UKC

I was just out for a night walk over Stanage and had managed to fiddle with the settings enough on my little Canon (normally just point and shoot on auto!) to take some night photos looking down on Sheffield that looked OK on the camera screen. So I was quite interested to see on a real screen if they had worked but on connecting it my camera up to my Macbook, the computer can't "find" the memory card. It also can't find the card when placed directly in the computer's card reader.

I checked the computer and wire, they have no problem with card in my Nikon SLR and downloaded pics from that camera just as normal. So I'm pretty sure its the card in Canon. When I put that card in the Nikon, it can't see anything on the card, but when I put the card back in the Canon, it can still read all the photos that are on the card - so the JPEGs appear to be still there; just unreadable for the Macbook and the other camera.

Am I missing something obvious? I guess chucking away one memory card isn't the end of the world BUT I would like to get the pics that seem to still be on it, off it! Cheers all for any advice.

In reply to TobyA:

Have you reformatted the card on the canon into some weird, only readable by canon, format?

In reply to TobyA:

Most like as above. Check the camera settings as to the type of formats that it saves photos to and see if you can change in camera. Alternative that often works is to leave the card in camera and connect the camera to the computer and download the photos via the camera (if that makes sense).

Also, there is recovery software on the web that can recover almost anything from the card if the pictures are important to you.
Sometimes the recovery software is free for 12 mth when you buy the card.

In reply to Climbing Pieman and mp3ferret: Thanks for the suggestions. Oddly, I was working on my work computer this morning, a Windows machine, stuck the memory card in that to see what might happen and it read them no problem. I've now transferred them by a thumb drive from that to my mac and they've load up in iPhoto with no problem!? Very odd. I will check the settings though as I was messing around in the dark and gale last night and could have possibly changed something on that menu without meaning too.

Thanks again!

In reply to Climbing Pieman:


I did try that one last night, but the mac couldn't recognise the camera as it normally does when you connect via a cable.

In reply to TobyA:

Ive had the same issue on a mac where the card is formatted for cannon, software on the the mac (both lightroom and iphoto) would only read the canon images. I had to go into the root directory to transfer the nikon images into a new folder and then transfer from there.

In reply to TobyA:

I just tend to bin any SD cards that start behaving badly. I used to work as a photographer for a while and my main memory card started to act crazy (couldn't be read sometimes). Imagine that feeling when you come back home and you are afraid that you might have some photos missing.

A stupid suggestion as I am computing scientist student as well (should have said try reformatting blah blah), but I just don't risk any more. I have only few cards which seemed to behave weirdly over the years after some more intense shooting. I have probably shot over 50k photos in RAW format before it started showing some inconsistency. Given how cheap the cards are (the first flash drive I ever used was 256MB and it cost 60 quid or so), why even bother?

P.s. I also had two films that failed as well, but the first one was badly inserted and the other was subjected to canoeing trip...

In reply to TobyA:

My macbook had problems reading SD cards, from what I found out about it there is a sensor, that reads the locking thing on the side of the SD card, inside the slot that is a bit fragile and breaks. This then shows up that you haven't inserted a card.
To overcome this you have to insert the SD card at an angle (try and get the locking bit to go last) so that the sensor is bypassed. Might not fix your current problem but worth noting for the future!

In reply to TobyA:

What size card, and what format (windows will tell you if you right click on the root - "Properties".

Apple is piss poor at reading certain formats, the large the drive /card / stick the more problems you'll find.


Fat32 should read on both systems.

In reply to TobyA:
I keep separate sets of cards for my Nikon & Canon cameras - I have had problems when putting a Canon formatted card in the Nikon & vice versa. Also when putting a fresh card in any camera I always format it ( Having of course copied everything off it first). I have several cards for each camera and rotate their use. Seems to work for me.