training for Herff Jones, I encountered several school photographers who had corrupt images. In a couple of instances, their cards were shared with Nikons without reformatting. (Although the FORMAT schemes may be the same, different manufacturers store different, incompatible files on memory cards that are needed to operate the camera as intended. If the files are not there...) In another instance, the card developed loose pin slots. In yet another, the photographer had carried cards in his pants pocket. Wool pants. It was February in Iowa. Static built up... When he was inserting the card, a static charge went through it to the camera. Neither card nor camera worked after that!

I've had SD Cards "seem" to fail, but the only real issue was the readers were incompatible. There are several different classes of SD cards, and the later, larger cards must be used in cameras and readers that support them.

If you insert an SDXC card into an older device and it doesn't work, FIRST suspect that your device is incompatible with the type of card you're trying to use in it, or incompatible with the formatting scheme used on that card. It may be a device issue, or a device driver issue. Whatever... Buy a card reader that reads everything and connects via your fastest USB port.

rbmitch123

You’ve never had a card fail but you use small cards in case your card fails. Huh?

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

Is this a CF card? If so, the cause could be a bent pin in the card reader.

CaryATL Loc: Atlanta, GA

See this thread from a couple years ago.
https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-337412-1.html

home brewer Loc: Fort Wayne, Indiana

For the last 2 or 3 years I have used only 32 gig cards and only once and add a label of what is in them. Treat the cards as film use once.