Senin, 30 Agustus 2010

How to Maximise Life on Camera Memory

Whilst digital camera memory is getting cheaper and faster all the time, it still pays to take care of your memory cards. Ideally we would all transfer data from our sd cards or cameras to computer and back them up, but in the real world, many of use leave half-filled cards stuck in our cameras until we next need to take a picture.

This is particularly the case where you have something like an 16gb sdhc memory card - i.e., an sd card that packs a lot of memory. The higher the memory capacity of your card, the more likely you are to leave images on your camera until space runs out. Whilst a 2gb sd card doesn't sound like a big capacity, it can carry the same number of images as 15 rolls of 35mm film!

If you don't take a huge amount of photos or video, you probably don't need to splash out on a high capacity card - a 2gb memory card is fine.

Beware of the dangers of leaving something like an 8gb memory card or higher in your camera. You'll discourage yourself from making regular downloads to your PC by having a high capacity card, which means you risk losing images if the camera gets lost, stolen or damaged. You can replace a camera, but lost images are gone forever. Whilst your insurance might cover the camera, it won't cover the 8gb sdhc card you paid as much as £18 for.

Regardless of the capacity of your memory card, applying some basic care rules will ensure not only that your sd cards will have a long and healthy life span but also that your precious pictures don't suffer. Be sure not to pull the memory card out of your camera the second you switch it off - the camera could still be transferring data from the buffer to memory. SD cards not built to withstand rough treatment, so be gentle when exposing the metal elements, such as during removal or transit. And don't try to remove the card whilst the camera is still on; the memory could get corrupted.

Few of us have any idea how to do it, but it's actually a good idea to reformat your memory card after each data download. Because so many of us download our pictures directly from camera to our PC, we rarely remove the card. However, if you want to switch a card between cameras or want to clear the files of photos, reformatting by going to 'set up' in your camera's function areas will ensure that you are starting with a 'clean slate'. By doing this you are less likely to encounter memory problems.

Worried that you've lost the images from your memory card? Don't fret. Software packages exist that are able to tease out the buried images on secure digital memory cards - provided that you haven't already written over the data. A quick search of the internet or a question at a photo development shop should answer any concerns you may have here.

To sum up, camera memory care is very simple and mostly common sense. SD cards may look small and unimportant, but they can carry a huge amount of data - stuff we want to keep. Extremes of temperature, moisture and general exposure are all enemies of digital memory cards.

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