Compact Flash question

Hello everyone I have a Compact Flash 4GB memory card and for some reason whenever i take photos off of the card, the information stays on the card.

For example i just deleted 50 photos from the card and after deleting them it said 2.8GB available. Does anyone know why? Am i doing something wrong?

I just reformatted the card and now it says i have 3.8GB available. Do i need to refomat all the time, that sounds silly.

Any help will be appreciated thanks in advance and I hope you guys can help.

-Jay

PS im new to this website and DSLR photography. so bear with me. thanks again

You should be formatting every time anyway. From my experience whenever I pull stuff off the card reader and put the memory back in the camera it'll give an error and say it has to make a new folder. So I just format it. (Low level format is best if you have the time)

I concur. After uploading your images to a computer, format the CF card in your camera. Otherwise, there are remnants of prior images which take up space.

Thanks for the response, just thought it was weird because this has never happened with my point and shoot cameras. Thanks for the advice!

I work the easiest way, i.e. just plug the USB cable into the camera and press/click one button.
In the camera, I just do Delete all, and then the card is fresh again.
No need to go through the formatting.

If you just "drag and drop" you would be copying the photographs, not moving them.

On that note - copying is better than moving in case someting happens - say a power failure, once you have your images, just format in the camera - takes about 1-2s

That is because they are not really being deleted. You have to "Empty Trash" to make them go away.

As others said, copy the files then tell the camera to format. Cleans off anything your computer may have left behind.

How do you "delete" the images? Do you use a CF card reader (USB or otherwise) on your computer or you just connect the camera on USB and "import" using your favourite program? An "import" may leave the images on CF (unless the the program is configured to delete images after import), so will the "drag-n-drop" in Windows Explorer (assuming you use Windows). If you do "cut-paste" on Explorer, the space should be freed up. If you delete images on Explorer, the space should be freed up too.

It is not a good idea to repeatedly format flash disks.

jbino7 wrote in post #10747759
For example i just deleted 50 photos from the card and after deleting them it said 2.8GB available. Does anyone know why? Am i doing something wrong?

I just reformatted the card and now it says i have 3.8GB available. Do i need to refomat all the time, that sounds silly.

-Jay

PS im new to this website and DSLR photography. so bear with me. thanks again

Edited a bit out to keep this relevant.

Next time you move pics from the card to the computer, go ahead and delete them.

Check card for available space.

NOW - on your computer EMPTY the contents of the TRASH CAN ( on Mac - not sure what Windows calls it )

Mac doesn't 'release' the Free Space until the contents are emptied from the Trash Can.

But as others has stated - you are better off reformatting after every use anyway.

nemesis47 wrote in post #10749828
* * *

It is not a good idea to repeatedly format flash disks.

Why?

nemesis47 wrote in post #10749828
How do you "delete" the images? Do you use a CF card reader (USB or otherwise) on your computer or you just connect the camera on USB and "import" using your favourite program? An "import" may leave the images on CF (unless the the program is configured to delete images after import), so will the "drag-n-drop" in Windows Explorer (assuming you use Windows). If you do "cut-paste" on Explorer, the space should be freed up. If you delete images on Explorer, the space should be freed up too.

It is not a good idea to repeatedly format flash disks.

stsva wrote in post #10750054
Why?

Flash memory has a limited amount of writes.
Saying that - all the camera does is a quick format - which doesn't write to the card.

And even if you did a full format - writing zeroes to every cell - it would still take a long, long time to destroy the card.
On high quality flash memory you get about 10.000 writes per cell - but even if it's a 1000, it would take a lot of time to write 8000GB to an 8GB card - on that note, the lack of wear levelling would be the greater problem.

I rarely reformat, I just delete everything. I use the menu in my camera to delete, works fine.

DetlevCM wrote in post #10750202
Flash memory has a limited amount of writes.
Saying that - all the camera does is a quick format - which doesn't write to the card.

And even if you did a full format - writing zeroes to every cell - it would still take a long, long time to destroy the card.
On high quality flash memory you get about 10.000 writes per cell - but even if it's a 1000, it would take a lot of time to write 8000GB to an 8GB card - on that note, the lack of wear levelling would be the greater problem.

yes.. the number of possible writes possible to a cell varies. The enterprise-quality drives can achieve more, while the cheapo ones wont get anywhere close - even 1000 may be wishful thinking. A clean format will touch every cell once, which is unnecessary when you have only few images on the disk that you want to erase. The problem is sort of exacerbated if the card's capacity is lesser (because you will write to the cells more often - given the same amount of data/pictures).

@DetlevCM - it is not that difficult to hit that limit, if you transfer the images multiple times a day, and if you format every time (instead of just deleting the images).

I would recommend just deleting the files on the disk. Format only when you think the card has really slowed down.

BTW the format you do on your camera is a quick level format. It does not write 0s across. In fact even Windows defaults to a quick format unless you demand a low level format.

Quick format is fine. It'll clean the boot record and the tables on the CF card so it thinks its empty.

As for the 10,000 write cycles, that's a MTBF figure I believe. Much like the 100,000 shutter actuation lifetime. You can definitely exceed it, but you can also see failure on your 5th cycle. Bottom line is unnecessary write cycles = bad.

nemesis47 wrote in post #10751210
yes.. the number of possible writes possible to a cell varies. The enterprise-quality drives can achieve more, while the cheapo ones wont get anywhere close - even 1000 may be wishful thinking. A clean format will touch every cell once, which is unnecessary when you have only few images on the disk that you want to erase. The problem is sort of exacerbated if the card's capacity is lesser (because you will write to the cells more often - given the same amount of data/pictures).

@DetlevCM - it is not that difficult to hit that limit, if you transfer the images multiple times a day, and if you format every time (instead of just deleting the images).

I would recommend just deleting the files on the disk. Format only when you think the card has really slowed down.

Just copying images over doesn't do anything bad - reading doesn't wear out the card.

And as dmo580 pointed out again - all the camera does is a quick format.

And on the "how quick can you wear out a card" - think about 8000GB - how long will it take you to fill the same card 1000 times - a long time, most likely you bought something better by then.
You'd need to fill the same card 2-3 times every day for a whole year - who does that? no-one.

You might wear out the first few MB if you only shoot 2 images then take them off the card, but that's another issue.