

Make sense? How to delete photos from a memory card: Conclusion And if you’re going to be shooting with your Canon body, format with the Canon body before heading out. So if you’re going to be shooting with your Nikon body, make sure you’ve first formatted your card with that Nikon body. The one hard and fast suggestion I do have when it comes to formatting is simply to format the card in whichever camera you plan to use it in next. It just makes sense to start fresh each time, because I can then upload everything on the card to one location and keep my files organized.īut this is really a matter of personal preference, at least as far as I’m concerned. Personally, I like to format my card before each new photo session.
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Some people like to wait until their card is totally full and then do their formatting.

These days, it’s pretty rare that I delete even a single image using any method other than formatting. I’d also like to add that I have personally seen a difference in the amount of corrupted images/cards that I’ve come across since I’ve been formatting cards. Not a bad trick to have up your sleeve in case of emergencies, right? Certainly, memory cards available today will be able to handle far more than 1,000 uses, but the general logic still holds – formatting your card causes less wear and tear on your memory card than other ways of deleting images.Īdditionally, because formatting only deletes the directory file instead of the images themselves, images on a card that has been formatted are typically much easier to recover (if needed) than images that are deleted manually, assuming you did not overwrite the formatted images by taking more photos. So in the scenario above, you’d have used only 501 of your memory card’s uses, as opposed to 1,000 when deleting manually. Therefore, formatting only counts as one use of your memory card, regardless of how many photos you’re deleting. This allows the images to be overwritten the next time you take a picture. Formatting works in a different way than deleting, because it only deletes the directory files rather than the images themselves. On the other hand, imagine that you’ve captured your 500 photos, but instead of deleting them with your Delete button, you use your camera’s Format function. So in all, you’ve just spent 1,000 uses of your memory card, leaving you with no uses left on that card. Deleting each photo individually counts as another 500 uses on your card. You then upload the photos to your computer, and then individually delete each photo using the Delete button on your camera. Let’s say that you go out and take 500 photos that’s 500 uses of your memory card. Imagine that your memory card has a shelf-life of 1,000 uses. However, the first three deletion methods are actually more taxing to the memory card than using the card’s Format function. In the end, all of the above methods work toward the same end, in that they remove the images from your card. If you’re in the middle of a shoot and you take a bad photo, you may be tempted to delete it right then and there with the Delete button. So here are the ways you should not delete your photos: Getting rid of each photo individually through the camera by using the Delete or Erase button However, I recommend you avoid them if at all possible. If your memory card is full, you may be tempted to use one of these methods to delete your photos. So if you’re looking for the best way to delete photos from your memory cards, read on! Less desirable ways to delete photos This isn’t something that’s talked about all that often, but when it comes down to it, it is really simple. That said, there are a few things we can do to maximize the lifespan of our memory cards, including deleting our photos off the memory card in the most efficient manner possible. You may have noticed that I said “nearly” endless, and that’s because memory cards do have a lifespan and will not last indefinitely. Now that digital cameras are on the scene and we’re using memory cards in place of film, the number of photographs that we can take in any given week or month is nearly endless. Our public high school relied heavily on film donations, and sometimes when there wasn’t any left, our teacher would have us walk around campus with our pointer fingers and thumbs shaped into a rectangle, pretending to take photographs. I can vividly remember running out, and sometimes having to wait weeks until I was able to buy more. Back in high school and college, I shot film.
