OK, that is rather a lame wordplay on the Latin “Cave Canem”, which means “beware of the dog”. So I mean “beware of the (wrong) memory cards”.
How so?
Bit of background. I always use only Sandisk or Lexar cards – they do work more reliably. And my images are important since I get paid for them, so why try to save? Better is, well, better. That does not mean I buy fast or large cards – but I buy brand names only.
So. My second shooter used an 8GB eye-fi card in her D90 camera the other day to shoot a wedding. This is a card that can connect to WiFi, but it also writes to local storage.
Allegedly.
The moment I inserted this card into my card reader, my iMac crashed. Hard. Grey screen of death. That happened twice. And now the card is unreadable on any machine.
Part of a wedding is something you must never lose. And yet this happened. Perhaps Eye Fi (www.eye.fi) can help restore the images? Perhaps, but so far, over 24 hours later, they have not responded to my email support request.
And this, my friends, is why I use only Sandisk and Lexar cards. And cameras that write to two cards at once (my 1Ds Mk3 and 1D Mk4). Live and learn, never again will I allow anyone who shoots with me to use anything except a freshly formatted Lexar and Sandisk. If your images are of equal importance to you, you will do the same.
And the wedding? Well – that is why we have two shooters and four cameras (with another in the car as a backup). The wedding couple will be happy. But I am not.