When photographing ballroom dance events, the action on the dance floor is the focus. Especially at a Showcase event where there are choreographed routines that are performed by solo couples, the action photos take priority over all the other photos of the day. Other photos that I make during the day include the decorations, the table centerpieces, and posed portraits. Some dancers like to have their photos taken while not under the pressure of being in front of the audience and judges during their routines. I can understand! You can face the camera exactly how you want to be angled, and you can hold lines perfectly for the camera which is difficult to do while dancing.
Event Workflow
This brings me to the point of the post today regarding memory cards. I took some photos off the floor of some couples at the event. In the hustle and bustle of the day, I did not download the card with these photo right away, and kept them in my Nikon D4. I then went back to photographing action with my other camera, a Nikon D700. When I started to run out of space on the card in the D700, I reached for the card in the D4 to continue shooting. One of the limitations of the older D700 is that this camera cannot display files created by the D4. It is also a good practice to format cards prior to using a new card to ensure that files are not corrupted when re-writing to a memory card. Well this is where my problem started. When I checked the D4 card in the D700, it said that there were no images on the card. So I reformatted the memory card before starting to use it in the D700. GONE! Of course, I did not discover this until yesterday as I was editing the photos from the event.
Is this still a common practice by photographers? Am I being too cautious by always reformatting cards prior to using them in a camera? If I had not done this to the card prior to shooting, I would likely still have the images. I am trying to see if any data recovery software could possibly get any of the images back, but I am not hopeful. Please let me know your thoughts on the subject!
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