I have a 8 gb SD card which is more than enough space but the uploading annoys me - I have to rename ALL of the pictures at once and if I only upload once in a while it means I can't name them the correct dates.
My smart plan was to just reformat the memory card ever evening to get rid of the pictures I took (and uploaded) that day but now I'm wondering if reformatting it this often can damage it?
We've been taught in our photography class to format the card each time you re-insert it into the camera. That is AFTER we've imported them images onto our computers. So formatting each time should not damage your card. It's apparently common practice to do so.
Yep, same here. I will often use three 4GB memory cards during a single day of shooting, and I'll reformat all the cards after dumping all the photos. Doesn't hurt it at all.
every time i reload the card i reformat it. i also have the cam set to continually number, so i don;t go thru the same numbers each time, you might check and see if your camera has that option. in the last 5 years, i have only had 3 fail. one was a mystery failure, one from fire, and one due to salt water. apparently i had forgotten that it was still in my pocket when i decided to jump into the ocean. granted, adult beverages might have played a part in my decision to visit the ocean without prior planning... *shrug*
Thanks for all the answers :D I'm glad to hear this, it makes it much easier for me not to mention I don't feel as guilty about possibly damaging it anymore.
And @cchambers that's how a few of my phones have suffered their premature death as well, although most of the time it was due to spontaneous, unintelligent ideas rather than any kind of beverage :P
i was just about to post about something similar to this ~ i've had our memory card for about 3 years. never formatted it, never had a problem with retrieving photos ... until last week during spring break when i was taking about a bigillion pictures of the kids. i took out the memory card from the camera (Canon EOS 50D) and downloaded the photos to the camera, reinserted the memory card in the camera, and when i went to take a picture i got the message : "reformat card". so i tried to reformat the card in the camera, and got a 'can not reformat card". so i tried our backup memory card, but got the same messages on the camera to reformat, and then saying the card can not be reformatted.
i took it to the camera shop, where they explained to me why to reformat memory cards every time. then they tried one of their test memory cards and it worked fine. so i went home and ordered a new memory card online, got it yesterday and went to format it in the camera. guess what? : i got the same error message saying the card can not be formatted. now i'm wondering if i did something to the computer in the camera because i didn't ever reformat the cards????
Formatting in-camera does nothing more than erase the first character of the filename of each image and prep the card with any instructions particular to your camera. It is good practise to do it at least periodically in case of data corruption, but it is not the same as, say, low-level formatting a HDD on your computer. If you format a camera's memory card, you can still recover the images - no differently than if you just delete them - so it isn't a true "format". A true format needs to be done with special software, and will take 15 minutes or more for most memory cards. This also means it won't "wear out" your card, which is a good thing. So, doing it every time you put it back in your camera is a good thing.
@christa Sounds like a camera issue to me, but not because you never formatted your cards. It could be as simple as a bent contact pin (if you use a camera that takes CF cards for example), a dirty contact, or maybe even a bios issue (try updating your firmware). If none of that checks out, I'd consider sending the camera away for servicing/repair. I hope that helps!
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And @cchambers that's how a few of my phones have suffered their premature death as well, although most of the time it was due to spontaneous, unintelligent ideas rather than any kind of beverage :P
i took it to the camera shop, where they explained to me why to reformat memory cards every time. then they tried one of their test memory cards and it worked fine. so i went home and ordered a new memory card online, got it yesterday and went to format it in the camera. guess what? : i got the same error message saying the card can not be formatted. now i'm wondering if i did something to the computer in the camera because i didn't ever reformat the cards????
@christa Sounds like a camera issue to me, but not because you never formatted your cards. It could be as simple as a bent contact pin (if you use a camera that takes CF cards for example), a dirty contact, or maybe even a bios issue (try updating your firmware). If none of that checks out, I'd consider sending the camera away for servicing/repair. I hope that helps!