SD card problem

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 3:52 pm

I recently purchased a 4 gig SD card for my Nikon D50. I am going to the autoshow on saturday and wanted to make good use of it. Anyway, the recommended max size for the D50 is 2 gig. However I've been told that if you format in a computer, it will be fine.

So I get the card and plug it into the slot in 2 different HP laptops. I cannot get the card to appear in explorer so that I can format it. SHouldnt even an unformatted drive appear? Im hoping that it isnrt messed up so that I can go crazy shooting some cars this weekend.

Post by **Francious70** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 4:30 pm

It should show as an unformatted storage device in explorer, sound like you either have a DOA or have the lock turned on. Look on the back of the card and make sure the switch is set from "Lock" to "Unlocked"

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 11:15 am

yup, checked for the lock. I was afraid it was DOA. oh well, guess I will have to like with 3 gigs this weekend at the autoshow

Post by **Francious70** » Tue Feb 13, 2007 12:24 pm

Hahaha, ONLY 3 gigs??

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:46 am

when shooting RAW, an image can be up to 7 megs...It goes fast when you arent around a computer to dump them on. I've gone through 3 gigs in 2 hours shooting snowboarding sequences.

Post by **Francious70** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:25 am

Yea, but that's when they're formatted as RAW data. most programs, hell even OS's, don't handle RAW data. Why don't you shoot in JPEG or 24 bit bitmap formats??

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 9:37 am

Francious70 wrote:Yea, but that's when they're formatted as RAW data. most programs, hell even OS's, don't handle RAW data. Why don't you shoot in JPEG or 24 bit bitmap formats??

If you're interested in any kind of non-destructive editing or you need to change things like exposure or what not, RAW blows a compressed format like JPEG out of the water.

No professional digital photographer would use JPEG as the original source format, ever.

Post by **Francious70** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 10:57 am

I'm not arguing that, but most of us here arn't professional photogs.

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:12 am

I understand you weren't implying professionals use JPEG.

It just seems like joyride here is pretty damn serious about photography so I "defended" his remark about RAW because I know what difference it can make in editing and such, all that work after the shoot. Owning a D50 and filling up 3GB in 2 hours shooting snowboard sequences just seemed pretty damn serious about it to me.

Post by **stipud** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:15 am

One look at his website says it all: http://homepages.wmich.edu/~j2cervin/

Post by **Francious70** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 11:31 am

Well, that certainly makes sense. He's a professional photog.

joyride · Post by **joyride** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:58 pm

haha...not a professional at all. Just some thing that I do on the side to waste time. But yes, RAW is the only way to go. Changing white balances and exposeres is worth the size.

Post by **Wakeup** » Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:06 pm

BTW, did you try going to the Disk managment console to see if the memory stick is there?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000

By default a non partitioned drive will show no Drive letters let alone drives in Explorer or anywhere. Since the drive (memory)has not been initialized or partitioned. So assuming the memory stick is still good....(you can verify by going to disk management) and then format the stick there and assign a drive letter to it.