Scary lesson learned. Don't do as I did

tpatana

Well Known Member
Pro Member
Pro Member
Followers
2
Following
0
Joined
Feb 18, 2021
Posts
246
Likes Received
495
Name
Tero Patana
My friend pinged me to come take pics of her daughter playing volleyball. I thought sure, nice to catch up with her and maybe snap couple pics of the game too.

The game was early (for me) on Saturday at 2:30pm :) So wake up, grab my gear and rush out the door. Quickly checking the camera bag, I got R5, my 3 lenses that I might need and put in 2 cards from my office desk. Great.

Arrive at the location and open my camera bag.

Camera.jpeg


JFCMF*&^!@#$&%%

Like seriously. What is this, amateur hour? After 20 seconds of cursing to myself, light bulb moment. One of my principles is that I never run out of batteries, so I had 4 spare batteries in the bag. I can't use them in the grip since I need the sleeve, but taking off the grip, I was able to use them in the camera.

Then checking the memory cards, both had some 10k-14k pics in them. Important stuff I shoot dual card RAW (CFX) + JPEG (SD), less important JPEG + JPEG, and maybe 10% is just for fun at single card JPEG. I was 90% sure I had back-up both cards on my PC, but the 10% left me enough uncertainty that I shouldn't format the cards until I confirm. I was lazy to check how much space I had left on each card, so I just went single JPEG and auto-switch cards. In the end it was just some few fun snaps of my friend's daughter, not like I'd be delivering to customer.

So I snap pics here and there, but seems the other parents got excited to learn there was "pro" photographer, so ok fine I'll take more than few to cover most of the team at least click or two.

After game get home, about to eat dinner and I put my CFX card to the reader. Some reason Windows file explorer froze (not responding on the title bar). Didn't think much about that, went to eat dinner. After dinner, checking PC again the reader drive letter was not present in the folders. I unplug the reader and plug it in again.

efail.JPG


$#^@^%$

Windows was telling me I need to format the card.

Wrong day to quit drinking. What the f??? I've shot good amount over half million pics and I never had lost one image. I use reputable card brands and buy from reputable stores only, so losing data was expected to be rare. And today was the day when I shot single card only.

Quick try the card in the camera, and camera also tells me I must format the card.

Then google data recovery software. I tried multiple free ones, after short and some cases long scan time, most of them said there's ~20k files found but they weren't able to recover any. Few of the non-free ones said they found the files, but I had to pay to recover. I wasn't sure if they would actually work, since the free ones found the files too but couldn't recover. Finally one of them (DMDE) let me recover first 4000 for free and I was able to confirm it works. Paid $20 for full version to recover all files.

In the end happy ending but I paid $20 for the lesson.

HX9A4923.jpg
  • Canon EOS R5
  • RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM
  • 70.0 mm
  • ƒ/2.8
  • 1/1000 sec
  • ISO 3200


HX9A5097.jpg
  • Canon EOS R5
  • RF70-200mm F2.8 L IS USM
  • 70.0 mm
  • ƒ/2.8
  • 1/1000 sec
  • ISO 3200


Yea don't do like I did. From now on, I'll double check the camera has batteries inserted in the grip, and pretty sure I will always shoot dual-card from now on even for small fun shoots.

Btw volleyball is tough as there's always someone blocking the action. I don't know yet where I should position myself on the field to get good view on the player(s) I want to shoot.
 
Thanks for the reminder. I also shoot two cards and try to keep them clean enough to shoot whatever, but stuff happens. And I actually did find myself with a dead battery the other evening, and had to use my MBP as an external battery.

I never take my batteries out. I only charge in-camera. I don't even have a charger for the R7's LP-E6NH. I often top off the charge in the vehicle on the way to a game.

As for volleyball, it looks like you were in the places I go. Right side slightly back, left side at the net, and then I also go to the other side and shoot through the net. I haven't settled on the best place for that last one, but the middle of the back line works pretty well. Other players getting in the way is just part of it. It's part of almost every sport... which is why I like shooting tennis so much! :)

EDIT: ISO 3200, nice, I almost never get that.
 
Thanks for the reminder. I also shoot two cards and try to keep them clean enough to shoot whatever, but stuff happens. And I actually did find myself with a dead battery the other evening, and had to use my MBP as an external battery.

I never take my batteries out. I only charge in-camera. I don't even have a charger for the R7's LP-E6NH. I often top off the charge in the vehicle on the way to a game.

As for volleyball, it looks like you were in the places I go. Right side slightly back, left side at the net, and then I also go to the other side and shoot through the net. I haven't settled on the best place for that last one, but the middle of the back line works pretty well. Other players getting in the way is just part of it. It's part of almost every sport... which is why I like shooting tennis so much! :)

EDIT: ISO 3200, nice, I almost never get that.

My usual sports it's just the refs who get in the way. 1:1 martial arts so no other players to block the view. Volleyball was very different with lot of moving parts and players.

The lights was surprisingly good there, I was expecting 6400 or even higher but I was pleasantly surprised. Even at 3200 it was bit on the bright side, could have knocked down 1/3 stop.
 
As you did, I default to 1/1000 and f/2.8, so venues are assessed by ISO. This is a 6400 gym, that is a 14000 field, etc. Some sports I can go slower to save some of the ISO, but how they illuminate at 1/1000 and f/2.8 is kind of a standard for me.
 
I always shoot to two cards. I always download photos at the end of every day even if I don't reformat the cards. I always have batteries in chargers in my den and grab fresh batteries before leaving the house. In Africa, I BUP to an iPad running LR mobile and the pics go to the cloud and down to my home DT in LrC. And I don't reformat the second card till I get back to the US so I have the photos on a card, on the iPad, in the cloud, and on my desktop.
Yeah...suspenders and a belt is how I roll.
 
I had a brain function tonight too. I went to shoot HS wrestling. Got there, got all set up- R6.2 with the RF 70-200 F4; T3 with the 16-35 L F2.8 II USM; Pentax K50 with the 50 F1.8 plastic fantastic.

Go out check my R6 settings- good, same as last time: 1/500, F4, ISO6400. Get the T3 settings can’t remember what they were; Pentax set to 1/320, F2.8, Auto ISO. Perfect. Match is about to start.

Notice that the battery indicator in the R6 doesn’t show full battery. 🤔. Check the battery level- 56%. Wow, didn’t realize it was that low. No fear, I have an extra charged battery in the bag. Pop that battery in- uh oh, it’s at 18%, what?!. Plug that battery into an outlet behind me in the gym. It has about 90mins to charge during the JV match before varsity starts.

Get through the JV match and happen to notice my T3 was on JPEG the entire match. Doh. Happy ending though- I ended up not using the charging battery and jpeg will have to do. lol. Now I have to upload them so fingers crossed I don’t have any issues!
 
Last edited:
Well the grip doesn't work with the battery sleeve, can't put any batteries inside.
I think you actually mean the complete opposite, right?

But regardless, I wasn't saying it was a solution to the problem you had at that moment, but rather that in-camera charging could be something to add to your routine. You wouldn't get caught empty.
 
I think you actually mean the complete opposite, right?

But regardless, I wasn't saying it was a solution to the problem you had at that moment, but rather that in-camera charging could be something to add to your routine. You wouldn't get caught empty.

Yea meant it doesn't work without the sleeve which was home next to the chargers.

I tried the charging at one special case but in most times I have enough batteries to go through any full day, and then I can charge them home/hotel overnight for next day. Rarely have problem that the batteries are empty. Leaving battery sleeve home is now something that happened once so probably will check that before going out.
 

Latest reviews

  • Zoom Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM
    5.00 star(s)
    Fast, sharp, and lightweight! A great lens
    This is my main workhorse of a lens and I love it. It's very light weight (only around 2.3 lbs) lens. I've been able to hand-hold it for an event...
    • Crysania
  • Canon EOS R6 Mark II
    5.00 star(s)
    Fantastic sport camera
    This camera is FANTASTIC. I'm a dog sports shooter, so very fast indoor action with a lot of obstacles to shoot in and around. This camera does a...
    • Crysania
  • Zoom Canon RF 24-240mm F4-6.3 IS USM
    4.00 star(s)
    A good lens for what it does, with it's drawbacks
    I have had this lens since it came out and it is my lightweight go to lens for walking around in the city and using my infrared-converted camera...
    • Hali

New in the marketplace

Back
Top