Please help!

[henniebez]

I just got my Carl Zeiss 16-80 mm. So happy! I ve taken a few photos to try out the lens to see if everything is okay! Works beautifully! Suddenly going back to review the photos it suddnely black out. Or just freezes. At some of the photos it just stated "not able to display". Trying to download the photos I got on all of them cause an error on the computer stated that there were some files corrupted. I bought the camera overseaes so I can't just send it back. Could it be the memory card? I have a Sandisc 4 gig ultra II. Has anyone had the problem? I am shutterd seing that I am a student who just spent almost all of my savings on camera equipment.

I have put this on dpreview, but seeing that the master David is banned from dp its now here on as well.

Excuse the poor English

Hennie

[David Kilpatrick]

I would be a little doubtful about a 4GB Sandisk Ultra II. The price and speed bracket involved make forgery almost likely - Sandisk has had a real problem with forged cards, even selling through big retailers, over the past year or two. The symptoms you describe are identical to those of the forged cards which appeared in 2006 (smaller sizes - 2GB).

Before you even think about a camera fault, suspect the card.

David

[LeyOMM]

I´m agree with David, try another card... come cards gives you a lot of memory but they really don´t work fine


See you!
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[AndyG]

I had some issues with own-brand CF (2Gbyte) from 'mymemory.co.uk', but no problem with a Sandisk UltraIII 2Gbyte from the same supplier so I'd agree that a different card may work OK.

Cheers,

Andy

[David Kilpatrick]

The 'mymemory' card was so-called 133X. It's a Toshiba, otherwise sold as Danelec and many other brands. The problem is it is genuinely 133X read in the computer (14.5MB/sec on our system) but it is worse than a 40X card in the camera. The write speed even on a Firewire reader is no better than 2.5MB/sec, and this type of so-called '133X' card slows nearly every camera down to minimum speed.

Yes, they were cheap (other brands are now just as affordable). I gave our mymemory 2GB to our daughter to use in her Canon 400D. It deserves it

David

[AndyG]

Interestingly enough, speed wasn't a problem - although it might have been at Elvington in August for the airshow but by then I had the Sandisk.

What I was getting was one of:

- a grey or multicoloured band at the bottom of some images but only on the camera LCD and running to the bottom of the LCD (i.e. starting near the bottom of thee image and running off the image to the bottom of the screen). These images loaded OK on the PC (with one exception)

- images that wouldn't display on the camera but loaded OK on the PC

- (third and wierdest) one image that was a double-exposure on the camera display and the PC but not in thumbnail view on Corel Photo Album6

As all cards I had behaved the same I was worried about the camera but bought a Sandisk and that has been fine.

Cheers,

Andy

[David Kilpatrick]

If you had problems like this with three cards, I would first check your initialising/formatting procedure, and if it ever happens again, get the camera looked at. It is not worth the risk of ever having a DSLR with erratic behaviour; you never know when it will go into terminal downspin.

David

[AndyG]

With my Electronic Engineer's hat on, the fault seems to relate to the own-brand cards - all 3 showed at least one of the three issues whereas the Sandisk has been fine. This would tend to eliminate the camera as a factor however having worn the hat for many years, I'll keep a watch for any odd behaviour with the Sandisk as well

As a cross check I may try and persuade the other A100 owner in our office to do some tests with a mymemory.co.uk card rather than his usual Sandisk...

Cheers,

Andy