Nikon D70 question
Hi,
I've had this camera for about 7 years, taken 1,000s of pictures w/o ever formatting my memory card. Now I'm getting this "For" in the control panel and can't take any pictures. I've looked on line and can't find much info other than format the card. That doesn't work.
I've been using San Disk memory cards which are approved in the manual. I tried the two button format method on page 21, the green light doesn't blink, I tried different memory cards, tried formatting per page 160 in the set up menu.
Is there something else that I can do?
Any help would be great!
Thank you very much.
I've had this camera for about 7 years, taken 1,000s of pictures w/o ever formatting my memory card. Now I'm getting this "For" in the control panel and can't take any pictures. I've looked on line and can't find much info other than format the card. That doesn't work.
I've been using San Disk memory cards which are approved in the manual. I tried the two button format method on page 21, the green light doesn't blink, I tried different memory cards, tried formatting per page 160 in the set up menu.
Is there something else that I can do?
Any help would be great!
Thank you very much.
0
Comments
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Thanks again ziggy
I guess I would take the opportunity to upgrade if at all possible. As you said, the D70 is an older body and it has served you well for thousands of images.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
I also recently had my D70 repaired. Something was wrong with the memory card not recording and the viewfinder had some mold inside. The cost of repair was very high in comparison to the price of a replacement D70. Probably 60-70%. You might find it better to get something new, or even just find another D70 on ebay.
Good luck!
You've basically just worn out your memory cards, and/or your camera's read/write capabilities. Try buying new memory cards, try your memory cards in another camera. Those two tests should help you find out which is the culprit, if not both. Hopefully it's just the cards that need to be replaced.
The bottom line is that you REALLY should follow a strict download+format protocol when shooting thousands of photos over years and years.
You should always download ALL the images at once, (I highly recommend using a card reader since the original D70 is like, USB 1.0) ...and then IMMEDIATELY format the card, in the camera not the computer.
(Don't worry about losing your images if your computer all of a sudden goes up in smoke, you can simply run a recovery program on the card you just formatted and get ALL your photos back, no problem...)
Even if you have multiple cards, format them all right away and then put them back in your case so the next time you go out, they're all empty and you don't have to worry about which pictures have been downloaded, etc. You just NEVER EVER EVER want to find yourself in that situation, it is photographer suicide.
Unless you're already on-location and photographing a mission-critical event like a wedding or the very last shuttle launch, I prefer to format my cards *again* when I put them in the camera to shoot, even though they're empty.
It's just a good idea to create a clean connection between the memory card and the camera before you start writing pictures to the card, and it's also good to have the card be 100% wiped-clean before shooting. It is not good to ask the camera to try and remember which images were deleted and which images are not, because remember a deleted image is not actually deleted, it is just made invisible until it is over-written. If you do this regularly for years and thousands of images, you will wear out your memory cards, or worse you'll begin to get corrupt images.
Hope this information + opinion was helpful!
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
I just read all the responses and here's what happened!
I had originally been using a SunDisk 1.0 GB card for a few years, never formatted it without any problems. Then someone gave me two 8 GB SunDisk cards. I've been using one of them for the past few years again w/o formatting,
So I tried the other 8.0 and it said For. So I tried to format it, (not using the two buttons) and the For was GONE!!!!!! Took a picture and that worked too!
I then put back the old 8.0 and it said For so I again formatted it and it WORKED TOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know what really happened because I tried over and over to format the old 8.0 and it never worked. I did try the unused one but after reading the For I didn't try formatting it. and never tried the old 1.0.
What a relief! I hope I'm not celebrating too soon. hoping it won't happen again.
Thank you all for your kind responses.
This place is so helpful.
I got a lot of help a while back on how to take panoramas and I still take them all the time.
Thank you x100000000000000000000!!!!
Wow Matt, Thanks for taking the time to write all this.
Do you have a preference on formatting? (The two button method vs. the menu method in the monitor?)
How long does it normally take to complete the formatting process?
Each time it took about 10 seconds before the control panel either said For or was back to normal.
Does it take longer than that? How do I know it has completed the process?
Thank you for all your help!
FIGHT ON
I do the two button method. Its faster than digging through the menus.
I just formatted an 8GB card in my D70 just to see and it took about 5 seconds. My cards are always immediately formatted so maybe they are "cleaner" than yours were?
On my cameras, first, you'll see all of your images are gone. Also, the camera will display "Folder COntains No Images". Finally, the image counter will shoot back up to some big number. I know for example that on my D700, given XX card, it will display 303 images if formated. So if I put in a card and I see the frames remaining counter displaying 250 images, then there is something on the card.
However, as per the advice already given, I'd say it's time for some new memory cards. These are probably quite worn out, and you'd rather not risk image corruption down the road. A medium-fast 4 GB or 8 GB card is pretty dang cheap these days, maybe just the price of a half-dozen rolls of nice film. ;-)
BTW, I format using the menu but it' the same either way. Just have a method and always do the same thing, so you leave as little room as possible for accidents.
And yes, you should be formatting your memory card every time it is removed from and re-inserted into the camera. It's not mission critical 100% of the time, but a good practice to do every time your workflow will allow. For long-term purposes. It's just not good to have certain images stay on the camera forever, while others are captured and deleted over and over again. If you come back from a shoot, you download and format. The only time I don't bother to download and format right away is if I'm just snapping casually around the house...
Take care,
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Thanks Matt!
It feels similar to when you think you lost something and find it after looking for a few days! What a relief!
I'm a little confused though after reading the part about removing the card and formatting. I didn't know that. I thought formatting was done only after I deleted the images after transferring them to my computer.
Is that right?
And I don't remove the card when I transfer images to my computer.
Is it only necessary to format after deleting all the images or if I remove the card? or both?
Do I need to remove the card as part of the formatting process?
Please forgive me for asking what seems to me to be a bunch of stupid questions but I am scared to death for this to happen again.
Thanks for all your help!
FIGHT ON
You definitely do NOT need to take the memory card out of the camera to transfer images. The only reason I recommend taking the card out and using a reader is because the original D70 is laughably slow with it's transfer speed. If you use the D70's built in USB connection, you're going to be transferring your images at 12 megaBITS per second. Even if that were megaBYTES, that would still be dinosaur speed. Basically, they call it USB 2.0 but it's actually USB 1.1. As far as I konw, they never fixed this with a firmware update, because the D70s came out with real USB 2.0.
But, if you're only ever shooting a few pictures at a time, then I suppose it won't be that agonizing. However if you ever find yourself even surpassing 1 GB worth of photos that need to be downloaded at once, let alone 4-8 GB, ...you'll save hours and hours if you get a Firewire or at least USB 2.0 card reader... A Sandisk FW 400+800 CF reader is something like $40 or $50; and ~300x memory cards are down to about the same depending on the capacity. A small price to pay for saving SOOOOO much time in your life...
Now, concerning habits of formatting. Bottom line- Whenever you download your images, however you do it, it is good to download EVERY image on the card, and then format the card when you're done.
If you use the camera's USB port, then just use the format options on the camera (not erase all) after you're done downloading, ejected the device, (on a mac) ...and you've confirmed that the images are actually on your computer.
If you use a card reader, then your procedure would be to take the card out of the camera, download to the computer in a reader, put the card back in the camera, and format after confirming a safe download.
And even if you only ever NEED one card, it's a good idea to have 2-3 at hand so you can rotate them out after each shoot. It gives you a buffer of 2-3+ photo shoots where you're not over-writing your memory cards. So in case your computer dies or for whatever reason you find the images weren't downloaded properly, you can go back and recover the images off the card even though it was formatted. (Because as I mentioned early, formatting in the camera doesn't actually erase images, it just makes them invisible until new pictures are saved on top of them.)
I know it sounds like I'm spending your money left and right, but honestly there is just no free lunch if you want your images to be safe. Spending a few extra bucks to have a safer digital workflow is nothing compared to going back to film!
I hope this clarification helps. And like I said, these aren't absolute rules, just habits that you should try and get into (almost) every time you shoot. It is just not good to be downloading images piecemeal, deleting images one by one, and letting them stay like that for months at a time. That is a great way to get corrupt images, and I speak from experience with an original D70. At about 100,000 images, which is often the read/write life of a normal memory card, I started getting corrupt images left and right. I've since changed my download and format habits, and have never had the problem again... Well, I have a corrupt image here and there from time to time, but I'm clicking a hundred thousand images a year these days, for work. I like those odds...
Take care
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Good stuff.
Amazing, this formatting subject. Do other Nikon cameras (newer) require the same formatting procedure? What about Cannon or other camera brands?
Thanks again for taking all this time to write.
I appreciate all the help!
FIGHT ON
In a word: Yes.
I recommend in-camera formatting for every card and every camera, regardless of type.
The problem is how the cards organize the image files.
Similar to a hard drive, a flash card needs to organized in as simple a sequence as is possible. If you do file deletions that leaves "holes" in the file sequence structure. If subsequent files are larger or smaller, and they always are larger or smaller than the hole, that leads to fragmentation of the organization as files are split into segments. Add the "load leveling" that flash cards employ to spread the wear amongst the entire storage volume of the card, and you get a very complicated structure in short order.
If you try to completely fill the card, the card's directory/FAT (File Allocation Table) becomes complex enough to start "forgetting" which are open spots and which are occupied and the card may start to overwrite clusters that are already in use. At this point the card is said to be "corrupted" and the card may continue to merrily write over occupied clusters, destroying good data in the process. Since the card does not detect the corruption, you won't get any indication in the camera either.
The best way to avoid this corruption is to in-camera format and never field delete files. Also don't try to completely fill the card. Doing those things keeps the directory structure as simple as possible and helps prevent corruption and file loss.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
merrily...
So what is field deleting? what I just did? Then how do you delete the images?
What I regularly do is load the images on my computer with the cord and then delete the whole bunch of them. Is that field deleting? how else would I delete the images?
I know these are dumb questions but I am really interested.
and thanks for all your imput Mr. Ziggy!
FIGHT ON.
If you have multiple cards, say from a vacation or something, then what I do is first load all of them onto the computer. Then reformat the cards one after the other after loading the cards. Just pop a card in, format it, then pop the next card in and format that one as well.
As was mentioned by Matthew I believe, it is a good idea to reformat each card after changing to it in the field as well, which is just a final check to make sure each card has been cleared.
Thank you.
So, YES you should always format your cards after you download them, and yes it is good to do it in the camera.
However deleting a few images here and there in the camera isn't really the end of the world, just don't do it TOO incessantly, and if you are a "deleter", try and switch cards before they get to 100%, and download / format the cards often.
:-)
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Generally I format the cards after the images have been processed and the output images are posted on SnugMug.
You cannot be too careful.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
However you are right, it is important to also get your images onto TWO separate devices before the end of the night. Personally, my images are on 4-6 devices before I go to sleep after shooting a wedding. Not because I'm that OCD, it's just the way my workflow goes... (formatted memory cards, laptop, desktop, two on-site external drives, and an off-site external drive in a top secret location. ;-)
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
My neighbor had purchased a nikon d-70 about the same time I did. I rarely speak to her but saw her at a neighborhood party about a month ago. I told her about formatting the card. She had no idea what I was talking about. never heard of it.
The next time I spoke to her was two days ago. While on her vacation to Europe she woke up ready to use her camera and sure enough, there it was, the big FOR.
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum