The Decisive Moment Blog

I have been using Sandisk Extreme III CF cards for some while now, without any issues to report. However, this weekend I had to do a very important shoot – my first as a full time professional. I got through five cards, all 4Gb, one of them I have had for ages, four of them were brand new at this event.

After transferring the images to my computer, several files from more than one card are showing as corrupt. I have never had this before. I’m using a Canon 50D which is less than a year old, I have tried transferring the files by connecting the camera and by putting the card in a reader – both get the same result.

However, if I open the image straight from the card without importing it first, it appears to be okay.

Now I notice some pictures are missing altogether. Basically, I shot around 150 couples in a formal pose as they made their way into a dinner dance function. Whilst processing, I realized someone was missing; the event organizer, who is also my wife’s father! I knew I had photographed him right at the beginning, so I got out a copy of SanDisk’s RescuePro and ran it on the offending card. I found about eight images which were in the original transfer.

If it was one image, I could imagine having deleted it by mistake (not easy to do by accident, though). If it was a set of images from the very beginning of using the card, I could – at a real stretch – imagine that I had formatted the card without thinking (not that likely). But the missing images are a small group from within the middle of the card. I would have to have deleted eight images one after another and, apart from the sequence you go through to delete individual images, I just would not have had the time during the shoot.

I’m thinking there must be some kind of issue either with the card, the camera (firmware version) or a combination of the two. Does anyone have any thoughts on this, or had similar (or other!) experiences with other makes of card?

Camera: Canon EOS 50D firmware version 1.0.3
Card: SanDisk Extreme III 4Gb CF (brand new, unused)

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration (pretty much an outright lie, really). I don’t have any great issue with Canon in general, it’s just with the PR people.

On the Canon UK website, they have a section of “PR Contacts” complete with names and email addresses. However, I’ve emailed them all and not had a single response. I suppose it could be a problem with junk mail in either direction, but I don’t seem to have junk issues with other people.

It puzzles me why a company such as Canon would want to tell you who to contact and then not reply. Maybe The Decisive Moment is not “press” enough for them?

So, if anyone at Canon UK (or anyone who knows someone at Canon) reads this post then please get in touch. We only want to be friends!

If any of our readers uses fotolibra.com, either for sales or as a source for purchasing images (I would expect our readers to be more likely to be selling) I would really like to hear your experiences.

We are not particularly looking for good or bad experiences; I’m exploring stock photography in general and I have always liked the fotoLIBRA format, even if only because it is different to the “usual” library way of working.

If you feel like sharing, you can add comments to this post, or you can use the contact form if you would prefer to keep it anonymous.

Thanks…

I’m not sure if anyone else will find this as funny as I do, but I recently read a comment by someone (and it was serious, I promise) and I need to share it.

They said “I recently discovered the work of Ansel Adams for the first time. It was fantastic, especially when you consider he did not even have digital to work with!”.

Perhaps it’s just me (or photographers of “a certain age” like me) but I think that is just brilliant!

The name of the commenter has been withheld for reasons of not wanting to ridicule anyone.

Spoke to my old friend Tony the other day. It’s been a while since we have spoken so we did the usual catch up on who is carrying what gear, where we’ve been, what we’ve done and so on. He has been making his living from photography for the last nine years or so and the content of his kit bag is a little more impressive than my own.

Anyway, he was telling me how he had gone to the tennis at Wimbledon this summer and he only took a compact with him. As luck would have it, he was sat just behind all the press photographers. Wishing he had taken his DSLR and long lens, he set about taking a few shots and making the best of the kit available.

The next day, Tony found a photo in the press that was virtually identical to one he had taken; not a huge surprise I suppose, considering he was just a few feet from the photographer. Even the fact that they released the shutter at the same moment was no great surprise as they were obviously all anticipating the same action.

The point is, having all the best kit is cool, but often the viewer will be unable to tell the difference. As I read on a blog recently, “the best camera is the one you have with you”.

And Tony’s comment (which I really liked) was “you won’t get the shot if you’re not there”.

PhotoLegal, the UK podcast about photography and the law is gearing up for a second series starting early in September with a new co-host.

Kate Day, Telegraph Media Group’s Communities Editor is joining existing hosts James Barisic, solicitor at Devon firm, Everys, and photographers, Darren Hector and Phill Price. The lawyer and photographers recorded 7 episodes in their first series earlier this year which notched up almost 10,000 downloads and reached No.1 in the iTunes Visual Arts charts several times.

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Today in the office we were (fairly pointlessly, I admit) comparing the advantages and disadvantages of the DSLR and the compact camera. Eventually, an obvious question was asked; what compact camera would a professional photographer carry?

I think this is a tricky question, because a pro photographer should be able to use any compact and do a pretty good job with it. So I guess the question really is, if you are used to the quality of an SLR, is there a compact that can really cut it as a substitute when you don’t want to carry all the kit?

For me as a Canon owner, I’d immediately go for the Canon G10, mainly for the fact it takes RAW images I can edit in the same software as my SLR shots. I presume Nikon and most other manufacturers have a similar model in their range, but I have to confess to not knowing what they are! I was quite excited by the new Olympus Pen but now I’m reading articles about it being a bit disappointing for not delivering the promise. I have not got my hands on one yet so I don’t speak from experience!

In the “old days” the Leica was king, but again I don’t know if they make a digital compact.

So what I’m asking for is readers’ opinions on top-notch compacts. Not “quite good at the price” compacts, but “fantastic and I wish I had the cash” compacts. Perhaps we can compile a list…