Clearing Out Your Memory Card
There have been several posts at The Online Photographer related to deleting photos and formating memory cards, but the one by Dave New called “To Delete or Not: Computer Expert” is pretty good from a technical standpoint. If you want a perspective from a photographer, see Josh Hawkins' post called “To Delete or Not: Photojournalist“. Carl Weese also makes some pretty good points in his post titled “To Delete or Not, That Is the Question…“.
If you've ever wondered if there is a right way or a wrong way to delete photos or transfer photos off of your camera, you'll probably find some sort of answer in at least one of those posts. These guys all make a pretty good case for not deleting your photos in-camera, and they also provide some good tips on how to handle these compact flash memory cards.
I'm personally guilty of deleting my photos in-camera, filling up the memory card, using a cut-and-paste method to transfer photos from the compact flash card to my hard drive, and not (ever) reformatting. So from here out, I vow to format my card after each time I dump photos off the camera. I can't make any promises for my other faults though.
Photo of the Day…
Photo by Brian Auer
04/23/05 Dana Point, CA
One-legged seagull at Salt Creek Beach Park
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3
420mm equiv * f/5.6 * 1/800s * ISO50
Natalie
August 12, 2007But this article doesn’t tell one HOW to format the memory card, which is what i need to know!!
Brian Auer
August 12, 2007You format using the camera. Usually you can find the format function within one of the camera’s menus. On my cameras, this function can be accessed when in picture preview mode.
John Morlock
February 4, 2010Your article helped me reformat my SD card. I could not find the info elsewhere, even at the manufacturers site. Thanks.