The Missing Photo Conundrum

[Me__2001]

I'll start from the beginning. Went out with my girlfriend at the weekend to a park so she could take some photos with her new camera of this lake and waterfall plus some Roman ruins that George III or IV had nicked in the 1800's and decided to stick them there!? For those of you that are interested we went to Virginia Waters

When we got back home and tried to look at the photos on her laptop there were only the photos from the previous day but none of the new ones, looking the card properties i could tell there was extra data of some description on there but nothing that windows could recognise as a file. I wasn't worried, i explained that things sometimes get corrupted and i had Recuva on my laptop which should find most of the missing photos as nothing should have been written over them so everything would be fine. Did the scan as usual and managed to find all of the files that she had deleted to make room on the card but not the ones she'd just taken, i then did a 'deep scan' and still couldn't find them. Obviously i was now looking a bit daft as i'd convinced her it would be fine and i could get them back but failed miserably

By this point she was starting to get upset and i was confused as Recuva had always worked for me before. I thought i'd better have a go with something else as they should be recoverable and it didn't make sense, bit of googling later and several other unsuccessful recovery programs later i came across something called DiskDigger. Was a bit dubious as to whether it would work after my previous attempts, i don't know how it did it but amazingly it managed to find the photos she'd taken Most of them were perfect, some were missing a bit from the bottom but were salvageable with some cropping and the rest were long gone but overall it managed to get 65 out of the 72 which is better than nothing

I thought it may be of some interest to the rest of you if you ever find Recuva is unsuccessful

 

[nivrip]

That's really good to know.

I've used Recuva and found it superb but it's always good to know there's something else out there that might work if Recuva doesn't.

Good find. And it's free.

 

[Ian]

Good find, I've not heard of this one before so I'm going to install this right now for the next time I need to rescue some files.

 

[muckshifter]

I'm intrigued to the camera & card being used, weather conditions, the medium used in copying, cable/software to computer and any useful info you could give as to why a whole days pics went "missing" off the card.

 

[captain zed]

Did you try taking anymore pics with camera. Is it possible to take a picture when the camera is connected to a pc with a usb and the camera files are open on screen to see it the photo's are added when you snap them ???
I have myself confused now lol.
I think i know what i mean.....

 

[nivrip]

I once had my camera attached to the PC and managed to delete everything on the camera. I didn't realise till the next day when I was checking the pics on the camera. Luckily all the pics were in the Recycle Bin.

 

[Me__2001]

To answer your questions Mucks. Its a Canon EOS 450D DSLR, memory card is a Kingston 2GB SD card i think, weather was cold say 2c but dry and the card was put directly into the card reader in the laptop which is a Dell XPS M1530 running Vista. The usual method to view them is to browse the card in windows and then view them using the MS photo viewer

Whilst we were walking around they appeared to be saving correctly but i don't know for sure. The only idea i have is that she deleted 100 or so pics off the card one by one using the camera and that somehow it didn't do it properly or that when we were walking around turning it on and off may have done it but thats no different to what we did the day before which was with the same sort of ambient conditions

Zed, i think i understand you. I did put the card back in the camera before recovering the photos and took a photo which showed up fine....

After recovering all the photos i did a low level format of the card just to be on the safe side which was probably unessecary

 

[muckshifter]

I use a canikon A 200 (Sony Alpha200)

ah interesting, and I thank you ...

Wasn't some cheapo setup then.


My card never leaves the camera unless its full, mainly 'cos my reader needs replacing, I use Sandisk 4mb cards exclusively as they are the best value for size ratio.

When out "shooting" I have the camera on all the time. Never know when you need to be quick shooting wildlife.

I use Google's Picasa to copy & play with me pics to/on the PC.


One more question, did you let the camera equipment reach room temp before reading the card.

 

[Me__2001]

No problem mucks

Unfortunately she only has the standard 18-55mm lens at the moment so taking shots of any wildlife is somewhat tricky as you have to be virtually on top of them and they tend to scarper before you can get close enough . We were discussing this and were thinking that a 2x multiplier lens may be worth investing in for the time being and then splashing on a Tamron 18-250mm at a later date, do you feel it would be worth it?

The camera sat in its bag for an hour or so before we got round to trying to look at anything so should have warmed up in that time.

 

[Rush]

For what its worth i once had a very dodgy Kingston card , had a mind of its own.

 

[captain zed]

Zed, i think i understand you. I did put the card back in the camera before recovering the photos and took a photo which showed up fine....

After recovering all the photos i did a low level format of the card just to be on the safe side which was probably unessecary

Hi,

I just wanted to know if it saved the pic where it was supposed to or if it went anywhere strange, say like what happened when you were out n about......just trying to make sense of summat a bit weird i guess. I dont really have an answer as to what happened exactly. Memory cards dont usually play up....is it an an old card ?? I'm glad you eventually got the pics. It's very annoying when ya lose a whole day of what you expected to be great snaps.
I always transfer my snaps directly from the camera with a usb and try not to handle the cards too much.

 

[Rush]

Multiplier lenses are good ..i bought some for macro shooting for my d50 and for still close ups they are excellent x2 x4 x8 and x10 and very well priced..as for moving pics then the VR lens are the biz , but a whole lot more expense as its the entire lens you need

Tamron 18-250mm lens

You want it for what ?

 

[Me__2001]

Zed, It saved exactly as you'd expect it to so i don't know why the others didn't show up. Card is as old as the camera so only a month

Rush, I was thinking just a 2x multiplier which should give the equivalent of a 36-110mm so would allow for wide angle and close up shots and mean that it can be left on for most of the shots she does. The Tamron lens is probably a bit OTT but it does mean that you can do pretty much everything with the one lens

 

[muckshifter]

I have me 75-300 permanently fitted, and as the "canikon" has built in stabilisation I've no need to lash out on expensive lenses.

Saving for the big 500.

Can't help with multiplyers/extenders, not as good as they say and really, it is better to save the pennies and get the better lens for the job. Only thing that lets these DSLR down, is the extortionate price some manufactures charge.

Tamis have some good lenses, but beware accusations like "Like a 28-400mm lens in 35mm format." which means squadly tit in digital terms.


I think you seen me picks, have a few up on Picasa which is more recent than me flikr ones.

 

[Me__2001]

I'll see how she feels about waiting and saving for a larger semi decent lens instead of getting a multiplier, i've not had any experience with them so i don't know whether they will even work with her lens/camera combination or how good it'd be. Seems i have a lot of reading to do over the next few weeks

I have had a good look at your Flickr, you have some good pics in there