Gilligan
Contributor
During today's dive after about a dozen photos I got a "Card Error" message in the monitor. It also asked me if I wanted to "Format" or "Power Off". Heck no I don't want to format. I turned the camera off then back on to the playback mode. I was able to view the pics and figured the problem was solved. I turned the camera back on to the picture taking mode and got to take one more pic then the "Card Error" message again. This time I was not able to view the pics in the playback mode nor take any more photos.
Once home I inserted the Smart Media Card in my card reader and it was not able to open it. I tried the USB cable from the camera with no luck there either.
Only option left that I could see was to reformat the card and lose everything on it. It's not like I don't get to dive often so no big deal. I would have been bent out of shape big time if I had photographed a whale underwater, or worse still, encountered one after the camera quit.
Is this card still good? Who knows. I'll use it on land and test it out.
My point here is:
Should us Smart Media Card users be reformatting these cards periodically instead of just erasing or deleting their contents? This is the first time in two years of using these cards that this has happened to me. I started out erasing the card via the camera then switched to deleting their contents via the card reader.
