Reduce the frustration! Fewer operator-caused glitches. Well, maybe.

[humminboid]

I went to a photo class the other day, and received some interesting information from the teacher. For what it's worth:

1. Buy good memory cards. Some cheapies, instead of having a single 1-2-or 4 gig chip, actually have somehow sandwiched 2 or 4 512 MB or inferior 1MB chips, which can lead to problems.

2. Never turn off the camera while it is writing to the card, or let the battery totally discharge.

3. One of the most frequent causes of damage to digital cameras is caused by improper insertion of the memory card. Never force them, If they won't go, there is a reason. Stop, no matter what is happening, and figure out why.

4. NEVER shoot your card totally full. Leave 2-3 exposures blank, because there is always a plus-and-minus factor with card capacity, so be safe, don't push it.

Now, most of this stuff was totally new to me, and I don't know why it is so, because I am not an electronics techie person, but I decided to heed the advice of the instructor.

[gbux61]

Thanks for passing this on. Often times you do get what you pay for as in the cheap-0 CF cards. I had heard some of these perals before but picked up a couple of new ones.

Thanks

[toverman]

Reformatting a card is good advice, but from my experience with digital (5 years) is that once works just fine.

One of the most frequent causes of damage to digital cameras is probably dropping them.

[srwatters]

Some common sense, mostly urban myths. It amazes me how many photographers are ignorant in the digital realm. Your digital camera is nothing more than a special purpose computer. Do you think you need to format your USB memory stick three times? How about erasing a single file?

I've argued this with some very seasoned professionals and they still held onto these myths. I have been in the embedded system development business for over 25 years and NEVER have we experienced these problems. All the way back to EPROM, through EEPROM, and finally to today's flash memory.

Do yourself a favor and please, please educate yourself and don't listen blindly to folks like this 'teacher'.

[loudtiger]

these are some of the most ridiculous tips i've ever read.

[Ahh!]

Originally Posted by srwatters

Some common sense, mostly urban myths. It amazes me how many photographers are ignorant in the digital realm. Your digital camera is nothing more than a special purpose computer. Do you think you need to format your USB memory stick three times? How about erasing a single file?

I've argued this with some very seasoned professionals and they still held onto these myths. I have been in the embedded system development business for over 25 years and NEVER have we experienced these problems. All the way back to EPROM, through EEPROM, and finally to today's flash memory.

Do yourself a favor and please, please educate yourself and don't listen blindly to folks like this 'teacher'.

FOTFL!
"Now click your heels 3 times..."

What is sad is that as an instructor, this misinformation goes around the country in waves as budding photog's hear and repeat the pablum. Not that it is their fault. When you go into something totally new, and pay an instructor, you tend to believe the so-called expert advise. Plus, if you follow such meaningless advice and nothing bad happens it must be true (even though nothing bad would have happened...)

[humminboid]

Originally Posted by srwatters

Do yourself a favor and please, please educate yourself and don't listen blindly to folks like this 'teacher'.

I guess we have to pick our experts, particularly among the new photo/coputer wonks, not to mention people on the 'net.

Interestingly enough, education was exactly what I was looking for when I wandered into this guy's parlor.

Here's the response I got from SanDisk:
"Formatting the card three times is just the same as formatting it once.
The data in the card are still recoverable. However, if full formatted using Windows Vista, the data will no longer be recoverable. This process is called "zero fill erase".

Thank you, SanDisk!

Most frequent damage opinion is from conversation with a camera repair shop employee, who had no axe to grind, and stated what was experienced in her place of business.

Dropping the camera? Totally preventable, but I admit to having done that 3 times in more than 50 years, but not lately. Both come under the heading of hamhandedness. Having said that, I will probably drop my camera the very next time I pick it up.

Soooo... sincere apologies all around for posting inaccurate info on the site. My original has been edited, but I will stand by what's left.

Damn, this gets confusing, when all I want is an imaging system that works as good as my old Nikons did!

Ah, well, forward with speed and enthusiasm, or haste and vigor, or...