Format new memory cards critical?

[whitey]

Hi

Let me start by saying I always format a new memory card. NOt sure why though.

Anyway need to know if its critical to do this.

The wife flew out to India for a few weeks yesterday, the Ixus 400 died as she was packing I was just cheking it out making sure it was charged and it died.

Anyway she is now in Delhi with a new Ixus 70 and 4GB card. She is not technical and I only wanna hassle her about formatting the card if its truely required.

[mickeyjuice]

I format the card every time I put it back into the camera.

[the foto fanatic]

The manuals always require it - I think it is advisable.

[mansunzz]

hi all, never formatted my cards before i used them for cameras. in my humble opinion, it's not important.

[team piggy]

I now always format the cards after each clearing.

I found issues especially where I would put a card unformatted into a D200 after being in a D70, and I couldnt retrieve any pctures.
Stopped the issue when I started formatting upon each new (Empty) card insertion.

[gstark]

hi all, never formatted my cards before i used them for cameras. in my humble opinion, it's not important.

If you want to maximise the available space on your cards, it is important.

Deleting images works in a very different way from formating, and the space is reserved and preserved and unavailable to you to be used until there is no other free space on the card. This can lead to file fragmentation on the card, which in turn leads to a reduction in usable space, as well as an impairment in your performance.

So, if you consider that the available space on your cards is unimportant, or if you consider that the performance of your cards is unimportant, then yes, I can see that you may be correct.

[Pehpsi]

Once I'm done with the shots, I put the card back in the cam then format it.

[Glen]

I have read that one of the reasons it is better to format in camera is that the FAT matches the camera. For that reason incamera formatting is preferred, as there would be no point in formatting the CF card in your brand new quad core computer at FAT32 or similar, then putting the card into your D100 which may use FAT12. That may explain Piggy's point as well, I am sure FAT would have changed with card sizes between a D70 and D200. So the idea of formatting is to ensure the card is formatted in a manner your camera can read.

[sirhc55]

I always format in camera