Deleting individual photos in the field

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Franb

Franb

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Hi all
A friend has just told me that deleting photos in the field will corrupt your cards. Is this true? I generally delete a few photos as I go if they are obviously no good.
Thanks
 
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Franb said:
Hi all
A friend has just told me that deleting photos in the field will corrupt your cards. Is this true? I generally delete a few photos as I go if they are obviously no good.
Thanks
Click to expand...
I’ve heard this on occasion but it’s never happened to me in nearly 20 years of using Nikon digital cameras. Even so, my practice is not to delete in the field because I’d rather not use my time for capturing photos than culling photos. Also, I always have a spare card (and battery) with me while I’m shooting because stuff happens. 😊
 
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I almost never delete files in the field. (I'd say I never do, but I likely have before.) I wait until I can upload the files to a computer and view them on a monitor much larger than the LCD on the back of a camera. Once I've confirmed that Ithe files are loaded onto a hard drive and viewable on the computer, I format the card in the camera to delete the files. So, I never have to worry about this issue as described.
 
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Total agree, will corrupt cards. Was informed not to delete an image/file here and there by a friend and previous camera store owner. Download images/files to computer then put card back into camera then format. Never had a card fail, break or crack do to age yes.
 
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While somewhere in the dim distant past I probably deleted a few photos in the field, I'll say I never do. The LCD screen isn't large enough to really see the quality of any photos and it would be too easy to make a mistake and never know it. Besides, it a waste of time that could be better spent taking more photographs, enjoying the sights and sounds of the natural world or taking a nap. I download images after I get home and delete them form the card; I only format the card after it's had a couple of hundred photos on it, which often takes one or two days, but occasionally a week or more.
 
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I've deleted thousands in the field on many occasions. I once had a shoot where I had forgotten to format the card and didn't realize it until I was a couple hundred shots into the day. Spare cards were too far away to access quickly. I A) needed the space and B) didn't want to upload all of those previous images again, so I stood there and deleted almost 1,000 images, individually. I did that in between shots over a half hour or so. The only upshot was the images were then stored on the card out of order, but were properly ordered once uploaded.

I have deleted files in the field with different brands to no ill-effect.

Edited to add:

Actually, there was one consequence. My thumb was sore.
 
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I'd have to ask for actual proof that hitting the delete button on a camera causes a card to fail. After all camera makers put the ability to delete on the camera knowing what kinds of cards they are using. What I think happens is coincidence. Sometimes cards fail out of the blue and folks say "Did you delete in camera?" And so folklore begins.
 
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Things are different now with high speed cameras in my view.
I don't care about the bad ones any longer and I have enough memory.
I now cull for keepers using Fast Raw Viewer.
No need to worry or take a chance.

That said I copy all my images to a high speed external drive before culling. Again don't want to take a chance with the cards.
 
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Franb said:
Hi all
A friend has just told me that deleting photos in the field will corrupt your cards. Is this true? I generally delete a few photos as I go if they are obviously no good.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Like you I’ll delete them in the field if they are obviously bad, but someone once told me not to delete anything until you’ve seen it on the computer first.
 
These days it's more about picking the keepers than deleting the duds. Sometimes there are so many almost identical shots there is no sense in saving every good one. But that is not a job for a tiny camera screen. Sometimes the slightest difference makes the difference.

Another reason I have for not doing it much is even more superstitious on my part. I figure camera buttons have a mechanical component. Mechanical things wear with actuations. Not that I've ever had or heard of a failure. Still I have worn out certain keys on computer keyboards: ctrl and z and alt.
 
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I have always used the second card as over flow so really no reason to delete in the field, also normally have a backup card just in case. At the cost of hi speed/capacity cards is it really worth taking a chance. Even if the card is covered under warranty, I rather not deal with getting it replaced. With my luck card failure would occur at the worst possible time.
 
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Franb said:
Hi all
A friend has just told me that deleting photos in the field will corrupt your cards. Is this true? I generally delete a few photos as I go if they are obviously no good.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Don’t bother…what’s the point. In the field you should be shooting. Hudson Henry espouses deleting in the field as welllwhich is a point I disagree with him on. If card size is an issue…get an other or a bigger card and delete at leisure back home.
 
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Franb said:
Hi all
A friend has just told me that deleting photos in the field will corrupt your cards. Is this true? I generally delete a few photos as I go if they are obviously no good.
Thanks
Click to expand...
This is an interesting question and I want to go away and research it a bit more; I can also find articles and blogs saying in-camera delete is "bad" because it may corrupt the filesystem.

First a disclaimer -- I never delete in camera. It's much faster to do all the deletes back at home on the computer (at least in my workflow) plus sometimes a shot I thought was "bad" turns out to be "good" when I look at it in more detail. And, though I do check images to verify exposure, shutter speed enough, etc ... I don't want to waste much time in the field looking at the back of the camera.

Anyway, I'm puzzled by the articles saying deleting in camera will/may corrupt the file system, since I'd think if the software in the camera was able to correctly update the file system when writing an image, the vendor would spend the time to make sure that deleting an image also correctly updated the filesystem metadata. Surely that would be a rather basic test of the software the camera vendor would perform. You wouldn't want professionals calling in and saying, "Hey, I deleted a couple of images from the card and now my card is corrupt." It seems likely to me to that problems with delete were actually something else, or perhaps occurred back in the dark ages of flash memory.

That said, a card has a finite number of write cycles, and obviously every write of a new image causes some wear. But delete also causes a write (to update the filesystem metadata) thus deleting images on the camera does have a (probably insignificant) affect on the life of the card. When you format a card, it simply resets the filesystem metadata (no pictures here!) with a minimal number of writes so this is the best way to "delete" images (neither the in-camera delete or the format actually erases the image ... it's just no longer directly accessible).
 
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The issue I think also had to do with the fact that memory cards (especially CF and SD) use various controllers on-board and no manufacturer can account for each and every controller in each and every card and it's particularities...
 
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