Corrupted card / lost photos!!! Please repeat after me ....

Agnieszka · June 14, 2012

Please repeat after me: "I will never use a 32GB card for a wedding".

The day came, and my biggest worry became real! A few weeks ago I shot a gorgeous (and I mean GORGEOUS!) wedding with one of the nicest couples ever! It was a destination wedding, so I figured I'd travel light & smart .... I haven't invested in cards in a while, and since I've NEVER had ANY issues with any cards being corrupt I decided to go big and buy a 32GB Lexar card, after I read up on it and didn't find any bad reviews. I was just sick of changing cards and running out of memory in the worst moment.

Well .... I shot the wedding and all went well ... The couple decided to meet up bright an early the next morning and get some TTD shots done. I have to be honest, I was WAY to exhausted after the wedding and crashed on the bed a little after I got back to the hotel. I didn't download the cards (I bought two since I have a double card slot), and figured the safest place for them would be my camera anyway. Well ... 2 photos into my TTD shoot I got an error message and I couldn't record onto my card(s) anymore (the first card anyway). I like staying positive, and this HAS happened to me before, though this time ... this time I was NOT able to read my files once I got home / back to the hotel .... my computer didn't even want to read the card itself. I immediately downloaded some rescue programs .... no luck there either (as mentioned my computer didn't even want to read / connect with the card). A great friend of ours, who joined us on the trip was a computer geek so he ended up volunteering reading the card, but after a lot of tweaking all he saw were some scary ZEROS on it .... and I lost my hope.

HOW ON EARTH DO YOU TELL YOUR CLIENTS THIS HAS HAPPENED?? And .... I decided I would while still on the trip, since I really didn't want to go home without ANY photos + I was there for an other 4 days / so were they. I did end up telling them ... and I gotta say I must have been the luckiest photographer ever ... After they heard what I had to say (uhm, I broke out in tears - I just ruined somebody's wedding memories after all!!) .... they stayed calm and positive as can be and just told me that they believed everything would turn out ok. How .... how could that ever turn out ok? I was really desperate! I googled for rescue companies before I talked to them, but to be honest I didn't have much hope after I saw all the zeros on my card. Once we got home I talked to the Lexar people, and even if they told me the'd try, they told me they never heard of such an error and I somehow didn't get a good vibe from them, so I decided to get help from fellow smuguggers .... and one name came highly recommended:

Please - for your own sake (I know there are many companies out there ... but!) .... save this link:

http://tallyns.com

Scott gave me a call as soon as he received my card and ... even if there wasn't much hope for it, he said he'd do EVERYTHING he could to try to get the files - and so he did! A few weeks after our initial call he told me he replaced parts of the card that somehow got broken (don't ask me any details), and he was able to recover them! I am sure you guys all can imagine how relieved and happy I felt .... and how thankful!

There goes my lesson ... I never thought this would happen to me ... I never knew anybody this had happened to ..... but YOU GUYS you do now! Let this be a warning to all of you sweet people on here! Cards DO go bad! and in most cases files CAN be recovered (I had no idea that files can be recovered even after you reformatted the card ... which has not happened this time ... I'm just saying ...).

And now please, please, please ... mark your bookmarks:

http://tallyns.com

IN CASE YOU DO EVER LOSE DATA (let's hope you won't but IF), give Scott Tallyn a call, he's the best out there and will try absolutely everything to get your data back! You'll be in good hands with him!

AND ... please do yourself the favor and go buy some smaller cards!

Hope everybody is having a good wedding season! :lust

rsquared · June 14, 2012

I'm very glad you got the files recovered. Bet the couple is happy too!

There's some great information in your post, but I'm curious why you're so against 32GB cards specifically? I'd be more likely to chalk this up to using a new untested card, but nothing tells me it's due to the specific card size...

Agnieszka · June 14, 2012

rsquared wrote: »

I'm very glad you got the files recovered. Bet the couple is happy too!

There's some great information in your post, but I'm curious why you're so against 32GB cards specifically? I'd be more likely to chalk this up to using a new untested card, but nothing tells me it's due to the specific card size...

Well ... I had my ENTIRE wedding on that card. Since the card got corrupted I initially lost ALL of my photos. Wouldn't have happened if I would have used smaller cards along the way ...

Oh, and I DID use the card before ... I had smaller shoots before the wedding where I shot on that same card ... so it was definitely not because it was never tested ...

FlyNavy · June 14, 2012

About a year ago I attended a photo course at Unique Photo in NJ that was sponsored by Lexar and the rep told us that the company has an unadvertised policy that they will always restore or retrieve lost files from any of their memory cards at no charge.

Agnieszka · June 14, 2012

FlyNavy wrote: »

About a year ago I attended a photo course at Unique Photo in NJ that was sponsored by Lexar and the rep told us that the company has an unadvertised policy that they will always restore or retrieve lost files from any of their memory cards at no charge.

I know they do + it was a pro card also, so it would have def been for free and I would have gotten a new card out of it. But in a case like this, would you hand your card to a big company with hundreds of employees - where you're just one of hundreds of daily clients .... and where they probably only give each card 3 tries or would you hand it to somebody that you talked to personally and who not only understands how *important* those files are but also promised you to do anything possible to rescue them?

tenoverthenose · June 14, 2012

Holy crap Angie!!!

Art Scott · June 14, 2012

i KEEP 2 card recovery software's on hand.....1 is Lexar's Image Rescue, that I got free on a 2 gb card when they 1st came out, and the other is Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery...Stellars will recover images off most types of media including hdd's and Cd/DVD's and has for me by accident recovered images that had been written over and formatted over several times over the course of a little over a yr....the version I got was $39 and has now gone up to $59... I have only once had a card I could not recover, it went back to Lexar... no worries I got a new card with all the recovered images on it.

divamum · June 14, 2012

So glad it worked out ok Angie!

Cuong · June 14, 2012

Since your camera has 2 card slots, you might want to consider recording to both cards simultaneously. That reduces your storage capacity in half, but it'd still be cheaper to buy more cards than going through what you did.

Cuong

Matthew Saville · June 15, 2012

Angie, I hope you have ALSO learned this other lesson:

USE YOUR DUAL CARD SLOTS!!!

This is what our studio does, now that they all have 5D mk3's... We shoot on ~8 GB CF cards just like always, but then we also use a 64 GB SD card that stays in the camera all day long...

I also recently obtained a 32GB CF card, and one thing I did was I made sure to shoot it FULL before using it professionally. The problem with huge cards like that is, you could own it for months without ever shooting it all the way full, and the corruption issues may only show up until it's nearly full. (Although it sounds like this wasn't your issue, if the card had physically broken parts...)

BTW, the service I use is Drive Savers. They are also extremely reliable, miracle-workers. In fact they have a team with government clearance, for recovering data for the FBI / CIA. Crazy stuff!

Either way, the bottom line is BE SAFE, and then the second bottom line is DON'T GIVE UP HOPE! :-)

=Matt=

Moogle Pepper · June 15, 2012

Angie, good that you card back. But jeeeez!

NagoC50 · June 15, 2012

I admire you for doing the right thing and telling your clients ASAP. Glad to hear that it ultimately worked out fine.

heatherfeather · June 15, 2012

I had something similar happen this winter ... And it was the sole reason I bought the 5DMKIII....those dual card slots! I just keep that redundant SD card turned on JPEG, and don't have to worry that I might have nothing afterwards.

My story: I changed cards in the dark in a parking lot on a very cold night. I dropped what I thought was one card (in a case) and picked it up and must have dropped two and not realized it. It was long gone. I seriously thought I might have a nervous breakdown there for a while.... I ended up paying for tuxes... gowns... flowers...etc... and re staging the set that was on the card and did an extra after shoot for the bride and groom. Fortunately, it was just a few reproducible photos of very gracious family... Sure I paid through the nose to do that re staging, but it was worth every penny. Just like my MKIII, with its dual slots. (I love it for more reasons than that, but it is the major reason I upgraded the moment it came out.) ( I use 8 gig cards so they are in small batches.)

Qarik · June 15, 2012

man..I got all nervous just reading your post.

Moogle Pepper · June 15, 2012

heatherfeather wrote: »

I had something similar happen this winter ... And it was the sole reason I bought the 5DMKIII....those dual card slots! I just keep that redundant SD card turned on JPEG, and don't have to worry that I might have nothing afterwards.

My story: I changed cards in the dark in a parking lot on a very cold night. I dropped what I thought was one card (in a case) and picked it up and must have dropped two and not realized it. It was long gone. I seriously thought I might have a nervous breakdown there for a while.... I ended up paying for tuxes... gowns... flowers...etc... and re staging the set that was on the card and did an extra after shoot for the bride and groom. Fortunately, it was just a few reproducible photos of very gracious family... Sure I paid through the nose to do that re staging, but it was worth every penny. Just like my MKIII, with its dual slots. (I love it for more reasons than that, but it is the major reason I upgraded the moment it came out.) ( I use 8 gig cards so they are in small batches.)

Dannnng, Heather!

Agnieszka · June 16, 2012

heatherfeather wrote: »

My story: I changed cards in the dark in a parking lot on a very cold night. I dropped what I thought was one card (in a case) and picked it up and must have dropped two and not realized it. It was long gone. I seriously thought I might have a nervous breakdown there for a while.... I ended up paying for tuxes... gowns... flowers...etc... and re staging the set that was on the card and did an extra after shoot for the bride and groom. Fortunately, it was just a few reproducible photos of very gracious family... Sure I paid through the nose to do that re staging, but it was worth every penny. Just like my MKIII, with its dual slots. (I love it for more reasons than that, but it is the major reason I upgraded the moment it came out.) ( I use 8 gig cards so they are in small batches.)

Yiiikes!!!!! I did something similar (though definitely not as costly - holy smokers!!). Since the entire family was still there we redid all the family photos and all the posed photos of the couple. I could just not leave without having AT LEAST those. Both families were SO understanding and I was just really glad the couple wasn't mad (well ... they were definitely sad & upset at the situation but not mad at me - THANK GOODNESS!!) and they were up for more photos (I even ended up taking photos of them getting ready again). Well, SO glad it all worked out, and now the couple has even more photos. PHEW!

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Angie, I hope you have ALSO learned this other lesson:

USE YOUR DUAL CARD SLOTS!!!

=Matt=

Yup. writing on two cards simultaneously has been a must from then on.

Btw, go figure ... this was the first wedding in 6 (!) years where I didn't have a second shooter with me!

Moogle Pepper · June 16, 2012

Agnieszka wrote: »

Yiiikes!!!!! I did something similar (though definitely not as costly - holy smokers!!). Since the entire family was still there we redid all the family photos and all the posed photos of the couple. I could just not leave without having AT LEAST those. Both families were SO understanding and I was just really glad the couple wasn't mad (well ... they were definitely sad & upset at the situation but not mad at me - THANK GOODNESS!!) and they were up for more photos (I even ended up taking photos of them getting ready again). Well, SO glad it all worked out, and now the couple has even more photos. PHEW!

Yup. writing on two cards simultaneously has been a must from then on.

Btw, go figure ... this was the first wedding in 6 (!) years where I didn't have a second shooter with me!

Dun dun Dunnnnnnnnnnnn!!!

kdlanejr · June 16, 2012

One of the reasons I use Canon 1 series bodies, dual card slots. I always write to both the CF and the SDHC. I recently (couple months ago) picked up four 32gb CF cards and six 32 gb SDHC cards, plus a 16gb CF and matching 16gb SDHC. I stick with Sandisk for my memory card needs and have been fortunate to never have had a failure or corrupt card.

I'm glad you were able to recover your images. Discovering the loss had to be a heart breaking moment for you.

Matthew Saville · June 17, 2012

kdlanejr wrote: »

One of the reasons I use Canon 1 series bodies, dual card slots. I always write to both the CF and the SDHC. I recently (couple months ago) picked up four 32gb CF cards and six 32 gb SDHC cards, plus a 16gb CF and matching 16gb SDHC. I still with Sandisk for my memory card needs and have been fortunate to never have had a failure or corrupt card.

I'm glad you were able to recover your images. Discovering the loss had to be a heart breaking moment for you.

This still puts you at risk, however, if you EVER put your camera down throughout the entire wedding day. If your camera is around your neck or in a holster 100% of the time, then I suppose you're okay, but I've heard too many stories about cameras disappearing from reception tables, especially at one of the local venues that gets a lot of beach-goer public traffic through it. So even if I use a 64 GB SDXC card as an in-camera backup, I still swap 4 GB cards out and keep them in a Pixel Pocket Rocket that is attached to my belt loop.

=Matt=

tenoverthenose · June 17, 2012

Matthew Saville wrote: »

This still puts you at risk, however, if you EVER put your camera down throughout the entire wedding day. If your camera is around your neck or in a holster 100% of the time, then I suppose you're okay, but I've heard too many stories about cameras disappearing from reception tables, especially at one of the local venues that gets a lot of beach-goer public traffic through it. So even if I use a 64 GB SDXC card as an in-camera backup, I still swap 4 GB cards out and keep them in a Pixel Pocket Rocket that is attached to my belt loop.

=Matt=

Yep, I now never leave a camera with memory cards in it alone. I learned that lesson the hard way when I lost my second shooters images.

kdlanejr · June 18, 2012

Matthew Saville wrote: »

This still puts you at risk, however, if you EVER put your camera down throughout the entire wedding day. If your camera is around your neck or in a holster 100% of the time, then I suppose you're okay, but I've heard too many stories about cameras disappearing from reception tables, especially at one of the local venues that gets a lot of beach-goer public traffic through it. So even if I use a 64 GB SDXC card as an in-camera backup, I still swap 4 GB cards out and keep them in a Pixel Pocket Rocket that is attached to my belt loop.

=Matt=

A very valid point that leads to the topic of risk management, which I'll leave for another discussion.

I shoot wearing a black domke vest with a dual rapid strap setup under it. This allows me to carry an additional lens or two for specialty shots, quantum turbo 2x2's to power T5DR's and Canon speedlites, calibration targets, bottle water, rocket blower, pixel pocket rocket, etc.

So far all the venues I've worked at have been very private and security hasn't been an issue. I'm hoping it stays that way.

I could utilize smaller CF cards, as I have a number of 8GB cards and a bunch of 4GB cards, but I'd prefer to only change cards between major events such as getting ready shots, ceremony shots, formals and the reception.

Moving Pictures · June 18, 2012

I must be missing something here ... wouldn't chimping (or, in the professional lingo, "checking for balanced exposure") have revealed the buggered card?

ziggy53 · June 18, 2012

Moving Pictures wrote: »

I must be missing something here ... wouldn't chimping (or, in the professional lingo, "checking for balanced exposure") have revealed the buggered card?

Not necessarily. The card may have have been damaged after it was removed from the camera, for instance.

Edit: Never mind. I see that Angie did not remove the card and that she discovered the failure 2 images into the next shoot. I have no idea what could have caused that failure.

Matthew Saville · June 19, 2012

ziggy53 wrote: »

Not necessarily. The card may have have been damaged after it was removed from the camera, for instance.

Edit: Never mind. I see that Angie did not remove the card and that she discovered the failure 2 images into the next shoot. I have no idea what could have caused that failure.

Since it sounds like the failure was mechanical, I suppose it could have been caused by anything, even the slightest physical or even electronic "jolt" or bump may have "busted" the physical part that failed.

=Matt=

Agnieszka · June 19, 2012

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Since it sounds like the failure was mechanical, I suppose it could have been caused by anything, even the slightest physical or even electronic "jolt" or bump may have "busted" the physical part that failed.

=Matt=

Yup. Scott didn't go into the details, but it sounded like there was a mechanical issue with the card - caused by who knows what! (there were no bumps .... But maybe the humidity that day might have caused something? I don't know).

Stolen cameras, ey? Wow. I always have my big camera with me. I leave my suitcase unattended at times, but I've never had any issues. Up to now I've just always been scared to either miss a wedding (free weekends used to drive me crazy, and I triple checked all contracts - though, I'm in such close email-touch with my brides that it'd be hard to miss an event) + losing files (sounds like I wasn't scared enough of that)

Well, hope everybody got a little scare reading my story and you'll make sure it won't happen to you. *i* was just lucky it all worked out - but I'm sure there is not always a happy end around that corner.

p27rpy · June 24, 2012

my palms got sweaty while reading this...seriously. this is my worst nightmare.

so happy you were able to recover the files successfully!

Matthew Saville · June 26, 2012

Glort wrote: »

I have read of spreading the event over multiple cards but to me this is more risk than just using one. For me it's more chance of something going wrong and more chance still of loosing a card that wasn't in the camera.

I use one card and download it after every set of pics. When I am driving from the grooms home to the brides, the thing is downloading onto the laptop. when I leave the brides home and am on my way to the church its downloading again , after the church, park and after the cake cutting.
So far I have never had a problem with a card on a wedding or the backup.

I won't go to bed no matter how late, ( or more precisely, early) I get home till the shots are again downloaded onto my work station, I have burnt and verified 2 lots of DVD"s and I have the shots on a 3rd HDD in another machine. It might seem overkill but If I were in the op's position of having to tell someone that I lost their pics, nothing is too much effort to avoid that nor the sleep I'd loose and beating myself up over it. Not that this would have helped her in this case though.

An hour or 90min is a nothing price to pay for preventing any regrets of not having done it in the first place.

Please tell me you don't take your one card out of the camera and put it back in that many times! That's just as risky, and possibly even more likely to corrupt a file, than if you simply swapped cards out at those intervals...

Bottom line though- use reliable cards, have a backup plan ready, (including recovery software, backup memory cards, etc.) ...and get your stuff downloaded and VERIFIED by the end of the night!

=Matt=

zoomer · June 27, 2012

Wow, I can only imagine what a kick in the gut that felt like when you saw the card had failed. So glad you were able to save everything.
This is the reason I dropped a chunk of change on the D3 years ago and run the second 16g card as a backup. Also never use new cards...only use cards that have been used and proven good for you weddings. Peace of mind is worth every penny.
So happy for you that everything came out ok. I bet the couple was over the top when you told them

.

Most of all I commend you for going right to the couple and being honest and forthright with them. I hear so many stories about shady individuals who just disappear or don't produce or make excuses. Good for you.

Matthew Saville · June 29, 2012

Glort wrote: »

Never had a problem and don't understand why it would be a risk.

I have loads of cards I have swapped literally 20 times a day between 3-4 camera's doing event work and have never had a problem with that or heard of anyone else having an undue amount of problems.

If the card did corrupt, I have the files on the laptop...which is the reason I back them up.

* I've heard that it is simply optimal to format a card each time it goes into a camera, to "clear the connection". Leaving images on a card just requires the camera to sort and keep track of data a teeny tiny bit more. I'm sure the risk of corruption is very slight, of course, but I feel like it is still there. I prefer to just shoot a card nearly full, swap it out, and leave it alone until I download.

* Even if the corruption risk turns out to be insignificant, the physical damage / human error risk is also there. I guess it's just as simple as: when driving from ceremony to reception for example, I feel much safer with my swapped out 4/8GB cards safely in my pocket in a card wallet, compared to having my one single card sitting on the seat next to me dangling out of a card reader while I try to focus on the road.

* So in my opinion, there are not different LEVELS of risk involved in the single card VS multiple card depate, just different TYPES of risk. Pick whichever risk you feel the most comfortable managing. And always have a backup plan in case your system fails! A single memory card may be an easy risk to manage for some, but if that single card does fail, have a backup card (or two) ready to go at a moment's notice!

=Matt=

tenoverthenose · June 29, 2012

Let me also add that one great and easy form of backup is just to shoot with two cameras throughout the day. Pop a different lens on each and make use of it obviously (or whatever works best for you), but just in case one memory card used during one art of the day is toast, you still have another.

rich56k · June 30, 2012

Glad to hear everything worked out in the end - thanks for sharing your experience!!

-rich56k

Corrupted card / lost photos!!! Please repeat after me ....

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