Photography

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A place to politely discuss the tools, technique and culture of photography.

This is not a good place to simply share cool photos/videos or promote your own work and projects, but rather a place to discuss photography as an art and post things that would be of interest to other photographers.

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Do SD cards go bad? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by project_seven@alien.top to c/photography@viewfinder.pro

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So I take hundreds of photos a day, 5 days a week for work and have never had this happen to me before. I was copying my work onto my computer after working all day and 3/4 of the way, my sd card got corrupted and lost the ability to view/download my photos. On my computer and even on the camera. It's like the information was there, but my camera said "Can't play back" or something when trying to view, and my computer just showed it empty.

Luckily it was my biggest client, so it was not an issue to go back to reshoot my shots needed. But I'm very worried it will happen again. I have a big shoot today, with a potential big new client, and can't have this happen again. Do I need a new sd card? I only have another micro sd with the adapter, so I'm just debating going to get a new one right before my shoot.

Has this happened to anyone before? And how do I prevent this in the future?

Thank You

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[–] marslander-boggart@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

There are SD cards with built-in WiFi module to backup to external device, such as laptop or iPad.

If your camera is equipped with WiFi module or Bluetooth and it allows tethered shooting, you may save photos to your laptop or iPad when shooting. Or may be you may connect and download photos a bit later.

There are devices that allow a backup of SD card info. Such as external HDD or SSD boxes with SD card slot.

If your camera is equipped with dual SD card slots, you may use one of those modes: RAW to 1 card and JPEG to 2 card, or backup mode. In first case, even if one of your cards fails, you still have info from another card, and with modern cameras JPEGs are much much better than in elder times, especially if you have got Fuji camera from 2014 and newer. And backup mode is self explanatory. Make sure to carry a battery charger and several fully charged batteries with you, because writing on both cards drains a battery much faster.

If your camera has neither WiFi nor dual SD card slots, get a camera with both options.

Use SD cards from the best brands: SanDisk, for example.