Lost a damned memory card.

[TheAnimus]

So I managed to loose a 16gb memory card with half my photos from a month long jaunt through SEA, mostly Vietnam's Central Highlands.

Really pissed off as I had some brilliant photos of dawn over sand dunes, a friends 2 week old baby, and my study of Coffee (which included some frankly shocking animal rights abuse for the 'weasel' coffee).

So people of hexus, what are your worst photographic lossess.

Excuse me whilst I open the wine and compose the text message where I tell my friend I'll be wanting some pictures from her ghastly mobile phone camera.

[Bobster]

losing a memory card is tough! i know i lost all my cards a couple of years back!

i was walking though a forest (taking a well travelled route) to a location to do a shoot.. got to the location, memory card wallet gone! some where on the journey it had dropped out of my coat pocket (it had pretty crap pockets and i shouldn't have had it in there in the first place).

i retraced my steps but to no avail

so i went back to the office and put up posters a long the route showing what had been lost and offering a reward. 2 days later i got a call from a guy who had been out walking his dog - the dog found it

after that i bought one of these

it has an insert which you can place a business card etc. i have my number with reward offered on a card inserted.

it is always on my person with all my cards in (only time my cards aren't in the wallet are - when i'm downloading | when i've been 2nd shooting for another photographer and they have the cards i used | when they're in the camera)

hope it turns up!

[Spank]

I lost my memory card after I left it on the top of a car & we drove off, although hardly used I was really upset when I realised as it was still in the new camera.

[Saracen]

So I managed to loose a 16gb memory card with half my photos from a month long jaunt through SEA, mostly Vietnam's Central Highlands.

....

Ouch.

Sorry to hear that.

At the danger of winding you up even more, can I point out .... backup.

Clearly, some trips make lugging a laptop around unappealing, but I back up my camera memory card to my MP3 player. I've generally got about 15GB of music on it, leaving the bulk of the 64GB memory available for backup, and all I need is the MP3 player, and a cable, as the two connect directly together .... and I carry the MP3 player anyway, 'cos I want an MP3 player.

It won't help you with your loss this time, but might prevent a recurrence.

[kalniel]

....

Ouch.

Sorry to hear that.

At the danger of winding you up even more, can I point out .... backup.

Clearly, some trips make lugging a laptop around unappealing, but I back up my camera memory card to my MP3 player. I've generally got about 15GB of music on it, leaving the bulk of the 64GB memory available for backup, and all I need is the MP3 player, and a cable, as the two connect directly together .... and I carry the MP3 player anyway, 'cos I want an MP3 player.

It won't help you with your loss this time, but might prevent a recurrence.

Interesting idea - what mp3 players take CF cards?

[TheAnimus]

Some good tips here, the memory card case with clip sounds like a fine idea, I have an old one that lives in my camera bag, which I didn't loose, I somehow managed to put the card somewhere else!

I think backing them up makes good sense, just because a 16gb card can take days to fill, doesn't mean I should let it.

[Saracen]

Interesting idea - what mp3 players take CF cards?

None I'm aware of, though I haven't looked. I connect the camera to MP3 player and upload, via cable. The player is an old-ish Creative Labs (Vision M???)

[Saracen]

....

I think backing them up makes good sense, just because a 16gb card can take days to fill, doesn't mean I should let it.

Quite.

I'm a bit paranoid about it partly because I "lost" a card ages ago, and only unlost if it about a week later, after a really rough week, and partly because I remember being petrified, in years past, of "losing" the contents of film or video tape (and I mean tape) footage, of weddings, before getting them processed or digitised.

I also had one wedding I did where a processing lab fault left me with two rolls of substantially under-exposed (or under-developed) pictures, that to all practical purposes were useless. Fortunately, I was there as a guest, not a paid photographer.

So I tend to back up anything important, pretty much as soon as I can. Burn your fingers a couple of times, and you gain a healthy respect for fire. But I guess you know that.

In other words, Brother Animus .... been there, got the t-shirt. So I really feel for you.

[DannyM]

There was/is a dslr camera that has two card slots and offers the capability to write images to both simultaneously. It doesn't help you now but it maybe worth considering if your purchase a new camera in the future. Obviously you'd have to keep the cards separate for the system to be of any use.

[kalniel]

None I'm aware of, though I haven't looked. I connect the camera to MP3 player and upload, via cable. The player is an old-ish Creative Labs (Vision M???)

Oh I see, using UTP.. Cool. My old iriver can do that I think.

[Workaholic]

Another suggestion - Have a look at the Eye-Fi range.

If you're near a Wifi range (that you've preconfigured) it will send back home (and online to their servers) a copy of your photos. Bit expensive and 'almost' useless when in the middle of no-where unless you take a Wifi enabled devices such as your iPhone, other SMART phone or iPad (and install their app allowing backup there...)

Word of advice - bit slow on transferring RAW files but overall great for the price.

Again another fellow 'loser' of cards+camera which was stolen (Thankfully not much as I clear them out every week or so.)

[Workaholic]

None I'm aware of, though I haven't looked. I connect the camera to MP3 player and upload, via cable. The player is an old-ish Creative Labs (Vision M???)

Oh yeah another thing I had in the past was an OTG HDD enclosure which could do a similar task (set it on every lunch when I travlled to Hong Kong in 2001?)
Something I got from trusty old Scan.
Sure it was made by Theseus? Maybe the guys at Scan can find this in their database?

To help start you off, my old one was essientially a 2.5" enclosure for IDE drives with 2 USB ports and a 4AA battery pack.

[razer121]

If it makes you feel any better...i lost a memory card with some.... intimate photos of an ex (she was my gf at the time i lost it) now that made me sweat and search forums for months hoping they wouldn't pop up!

[Ruggerbugger]

If it makes you feel any better...i lost a memory card with some.... intimate photos of an ex (she was my gf at the time i lost it) now that made me sweat and search forums for months hoping they wouldn't pop up!

You don't have to justify that here

[GoNz0]

If it makes you feel any better...i lost a memory card with some.... intimate photos of an ex (she was my gf at the time i lost it) now that made me sweat and search forums for months hoping they wouldn't pop up!

you didn't search hard enough

[circuitmonkey]

I lost a lot of holiday snaps of a sailing holiday around Turkey when my memory card corrupted.
I tried all the methods I knew of to try an get the images back but to no avail.