Indeed!
Deleting individual photos in the field
- Thread starter Franb
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PhotoLover
Well-known member
That would have been my guess. I was especially puzzled by this post (from back in 2016);
The Do's and Don'ts of Memory Cards: Tips for Photographers
My name is Jeff Cable, and I'm a photographer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I previously spent many years of my life as Director of Marketing at
petapixel.com
by some one who claims to have been Director of Marketing at Lexar for a while and you'd think such a person would understand memory cards, though director of marketing does not mean such a person is actually all that tech savvy. The exFat filesystem has been around for a loong time and camera vendors should find it easy to obtain software to read and write it. I could envision a scenario where some camera software didn't handle write errors to the card as gracefully as you'd like, and the write error could be to filesystem metadata, not just the image.
I don't delete photos in-camera very often, but I've done it and never had an issue.
So I don't worry about deletes corrupting the file system on the card.
Interesting article by Jeff Cable (thank you for posting it!). Equally interesting comments after the article, many of which totally contradict Jeff's advice and claim direct engineering knowledge of the question. Hard to decide which of these opposing assertions on various points are correct...
Calson
Well-known member
Yes it can result in a corrupted FAT table on the memory card. By doing a quick format of the card instead the old FAT data is deleted and a new one is created. In the old days when a 1GB microdrive CF card sold for $700 I found myself deleting files on it to have room for more shots. Sometimes it was not a problem but on two occasions it resulted in several corrupt image files. I have read numerous posts over the years by individuals trying to recover the damage files as a result of their deleting the files one by one with their camera.
For my part I cannot see the value of spending time on a trip reviewing my images one by one at the reduced size provided on the camera's display. I now buy 2TB CFexpress cards for a lot less than that 1GB microdrive cost me 22 years ago.
It has been a while since I recall reading in depth about this issue, but IIRC, the "OS" that handles the FAT and related tasks was not considered that robust. That is also why many folks always suggested not deleting images from the card on a PC. The thinking was that it was best to just reformat the card in the camera only to minimize potential issues. Whether this is still an issue I cannot say, as I do not know if the "OS" that handles the files on more current cards has been upgraded or improved. YMMV, of course, as has been stated above.
--Ken
--Ken
PhotoLover
Well-known member
None of us actually know what testing is done by camera vendors and the card vendors. The FAT (and FAT32, etc) filesystem formats have been around forever. I think modern cards use the exFat format. There are all sorts of things that *could* go wrong. The controller on the card could have a bug. The software running in the camera, which implements the filesystem, could have a bug. The camera hardware could have a problem. I'm sure some people have had troubles after deleting photos on the camera. But there is nothing especially magical or difficult about a file delete on a device which has a FATxxx filesystem on it.
I don't worry about it. This is very mature technology in 2023. I'd be interested in what testing the camera vendors do and what range of cards they test with, but obviously I'm not going to get that level of detail! Bad stuff that happened with cards back 15 or 20 years ago is about as relevant to what happens today as bugs in Windows back in 2005 are to Windows 11.
Excessive chimping and deleting in the field will lead to missed shots. See it every time I'm in the field actively shooting. Wait till you get home on the deleting.
lbbirds
New member
I've been deleting photos off my cards in various Nikon camera bodies in the field for years. I photograph birds. If I take shots that end up being a total blur, or the light is so bad I know I can't fix it with editing, I'll sometimes delete those photos in the field. Sometimes I'll hit the shutter button by accident. I'll delete those photos in the field. Saves me time later when I'm processing photos on the computer. Never had a problem. I don't think I've ever had any of my memory cards that I use in my cameras go bad. Had a micro SD card I had in my phone go bad once.
Franb
Member
Thanks all for your useful replys