9.5 Tips To Take Care Of Your Compact Flash Cards

9.5 Tips To Take Care Of Your Compact Flash Cards

Just about every week I hear of another photographer who is crying for help on a private Facebook group because they lost the photos from a shoot. Either their compact flash memory card went corrupt, they deleted the images on accident or they lost the memory card full of photos entirely. Here are 9.5 tips that I have used over the years that have made sure my compact flash cards stay healthy and safe.

1) It is best not to fill the entire card up with photos. In other words, as you are shooting and the counter is telling you that you have only 20 photos left on your card, consider changing out the card with another. If you overshoot the card and the camera tries to squeeze in the last few shots onto the card it can corrupt those images and possibly lead to card lockup.

2) When you are ready to use the card again, instead of choosing to "Delete All Images" on the card, choose to "Format" the card. When you format your card you are starting fresh, erasing all the images, making sure the card's system structure is clean and is in sync with the camera you are using.

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3) Only shoot with your card in one camera. After the card is formatted (see Tip #2) you don't want to remove the card and use it in a different camera. When you do that you risk the chance of corrupting the card because of the two different camera file systems. It can be done of course, not saying it's impossible to do or won't work, but by doing it you are taking more risk with your cards. So for example, when I go out to shoot I will typically format all my cards on my Canon 5D Mark III. However, if during the shoot I decide to use my Canon 5D Mark II I will put a new clean card into the camera and do a quick format so that the file systems match since my original format was done with my Mark III.

4) As you are shooting refrain from deleting images in camera. This is a tip I learned about a year ago and as I searched Google today for some supporting material I was unable to find anyone talking about it. So take it for what it's worth but it sure seems to make sense to me. The reason you want to avoid from deleting images as you shoot is because of something called "back fill." Here's how it works. As your card is shooting it is firing off a sequence of photos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now each is going to be a different size photo (not all are the same.) So if you stop and erase photo #2 for example and then take another photo, your memory card will back fill the next photo into the empty space where photo #2 once was. If it is a bigger image it will then fill the rest of the data continuing on from where you last left off. Fortunately our computers understand the system and are able to piece together the images with no issues. However if you get a corrupted card and have to recover the data, I have heard cards that have been back filled are substantially harder to fully recover than those that were not.

5) Develop a system to know what cards have already been used on a shoot. After I have shot photos onto a card I will store it in my LowePro CF Wallet with the label side facing in. That is a quick reminder to me that the card has already been used.

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6) Turn off the power of your camera before removing the card. While some cameras profess to now have the ability to remove memory cards while the camera is still on. Why chance it? Flip the switch off and then remove the card. Along these same lines, if your camera is currently recording images to the card (usually apparent by the LED light lit up on the back of the camera) do not remove the card until that light is off.

7) Find a way to properly secure your cards to avoid them getting lost. Some photographers like to shoot on lots of different cards (keeping all their eggs out of the same basket) others prefer to shoot larger memory cards so they have less risk of losing a card. I tend to agree with the later and am now investing in 32GB cards or larger so I can keep just one card in my camera during an entire shoot and not have to worry about losing it. However if you would rather shoot on smaller cards, make sure you have a great system to keep them from getting lost. I use the locking cable on the ThinkTank International bag to attached my LowePro CF wallet to it. By doing it this way, I keep the wallet from accidentally falling out of my bag, or being misplaced and losing the cards. Another option is to use the velcro strap on the back of the LowePro CF wallet and attach it directly to your belt for safekeeping.

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8) If you like to store the cards in your pocket make sure to keep them in the plastic storage cases. While compact flash cards feel quite sturdy in your pocket, what can ruin them is the dirt and lint in your pocket that gets inside the multipin sockets.

9) Make sure your batteries on your camera do not run out as you are shooting. When your camera begins to flash the low battery signal, be sure to replace them right away. If you do not, you run the chance of having the battery die as you are recording images to your compact flash card. Not only will you lose those images but you also run the high risk of causing card errors. So, be sure to keep an eye on the camera battery and replace it before it reaches 0.

9.5) This last tip might be the most important. Don't ever drop your cards as it will throw all your photos out of focus. ;)

What did I leave off the list? Let me know about your tips on making sure you take proper care of your CF cards. Also be sure to check out this article by Lee Morris regarding his reason for shooting on larger cards vs. smaller ones. He makes some great points there.

Trevor Dayley's picture

Trevor Dayley (www.trevordayley.com) was named as one of the Top 100 Wedding Photographers in the US in 2014 by Brandsmash. His award-winning wedding photos have been published in numerous places including Grace Ormonde. He and his wife have been married for 15 years and together they have six kids.

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Unused and new are the same thing, no? But I put shot on the left, unshot on the right if you must know. ;)

As an IT person #1 sounds like hoax to me, do you have any sources? As far as I know, an SD card is formatted with a VFAT filesystem which doesn't allow "overloading" the card, the camera knows exactly how many bytes it can write to the card. The only thing I can imagine would be certain blocks getting corrupted and that's why the cards capacity would decrease, but since the camera is doing the filesystem handling, it should be aware of that fact.

ya I actually touched on this, as far as I'm aware it can't, unless like you said there are errors. The max size of an image is used to calculate the total images left, so regardless you can't try to write too much. Also this follow the same thought process that the other statements do in that it's believed that the entire image is written as one giant block on the card, rather than blocks.

I will add that tips : Copy your pictures on your computer (or hard drive - twice is better - ) As soon as you can. Never keep uncopied pictures on your cards... especially if you work with a team.

Nice tips. I just hope I could find a case for my CF Card soon.

I'm sorry but there is a lot of this information that doesn't hold water as they say. I was in the process of composing a similar post to what Joey Duncan did because 1-4 are basically old wives tales sort of information. These are the information of someone who doesn't understand how data is written and how the OS works. Joey covered it nicely.
#6 is probably the most common cause for card corruption of existing images. It may not permanently damage the card but to get proper use back a full format (not in camera but on a comp where a proper full format can be done) will likely do the trick.
The rest are common sense.

I don't use cards bigger than 2 GB. tho' replacement cards that size are hard to find

My tip, don't leave your CF cards in your pocket, throw your shirt or pants in the laundry and later wash them. I will say, although this has happened to me a couple times, I've never lost any images. (tips 5 and 7 will help prevent this).

Good list.

Rosh

If your card becomes unreadable. These guys can recover them. Fast, reliable and fair. They have helped me a couple of times.

http://alandata.com/data-recovery-services/flash-drive-data-recovery

great tips! here's another, very important one: when downlading to your computer, allways download the entire folder formation from the card, not just the shots. and don't change folder names or locations. this will prevent files from becoming corrupted, especialy videos.

I just had a card fail on me last week (first one in my many years of shooting). None of those 9.5 things to avoid happened, I guess just bad luck. But PhotoRescue ($29) saved my bacon. Great to know about the low battery and filling the card full. I will start doing that!

For all this praise there's a ton of nonsense in these examples. 1-4 are examples of things only someone who doesn't understand an operating system and file system would think. 9 I've never had any issue with that, and I've done it uncountable times.

probably should have omitted 9.5, some people will actually believe it ;)

Thanks Trevor, great post. I've lost one of this memory card holder once. Luckily iI had unused cards inside, though it was painful losing about 5 cards at the same times. So I will be implementing the safety measure of fasting it to my belt now. I love the 9.5 tip too :)

To this day I use 9.5 to freak customers out about their rolls of film if they drop them ;) Amazing how many people believe it.

In addition to number 5 which helps indicate which cards have already been used, as an added precaution move the security switch on the side of the card to "lock". This will quickly indicate the card is already used, as you are quickly rummaging for a clean card during a fast-moving event.

In regards to formatting your card in camera. I second shoot for a wedding photographer and she gives me her CF cards to use and then I format them, then shoot, then hand them back over to her to edit. We both shoot Canon 5D Mark III's. Would the transition between types of camera's be the issue, or just different camera all together?