terrible tragedy

[Preeb]

Originally Posted by calypsob

Last night I went to install a flash on my camera and while tweaking the settings in the canon menu I got a card read error message and the camera shut down. I took out the card and the camera booted fine but the card wont read at all. I put the SD card into my laptop to see if it would work and nothing happened. I had an entire season of almost pure macro photography that I had been waiting to put up on my hard drive with this card. From nymphs to strange moths and other insects I had never seen before. I had deleted hundreds of photos that were out of focus and had kept probably about 60 or 70 in focus fantastically exposed and composed insect shots now gone. So I just wanted to share with every one, DON'T MAKE THE SAME STUPID MISTAKE AS ME AND UNLOAD YOUR SD CARD TO YOUR HARD DRIVE WHEN YOU GET GOOD PICTURES!!

I see two mistakes here - keeping the photos on the card for a prolonged period, and erasing them one by one. If you can believe the advice I've read a few places, erasing photos shortens the life of the card, and keeping important photos on the card for a long time is just tempting fate. I don't always download immediately after shooting, but I do download at least once a week. Once the images are downloaded and backed up, I put the card back in the camera and format it.

I use good quality Sandisk Extreme Pro cards and I try to follow what advice I've been given on maintaining longevity.