*For more information visit AdoramaTV YT page, and of course you can keep up with David on Instagram and Twitter @DavidBergman. LATEST UPDATE: David opened up new IGTV episodes where you can ask him questions live! find out more at http://www.AskDavidBergman.com
If you were never caught in the situation where after a successful photoshoot you come home, plugin your SD card into a computer, and drop your jaw in frightening shock because it will NOT OPEN due to some error – you are the lucky one, fella.
For the rest of us, occasional victims of misfortune, there are a few handy tips however that would help avoid such situations in the future. In today’s episode with David Bergman and AdoramaTV we explore several steps on the way to photo loss prevention and recovery.
David shares: “First thing let’s talk about ways to prevent this from happening in the first place. Whenever i buy a new card for my camera the first thing I do is mount it on my computer with an external card reader and do a low level format. On a Mac you want to use Disk Utility and the key is to use the MS-DOS format option and the zero out one past security erase. What this does is writes zero’s to every single bit on the card and potentially maps out any bad sectors. I’m not a PC guy but I think you can do a right click on the card and do a low level format in there.”
“We should do this reformat in our computer every few months to keep the cards nice and healthy. Of course it wipes out all your data so make sure you backup everything first.”
“So now insert your card into your camera and use the cameras format function. This creates the correct folder structure for the camera so you’re ready to shoot. Now that we are taking pictures let’s keep a few things in mind to minimize the risk of data corruption. The main thing is you never ever, ever, ever want to interrupt the writing of data from the camera to the card. So when that red light is blinking do not remove the card from the camera. Ideally you want to power off before you even open that door.”
Mr. Bergman continues: “The other thing is to watch your battery because you don’t want it to die while you’re taking pictures. Otherwise you have the same problem. If you do all of that and your card is still corrupted, do not panic! The odds are your images are still there but what happens is that little table of contents of your camera writes to the card is just corrupted and your computer is having a hard time finding the pictures.”
“There are a lot of good data recovery programs out there and oftentimes the card manufacturers include versions of their software for free if you buy their pro cards. What the software does is actually go through your card bit by bit and try to recover any pieces of images that it can find. In my experience you usually can get back almost all of your files. Try different programs in case one doesn’t work and you might be able to get all of your images back.”
Check out our WORKSHOPS in Los Angeles that teach you hands-on how to make great photos!
One of our closest workshops – Studio Lighting 102 : Portrait Photography Lighting will take place on July 3rd, 7-9pm, in one of our Los Angeles studios !!!
Watch the full episode with David Bergman and Adorama TV: