Be Good to Your Memory Card

Memory cards come in different types and speeds and by a variety of manufacturers. Whether you own an SD card, XD card, Compact Flash card or Memory Stick, it needs some tender loving care or else it will cease to work properly.

Have you or someone close to you ever experienced:

1. photos that appear on your camera’s LCD but somehow don’t transfer to your computer or show up on the kiosk where you’re trying to print?

2. error messages usually in the form of a bold red exclamation point?

3. disappearing shots. You took them yesterday but they’re not on the card and the ones you took today show up?

I hate to tell you this but your card is corrupt. All together now in your best Mr. Bill impression, “Oh nooooooooooooo.”

Now we will explore how to prevent this from happening and what to do if it already has.

When you purchase a new memory card and put it into your camera, the very first thing you need to do is format it. Check your manual for specific directions on how to do so. Generally, you can locate the Format option in the Tools section of the Menu. Formatting the card in the camera you are using means that the memory card is being initialized and will become best friends with your camera. They’ll understand each other’s software and giggle as other cute cameras and memory cards pass by.

Even though the card’s been formatted, that doesn’t mean the TLC stops there. In order to prevent the card from becoming corrupt you want to follow these simple guidelines:

Take lots and lots of photos. When your memory card is full or you want to empty it out, save all of your photos to your computer, burn CDs, make prints, save them to an online host, and/or back them up on an external hard drive. Once that is done and you feel confident that your images are saved elsewhere, format the card.

Deleting images a few at a time from your memory card or even all at once doesn’t actually erase the entire file. The only way to do that is to format the card in your camera.

If your memory card is acting up, giving you error messages and the blackmail shots of your brother wearing your mom’s jewelry didn’t save, then there’s only one thing left to do. Image recovery software can more than likely extract the images that have gone missing. It can also extract images that you only erased, not formatted. You can purchase it anywhere that software is sold. Be sure to check your memory card’s packaging as it may have come with rescue software such as Image Rescueâ„¢ 3.

After the images have been salvaged, kiss that memory card goodbye.

Having said all that, you could of course just keep buying memory cards. That’s a decision I made not too long ago when I did the math. Let’s say I took 10 rolls of 36 exposure film on vacation with me at $6.00 per roll. That’s $60 for 360 photos. I can get roughly 500 shots on a 2GB card for $55.00. I’m getting more pictures for less money.