Lost pictures (1 Viewer)

When I was on holiday recently, I suddenly lost a half a day's pictures off the card!

Nothing too earth-shattering lost, but some nice to have ones as it was a new country for me.

I'd been taking pictures all day, of birds and scenery. Some nice views from an elevated hide too.

Walking along back a boardwalk we suddenly came across some of our 'targets' for the day (Bluethroat). It was then I discovered that only the very last image was on my camera card, nothing else. Rather a scary moment, in case all the pictures I was taking were deleting themselves.

I've not put this in the Fuji forum (it's an HS50 EXR), as don't know if it's related to the camera. But it's too long a job to simply delete all the images, so I couldn't have done it accidentally. Even longer to Format the card.

As soon as I got home I downloaded that day's pictures. Then changed the card for the spare one.

The next day we went into a camera shop and they looked at the card with some of their software but the images weren't there.

And bought a new card!

It didn't happen again.

Can anyone throw any light on what might have happened?

I am assuming it an SD card - they do fail from time to time. The most important thing is not to continue using the card- when you get home there are a number of programs that can try to retrieve the data - I use SanDisk RescuePro because I got a free copy when I purchased a SanDisk card, but other programmes are available. This has worked for me on a number of occasions.

Hi Stephen - yes an SD card.

We actually went into both a computer shop and a photography shop and they both looked in their 'rescue' programmes to see if the images were there, but came up with nothing.

I briefly wondered if I'd over-loaded the card, but didn't get any warnings or anything.

I've since formatted the card and it is still in my bag as a backup.

Delia,
I would test the usability of that card some more before keeping it. At least, put it in the camera, take a good number of photos (around the house for example such that it does not contain anything important), make sure you turn off and back on in between and even regularly check what has been saved on the card. If the card does not perform as expected with such a test, then you do not want to keep it as a backup.

Niels

Cheers Niels.... thanks for this advice my friend.

The SD card is the most likely culprit here, but I'd also wonder whether the camera had some glitch.
It seems peculiar to have the more recent images properly stored while the older ones are lost.
You might post an inquiry here:

https://photographylife.com/how-to-recover-deleted-photos-from-memory-cards

The author, Nasim Mansurov, stands out imho for his excellent coverage of digital media and their foibles. He is quite responsive as well to direct emails.

etudiant said:

The SD card is the most likely culprit here, but I'd also wonder whether the camera had some glitch.
It seems peculiar to have the more recent images properly stored while the older ones are lost.
You might post an inquiry here:

https://photographylife.com/how-to-recover-deleted-photos-from-memory-cards

The author, Nasim Mansurov, stands out imho for his excellent coverage of digital media and their foibles. He is quite responsive as well to direct emails.

Click to expand...

Thanks Etudiant.

I'm off out shortly, so will study your post and link later on.

Hi,

Based on what you write I guess either of following has happened. You managed to accidentally delete all or format the card without realizing it. It's three button clicks only depending on the user interface/menus and if you have enabled or disabled the delete confirm action and what menu choice opens when you click the menu and OK buttons (some cameras remember the last menu choice you operated, whereas some will always open a predefined menu choice that does not do any harm if activated accidentally). I don't know about Fuji menu systems, though.

Or the camera FW did that for you, somehow corrupting the file system, making it appear as having no files stored. I have experienced a camera do strange things resulting in what appeared like no pictures being saved although I know there was. Backing up the card to a computer and having the OS repair the file system fixed it.

It's unlikely to be a card malfunction as this would have resulted in an error message.

What you should do (or should have done) is to stop using the card. Instead backup the whole partition to be on the safe side, and then attempt to rescue its contents using disk recovery/repair SW. Chance is high the contents would have been recovered. Now you write that you did format (which should be fine) and did take photos with the card afterwards (which is not good) so risk is you have overwitten some or all of the pictures that were of interest. Formatting a card won't delete any existing data, it just re-creates a fresh empty file system, but taking pictures will overwrite data.

Tord said:

Hi,

Based on what you write I guess either of following has happened. You managed to accidentally delete all or format the card without realizing it. It's three button clicks only depending on the user interface/menus and if you have enabled or disabled the delete confirm action and what menu choice opens when you click the menu and OK buttons (some cameras remember the last menu choice you operated, whereas some will always open a predefined menu choice that does not do any harm if activated accidentally). I don't know about Fuji menu systems, though.

Click to expand...

Hi Tord - thank you for your comments. My Fuji doesn't have a 'remember' system.

I've just counted and it is 6 selections in order to delete all the images, the last one, the default of Cancel is selected, so you need to have moved down to OK it. Formatting is even more of a lengthy process with 10 down button presses with a sideways one in the middle.

Or the camera FW did that for you, somehow corrupting the file system, making it appear as having no files stored. I have experienced a camera do strange things resulting in what appeared like no pictures being saved although I know there was. Backing up the card to a computer and having the OS repair the file system fixed it.

It's unlikely to be a card malfunction as this would have resulted in an error message.

What you should do (or should have done) is to stop using the card. Instead backup the whole partition to be on the safe side, and then attempt to rescue its contents using disk recovery/repair SW. Chance is high the contents would have been recovered. Now you write that you did format (which should be fine)

and did take photos with the card afterwards (which is not good) so risk is you have overwitten some or all of the pictures that were of interest.

Formatting a card won't delete any existing data, it just re-creates a fresh empty file system, but taking pictures will overwrite data.

Click to expand...

I didn't know that; thinking it was just using unused sections for the new images and I thought formatting wiped the card clean.

I couldn't stop using the card immediately, as we'd just come across one of my targets for the holiday (Bluethroat!). It was a very hot day and my spare card was in the car the best part of a mile away!

After every set of pictures I checked they were on and the first picture was still there. But I had no more issues.

The lost images weren't really that important fortunately. I was really looking to find out what may have happened and if it was more likely to be the card or the camera.

Click to expand...