Card Failure

[davidbro]

Hello All,

Anybody experianced a card failure in a Nikon D90, had the disturbing aspect in the middle of a wedding shoot, all good in the end I was able to read the card at home at the end of the day. Must admit my heart skipped a few beats when the message popped up on the camera. New card by the way.

[I @ M]

All sounds a bit strange --- the message that "popped up" --- would you care to tell us what the message said please.

[ricktas]

Card failure can and does happen. It's just a fact of life. It has nothing to do with that camera you were using.

[wolffman]

I have one card which is a little dicky. I can't remember which error signal I get when it's put in the camera but every once in a while the camera fails to mount the card.
Taking it out and putting it back in once or twice normally does the trick.
Its probably on it's way out but it mounts ok on the laptop.

[Wayne]

This is one of the reasons I would never shoot a paid wedding with;

A. 1 body
B. a body that has 1 card slot

Glad you got out of jail with the card, but if you are doing paid weddings ,you need to start looking at a D3 as minimum for it's dual card slots and the ability to mirror.

[kiwi]

d7000 is dual slot, so is the d300s by the way

what sort of card ?

[Wayne]

Yes, forgot about those 2, but the D300S means 2 different card formats, which is a pain...

[davidbro]

This is one of the reasons I would never shoot a paid wedding with;

A. 1 body
B. a body that has 1 card slot

Glad you got out of jail with the card, but if you are doing paid weddings ,you need to start looking at a D3 as minimum for it's dual card slots and the ability to mirror.

The message as follows:-

This memory card cannot be used. Card may be damaged. Insert another card.

This is as per the manual on page 256 for a D90.

I now think that the above message prevents any further shots to be taken the card has failed from this point on... but I was not sure everything was ok from shot 1 to about 300... there was plenty of mental panic... I might add until a check at home.

Yes I have 2 bodies,

I fail to see the point of 2 card slot - I was 300 shots into the session - So how does 2 card slots of any use? Isnt this feature for quick change over when the card is full only, not as a backup of the same photo to 2 card slots, if so I dont know of this feature?

The card is a 16g class 10 Kingston SD - NEW; Not had a problem before with this brand or other brands?

The manual talks about approved memory cards on page 242 - Should I keep to the brands mentioned to ensure reliability?

Thanks for the comments guys.. I think it may be of interest to everyone......

At no time was I concerned that it was the camera... carry plenty of spare memory cards of various sizes...
which promotes another thought.... shot smaller card size, swap many times, keeps a restricted amount of potential lost shots?

[kiwi]

A few answers here, my opinion

Kingston is not as good as it could be I, use sandisk or lexmark only
The dual card slots allow you to use as backup (eg raw slot 1, jpeg slot 2) or overflow

Because of backup I usually use 8gb slot 1, 4gb slot 2 and have three sets of that combo