Corrupted SD card WHY?

[Mummygirl]

Hi does anyone know why it happens.
I formatted my 4GB card on my 450D canon and it said error after about an hour walking about taking shots.
Its never done this before. My pictures then got a bit chopped up. Some will not even open now. Please why does this happen. My camera has destroyed alot of my images about 25%. Weird or what?:confuse::confuse

[Marvin]

Several things can corrupt a memory card but the main reasons are:
Removing or inserting a card with the camera still switched on.
Switching the camera off too soon after taking a pic. (needs time to write)
Switching the camera on then off again quickly. (or the other way round)
Opening the battery door with the camera still switched on.
Changing a lens with the camera still switched on.
Striking or shocking the camera can cause the battery to jump away from the contacts momentarily. Switch it off before fitting it to or removing it from a tripod/monopod. Don't extend or retract legs while fitted to the camera.
Dirty or damaged contacts on the card, battery or camera could be a contributing factor.
Quite rarely nowadays, static can cause card coruption.

[Mummygirl]

Hi Nigel
No I did none of those but could it be when a card gets too full.
Or could it be attibuted to changing a lense?
Put my other lense on and it gives problems. I think over filling a card may be a contributer. It needs space to be able to process images.
The camera then would not let me open the pictures to view them on the camera.
Can a lense be an issue for a camera. Its secondhand from Park Cameras.?
I value anyones comments. Concerned it may happen again.
It just gave a black screen with a message on Error occured.

[Marvin]

Filling a card won't cause problems, it just stops when it is full. Changing lens with the camera still switched on is one item I missed from the list, sorry.. :o Any electrical interference can corrupt a card and the lens has electrical contacts to talk to the camera body. ;)
There is only one way that the card data is correct. There are thousands (millions?) of possible corruptions. Some might not be noticed, some would affect the picture but most will make the pic (s) unreadable.
The camera does all processing in internal (DRAM) memory before writing to the card. DRAM is much faster than card memory but needs power to retain data.

[Mummygirl]

I changed the lense after about twenty minutes but everything was completely switched off when I did this.
No problem so far carried on fine no problems. But as my card became full eventually the error message occured. Nothing detected at all untill an hour or so later.
Then message appeared would not let me take/press the shutter, it jamed. Then images would not display or as it said would not magnify the image.
I think the lense talks to the camera doesn't it. And the lense has its own motor for auto focus.
Perhaps it was traded in because intermittent faults occured.
Never had problem with Sigma zoom just this Canon lense. Still puzzled. Will the card still re-format for re-using?

[Marvin]

Card SHOULD format and be OK for re-use. Sandisk "Rescue Pro" might be able to retrieve some or all of the corrupted pix from the card. No guarantee but worth a try if there are pix that might be valuable or you really want to try to save.

Might be worthwhile checking the lens contacts for dirt or damage too. ;)

[Mummygirl]

Thanks Nigel.
I do remember this once happening on a panasonic small digital camera.
The guy in the photo shop in Amsterdam managed to get me back my pictures but alot were corrupted like on the canon 450d.
He said that its always best to have several cards and to change them when getting nearly full. That he gets alot of people over filling the memory cards. He spoke excellent English. He said that alot of cameras wont let you know when getting full cards. The software does fail in some cases. As the battery can also be getting lower at this stage. Low power can give probs he said. My battery was pretty full though.
I still think it might be my Canon lense. Not over impressed with its performance. The Sigma has always delivered good efforts for me.
I could return it but I will now be seeking to buy another wide angled Sigma or Tamron. The Canon is hard to focus manually and sometimes gives occasionally unsharpened images, if set on auto focus. :top:

[Hicarrumba]

This makes me think of the other post about Black an washed out pics, the only time I have had an error (99) to be exact is when I accidently swapped lenses really quickly, I changed it while the camera was doing its auto clean bit, when I switched back on I got error 99, after switching off leaving a few seconds everything seemed fine then, the card threw a wobbly, it didn't corrupt but I did have to format it.

Check the contacts on your lenses and body, use a magnifying glass and make sure you have a smooth shiny surface on all the contacts, it they are dull get a cotton bud and some isopryl and very very carefully clean the contacts. DO NOTget the stuff inside either your camera or lens.

Worth a try :top:

[Mummygirl]

Yes I shall take your advice folks. This is not good though from Canon as its far too quickly begun to give problems this camera. All that glitters is not gold.
Once again Thanks Folks.:confuse:

[Hicarrumba]

Its not just inherent with canon, taking a lens off any camera while its switched on is not recommended. Even electronc SLR's give errors if you do anything other than use them right. I have had my 450D for a Year and not any any problem, other that the one I caused by taking the lens off.

I think you should return it for a checkup, should still be in warranty

[Mummygirl]

going to do my own experiment and see if its that lens. Will avoid using it and see if it happens again.
It did once recently give a black/blank photo when it took a picture using the sigma but the canon 18-55 is a bit naughty I reckon. Time will tell.
And even if I did tell them at the shop I bought it from what could they do. They are usually sealed units via Canon factories. I reckon some one has possibly already been tampering with the canon 18-55 kit lense. I reckon optically it did give poor sharpening than the Sigma.

[Marvin]

...
It did once recently give a black/blank photo when it took a picture ...

Removing the lens cap will cure that one... :rolleyes: :p :D :rofl: :laff:

[Harold2]

I had a simaler occorunce with the flash card in my D70, i was on a paid photo shoot at a garden center, all was well i had some realy good photo's of a well known gardening celeb, all of a sudden i got an error message on my camera, just like you have got, all that you have disribed are all famile, I sent my card away to a proffesiona togger i know and asked him what was wrong he said a card can fail at any time if its going to fail, there will be no seeable reason for it it will just fail, I sent the card back to the manufacturers ( sandisk) who looked at the card and came back with the same reply as the togger, they give me alot of appologies and two new cards.
So it may just be the fact that the card is one of the very very few that are going to fail, I think you will just have to put it down to bad luck just like i hade to do, only my bad luck cost me £300 in lost commision

[Mummygirl]

I also noticed that my card only used up 1.5mb of memory capacity. So it could not have been full. It has to be a lense issue or camera fault. Managed to salvage 3/4 of my images but it corrupted the rest?:confuse:
Not sure where you moved my thread to so reposted here?

[badbadman]

There are many reasons for a card corrupting its contents Bev.

I suggest trying to take a couple of shots on it and see if it works or not.

If not then bin it, it probably won't work again so no point keeping it. :(