CF failing; is it common?

[iqvideo]

I have had a CF card fail on me a while back while in the camera. All the pictures that were on it were lost. Is that a common problem? Do they have a life expectancy?

thanks

Stephan

[Tom V]

Welcome to the Forums.

I don't recall ever hearing of a CompactFlash (CF) card failing. It must be very rare to have one fail.

Some cards have warranties against failure, check with your card's manufacturer. Since they are fairly bombproof, it might have a long warranty period.

Since there are no moving parts, there is nothing to wear out - except the contacts. I imagine that if junk got into the contact holes that could cause a bad connection and/or erode the contact surfaces. If there is junk in a hole, I would try cleaning it out with a pin, or alcohol. [And when I say alcohol, I mean the good stuff (not Scotch, etc.), like sensor cleaning fluid or Everclear - stuff with very little water content. Rubbing alcohol has lots of water in it, never use it to clean your sensor.]

You should also check for lint or dust in the camera's CF port. If any is there, blow it out with air. I suppose vaccuming it out would be better.

I had a Nikon CoolPix that somehow bent a pin in the CF card slot. The CF card would not go it - naturally, force bent the pin more - I tried. I fixed the bent pin by getting it back in alignment with straightened paper clip.

People have accidently put their CF cards through the laundry, and they have come out fine, complete with images. [No, the images don't look washed out!]

MicroDrives are far more prone to damage. They are small hard drives with rotating plates, moving pickup arms, etc. They also have restrictions on elevation (ie: do not use above 10,000 feet above sea level) because they need a certain air density inside to keep the heads off the platters. Some members here also reported problems using MicroDrives in helicopters and airplanes which we could not attribute to altitude - but possibly high-frequency vibrations.

[Swampy]

CF memory, as any memory, will fail at some point. But we're talking about 100's of thousands of writes/reads however. You'll have to check the specifications of each individual card to find out more info, however, you might find it hard to find that kind of data. It's out there in white papers from the company that your card is from. But, I really wouldn't worry about it unless you're shooting quite a bit and the card is 4 or 5 years old.

I've got cards that have 20,000 images on them that are also 3 years old that work fine. Lables are worn out, but they still work.

I've had 2 of my cards go through the washer, one through the dryer too. Kingston memory is the one that went through both. When all was said and done, the memory module inside the case was flopping around inside and I didn't feel like possibly trashing my camera to try it and Kington replaced it for free.

The Sandisk card went through the washer only and I just let it sit for a few days, then used it. Worked fine and still does 5 months later.

CF memory is very sturdy and reliable. Some people have "lost" images on them, but that's usually caused by a brain fart on the camera's part. A lot of images can be recovered using various recovery software available for camera memory cards. You can do a search here for different software that's available or do a search in Google if you need to (BTW - Google has a lot of our pages here indexed!).

Hope this is informative for you....

Bryan

[Wichita Wayne]

I have never heard of a CF card failing. I have had a MicroDrive fail but never a solid state module. We have run these things through the washer and dryer and still use them years later. If I were you I would contact the company and let them know. They might give you a new card just to get yours back so they can try to find out why it failed.

[sandman]

Well it's a law somewhere can't remember who's (Boyles, murphys).
I've only had one fail , but what a fail , brand new D2X , 12 miles off the coast shooting sailing barges in full sail , best shots of the year .
Then i noticed my access light was on for a long time , and their was a flashing sign on my top lcd , i could'nt read it because at my age (watch it) and being so small i needed reading glass's on . so i swapped cards .
When i got home i could'nt access the card either from the readers , camera , other camera's nothing , no recognition at all , sent it to 2 image retrieval firms (yes i wanted the shots that bad ) no joy , they both said no file allocation table was present .
So i returned it to Kingston who gave me a replacement within 3 days .
But the moral is take notice of any flashing messages and take some back ups .
BTW the message that was flashing was ''CARD CORRUPPED DO NOT USE''
but in code , needed the manual to check though .

Brian

[iqvideo]

Thanks all.

Well as Sandman said it Murphy's laws exist and will strike once in a while.
I had a similar error message and all the data was lost. I did not bother sending the card to anyone as I was taking "non-critical" pictures.

I often wonder if changing cards in the camera is not a recipe for disaster... dust getting in there... bending pins...static electricity, etc...

Stephen

[Steve Wynn]

I just had one fail. It was about a month old and I shot four portrait sessions, downloaded them and backed them up in the computer. Put it back into the camera and it said it wasn't initialized. Tried and tried to format in the camera to no avail. Tried it in the computer, but I kept getting the same message in the camera. Grabbed another card and went to a destination engagement shoot.

I think anything can fail eventually if you're using something constantly. You've just got to be prepared with everything backed up.


Steve

[Wichita Wayne]

My rule is to always carry several memory cards and if anything odd happens I change all batteries and memory cards. Usually that cures what ails my cameras. Then later I put the memory in my computer and check it out and if necessary use a program called PhotoRecovery on the thing. That has always worked for me, except for the time my MicroDrive failed. I still use MicroDrives but never at weddings or in situations where I cannot reshoot.

Another thing I do is download often so that I do not push the memory limits of the card. I tend to buy big cards so I can keep shooting if necessary, but try to get the shots in the computer long before they are full. Lots of people say they buy only 256MB memory cards so that you do not put all your eggs in one basket, I like to have both options.

[iqvideo]

Interesting comment Wayne.

what are you downloading to when you are in the field and are under pressure like for a wedding for example?

[Wichita Wayne]

We usually have at least two people at weddings and on big ones we have three. I have even recovered the Microdrive at weddings when my daughter ran the batteries down. No reshooting necessary. Now we do not use the microdrives and my daughter has learned better battery management. I also take a little bitty 4X5 inch 40 or 60 GB external HD that will fit into my coat pocket so I can backup the downloads and carry a copy with me for added security. Never did like the little easy to carry picture safes. They are slow and do not really give you the versitility of a good laptop. We have always used at least two photographers and three cameras at a wedding. People that pay a lot of money for a service do not want to hear excuses.

[Swampy]

Agree with Wayne partially. :)

I think many smaller cards are a must over less, larger ones.

I shoot 5 1gb cards in my 1D which yields 90 shots per card in RAW+small jpg and 2 2gb cards for my 1Ds which gets me 100 shots per card in RAW+small jpg.

Pushing the limits of a solid state device is not technically sound in the way Wayne is thinking. If there's a weak spot in the card you're either going to hit it or not. Solid state memory is more like a glass of water. Fill it half way, drink it, fill it half way again over and over, you'll never get the top portion of the glass wet. Fine if you have a crack at the top of the glass, but if there isn't, your chances for failure are the same regardless of how much you fill the card sorta. Obviously you increase your risks the more you write to a card. Don't have much time to get into details, but I can have one of the guys at work give me a white paper if you want since they invent memory modules. :D

I use the cards mentioned above along with a laptop and flashtrax. As soon as I fill a card, off to the laptop or flashtrax it goes, which ever makes sense for the situation. The Air Show I just went to, going to the laptop was best, then backing the laptop up to the flashtrax when time permitted. Hiking in the back country, the flashtrax got filled first, then when I return to the car or hotel, I back them up on the laptop.

Images are once in a lifetime, so back up often as you sometimes never know what you've captured!

For instance, my wife and I were shooting somewhere early in the morning a few weeks ago. She hit the shutter button on accident while mounting her 400mm (no 2xTC) on the tripod or something like that. She found out later when we returned home that she shot a semi-sideways coyote on a hillside that took up about 1/4 of the frame. What luck! We rarely see those without hiking pretty deep and this was on the side of the road!

Thougts to consider I guess. :)

[Wichita Wayne]

We do not buy less cards that are larger in capacity. What we have is a lot of larger cards. Every photographer has a "sweet" number of cards that they can effectively use, and we all tend to purchase our way up to that number. I also have to fess up to owning two 256 MB CF cards that we bought at a drug store last month (they were the largest they had). It seems that my daughter and her husband could not find all of their cards before the engagement. So now I must humbly admit to having a few small cards.

[Melody]

I agree Wayne you need that sweet number or whatever it's called.

I shoot 5 2gb cards and 4 1gb cards, and they are all flying around constantly during a weekend shoot, they go from me to a laptop and an external hard drive then right back to me for more. Two weeks ago just a bit under 9800 images cranked on them in under 48 hours in high wind and dust all as usual did fine :) THANK GOODNESS!! (yeah even then I shoot raw and jpg) I don't think I want to go to 4gb it's too many to chance losing on an event I'd miss a lot of riders if one went bad.

I've never had a card go 'bad' camera hick up yeah for a couple shots but never the whole card. I did give all my cards smaller then 1gb away they just don't hold enough with raw for me it's too confusing having that many cards floating between myself and being copied off.

Melody

[Auminer]

She hit the shutter button on accident while mounting her 400mm (no 2xTC) on the tripod or something like that. She found out later when we returned home that she shot a semi-sideways coyote on a hillside that took up about 1/4 of the frame.I would like to hear the coyotes side of the story :rofl: :cheers:

Always backup, serendipity is always lurking. ;)

Dave