New member full of dumb questions !!!

[yogi]

Hi all !... Have been lurking for a few weeks, learnt a heap;My compliments to the chef...
Finally did the deed two weeks ago & handed over my life savings to "Uncle TED " (decided it was time to move on from my old Nikon FE )

Dumb question No. one :- Can I take the C.F.card out of my "Canon IXUS 400 " and put it into my Beautiful new D70 without blowing something up,
or do I have to re-format the card, going from one to the other???


P.S. I'm also computer lisdexic so this is also a steep learning curve.
P.P.S. Have signed up for the C.A.E. "Basic Digital Photography "course.

Ta in advance,
...a trainee gerriatric..

[stubbsy]

Yogi

Welcome to the forum.

A CF Card is a CF card - but to start fresh, format it in the D70 first. Hopefully it's a decent size. Nothing smaller than 512 Mb is useful, most here use 1 Gb and up. Each image when shooting RAW (which is best) is about 5 Mb - you do the maths

[Nnnnsic]

I disagree with thst number, stubbsy.

Nothing smaller than 128mb is useful. I use 128mb cards all the time.

[Onyx]

Yogi, you can simply slip the CF card from your old camera into the new. It won't blow anything up and you won't use any of your images. In fact, the D70 is clever enough to make a new folder on the CF card to store the images you take on it.

That was one of the observations I made regarding the Fuji S3 and the D70. The Fuji will 'read' files written by the D70 (ie. show on the rear LCD of the camera) but the D70 cannot read files written by the Fuji S3.

You can even keep data on the same CF card as you keep your images, (bearing in mind you'll lose this data should you format the card).

[yogi]

Thanks for the quick reply Stubbsy.

Once the card is formated is it then formated for whichever camera I put it in??? Nikon or Canon ??

What is formating anyway ? ( The short answer will suffice. )
Ta.

[yogi]

Thankyou Onyx,,

I think I get the idea now.

Ta.
David.

[W00DY]

Thanks for the quick reply Stubbsy.

Once the card is formated is it then formated for whichever camera I put it in??? Nikon or Canon ??

What is formating anyway ? ( The short answer will suffice. )
Ta.

Formatting is basically just clearing the card of all data. You can format a card in a Nikon and then use it in a Canon if you want.

W00DY PS: Welcome

[Greg B]

yogi, check out p.160 of your d70 manual for info on formatting the card. You can do it from the menu or by pressing two buttons on the camera.

Good practice is to reformat the card each time after you have transferred the images to your computer (as opposed to deleting the images from the card) It might seem like a strange distinction, but you can worry about that later.

Welcome to the forum.

[leek]

Good practice is to reformat the card each time after you have transferred the images to your computer (as opposed to deleting the images from the card) It might seem like a strange distinction, but you can worry about that later.

Never mind later...

What is the distinction???

[Andyt]

My 2 cents.......... The distinction is that when deleting files from the CF card in the camera the file remains until the space is required.
(Delete a pic in camera and before the card is full upload to the 'puter, you can see the file but can't open it)
Formatting the card (preferably in camera) erases all stored data in effect leaving a "clean" formatted (file allocation table to store data) card to store pics. By this method, as mentioned ealier there is no chance of a stray file/folder/Data being left behind to confuse "Deefers" little brain. Ever seen a D70 try and read a MP3 file? Great fun so long as its not yours!!!!

Yogi, I regularly swap my CF cards between Nikon and Canon, but am always sure to format in camera when loading them.

As an aside, good house keeping like good habits will on occassion save the day, especially when you are under pressure and have to get the pic, always format when reinstalling a card, it erases and prepares the card for the next batch!! ............. I am sure there will be a flurry of opinions as each to his own

Andy

[gstark]

What is the distinction???

Let me take Andyt's explanation a little further, as there's a bit more to it than what he's said.

First of all, formatting the card isn't so much clearling the card (or memory, or disk) but preparing it to accept and store data for later retrieval.

Basically, as you save data, it's put down sequentially, in the order in which you save it. Delete a file from the middle of what yo've saved, and you leave a hole somewhere in the middle.

Next time you go to save something (and that space is available, which might not be right away) the data goes into that hole. If the file is bigger than the hole, than the remainder goes to end of where the rest of the data lives.

This leads to what we call fragmentation which can slow things down quite considerably. This is not a good thing.

Formatting bypasses that issue, and just lays down the basics as a fresh volume.

[Greg B]

Thank you gentlemen, for that excellent explanation.

[Deano]

P.P.S. Have signed up for the C.A.E. "Basic Digital Photography "course.

Yogi,

I have done two courses at the CAE including this one. Before I did the courses I had read a bit and played a little. I found these courses to be aimed very much at the absolute beginner. This extended to some very simple and incorrect explainations being given (I even had a disagreement with the tutor at one point). Although I learned a few things, I didn't consider them to be value for money. However, for an absolute beginner they may be more useful.

Just my $0.02

Cheers
Dean

[leek]

This leads to what we call fragmentation which can slow things down quite considerably. This is not a good thing.

I know that fragmentation on a hard-drive can slow things down coz it causes the heads to move all over the place when reading a file, but why would it slow a directly addressed memory card down? There might be a little processor overhead, but not much...

Personally, I don't think that the difference between deleting all files and formatting the card would be all that significant...
I can understand the need to reformat infrequently to wipe the slate clean in case the FAT had errors...