As I got home to upload all my shoots of the day, I found out the card I had shot the entire session with was CORRUPTED. I could see all of the images on my camera but when I tried to upload them to my computer, everything crashed. Completely panicked I reached out to my network of Boston photographers (thank you Stacie, Caty and Vanessa). They all assured me this happens and that the recovery software would get the images back. They had been through it. I was at the store when it opened at 10 the next morning to buy the recovery software sold with the brand of card of used. After finishing up my shoots for the day I raced home, excited to recover the images.
No luck. The scan hijacked my computer for days and resulted in nothing. I called Tech Support and was reassured my images were not lost. We set up a different scan to run. No luck. This pattern continued and with each failing scan, my half full glass started to empty. In a final last ditch effort on a whim, I hooked my 50D up to my computer with the card inside. I was astonished when I could see some of the images on my computer. As I went to upload them, everything crashed. But I was a step further than I had been. My 5D Mark II and 3 card readers had failed to show this result. All of the recovery softwares had failed. But finally I had for a moment, albeit brief, seen the images on my computer. After a couple of tries, it became apparent that there was clearly something very corrupt happening with this card and as soon as the computer saw it, it crashed. But there was a brief window between the upload view start and the crash. I decided to try uploading just 2 images. I hooked up the photo uploader and as soon as my computer recognized a file, I would quick deselect all (the default), click a couple of images and upload before the camera/card reader loaded the corrupt portion. FINALLY...........success.......somewhat. I had two images from the shoot on my computer. I tried again. Two more images. The stress starting to leave. We had images. I kept at it. 2, then 3 at a time. Woot. Woot. The images were not lost.
It's been a SLOW and chaotic recovery process. I'm sure there will be a handful of images in the corrupt coding that I can't get back but for now, a couple of images at a time, but I could not be happier about being able to turn some images around for this family and little baby S.
So thank you to Christina, Jeff, Baby S and the entire family for being so understanding during this entire process. Thank you to my local photography networking group. I sent out my SOS at midnight on a Saturday night and had two responses within minutes. Your support and suggestions kept me going all week. Thank you to my 50D. I know I have abandoned you for my shiny 5D Mark II but as usual you were your old reliable self :- ). And thank you to the tech support at Sandisk and Rescue Pro who I'm sure starting cringing when my number popped up on their caller ID.
Turns out being a photographer can be a stressful job. Not brain surgeon, Coast Guard rescue pilot or NASA flight commander stressful BUT........stressful nonetheless. Photographing moments in people's lives and possibly being unable to deliver a photo is something I'd rather not experience again.
I am thankful I am in the habit of shooting all of my weddings on two cameras with multiple cards so no moments are lost.
My new wish list includes the Canon 1D which reads all images to 2 cards (IMMEDIATE backup).
Corrupt cards happen all the time......just not to me. And I did not enjoy it one bit.
So at long last, here is a quick preview from last week's shoot. I can't wait to turn all of the images around to you this week.
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