wedding disaster - photos wiped

[sleep envy]

just got off the phone to my cousin who's in floods of tears

apparently the photographer has managed to lose all the photos of her wedding

the video is fine but will she be able to get decent stills off the video?

[Soovy]

sleep envy said:

just got off the phone to my cousin who's in floods of tears

apparently the photographer has managed to lose all the photos of her wedding

the video is fine but will she be able to get decent stills off the video?

That is AWFUL for her. Were the photos oin an SD card? If so then MAYBE they can be retrieved.




Does he still want paying?

Edited by Soovy on Thursday 30th October 13:07

Edited by Soovy on Thursday 30th October 13:08

[Hughesie]

Depends, was it filmed in HD ?

Have they tried to recover the photos using a retrieval disc - i think Scandisk do an image recovery disk (provided it was on disc and not film)

[sleep envy]

he's managed to avoid knee capping so far but it can be put back on the cards if he mentions money

[sleep envy]

Hughesie said:

Depends, was it filmed in HD ?

Have they tried to recover the photos using a retrieval disc - i think Scandisk do an image recovery disk (provided it was on disc and not film)

no idea, not sure of the details but I take it that it will make a difference??

yep, the stills are lost

[/IT numpty]

[cirks]

Perhaps give the photographer a call and ensure they really are lost and can't be recovered from the memory card. Your cousin will be too emotional whereas you can try to help.
I'm of course assuming the photographer hasn't already checked all possible ways of getting the pictures back and that it was a memory card issue rather than theft etc.
As for the video, if shooting in HD then you should be able to get some good images from it if not as good as the original stills.

[EmmaP]

If he hasn't reformatted the cards then he may be able to recover most of the files.

To lose all is careless and highly unprofessional. To have a card error and lose all is very unfortunate - it has happened to me. I used Lexar Image Rescue software to retrieve the lost files. As Hughesie said, Sandisk also produce rescue software.

If he shot film then your cousin is %@£$!&

Not much consolation, but wedding photographers worth their salt have insurance to cover this. He should be able to offer some form of monetary compensation.

Edited by EmmaP on Thursday 30th October 13:40

[Scho]

There might be ways of recovering the data using a professional data rescue firm.

I'd get some more specifics off the photographer as to how the data was lost and then contact a couple to see if they can help. if they say yes then obv the photographer has to foot the bill.

I can't believe he lost all the files.... IDIOT!

hope you get it sorted.

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

He might just had his stuff nicked or course. Unless we can get word directly everything else is just idle speculation.

As for stills of video, yes you can get some nice shots. Just don't expect to blow them up to A4 size and them look any good.

[sleep envy]

nope not nicked - he said when he transferred the images from chip to laptop he had a failure

[baz7175]

So now we know for sure they're digital.

Has he tried pulling the files direct from the camera and also via card reader incase whichever option he's using has screwed the card up?

If the card is screwy in such a way as it gave a weird error on the cam during the day of shooting you can normally pull the images shot before the error directly from the card without funky software, only from the error on are normally corrupted.

See if you can find out what the error is - wouldn't be the first time I've had someone mention they got an error when transferring only to find out that it was actually their PC that was the problem as it had little to no space left in it, virtual memory too low etc etc

Otherwise if it is definitely the card which throws up errors then recovery software all the way (used on cards and drives in the past and ALWAYS been able to recover everything).

ETA - Just goes to show why it's always a good idea to shoot IMPORTANT days on several different smaller cards, than one big card - that way if one card plays up you only loose a period of the day and not the whole thing

Edited by baz7175 on Thursday 30th October 14:17

[sleep envy]

ok, thanks guys

think I understand what's being said here - will report back once I've been on the blower to him

[cliff123]

If your in contact with the photographer, ask, or recommend that he contact the manufacturer of the card(s) and has them look into recovering the images. If he's formatted the disks then there is no hope and he needs a new career. All the best with it all.

I would also expect the photographer to offer to do a re-shoot of at least the bridal couple, paying for the dress to be dry cleaned for the shoot and obviously providing prints afterwards free. He should have insurance for just this sort of thing.

[EmmaP]

For this very reason I always use smaller cards and make sure that I have images on several cards.

[Funk]

You'd be surprised what can be recovered.

There's free software that might be worth a look at. From the same people that make CCleaner (very reputable, works brilliantly) there's 'Recuva'

http://www.recuva.com/

It's slightly more complex because it's on a memory card (could be issue with the camera read/write and directory structure) but if he's not formatted the card or done anything daft with it, it SHOULD be recoverable. I've done quite a bit of data recovery from all sorts of media, often with good success. If the card is reading in a card reader ok, then it could all work out ok.

There are professional companies out there who specialise in this and should be able to help. Most important thing is to tell him NOT to do anything with the card in the interim until someone knowledgeable can help. Even a formatted disk can be recovered in many cases. It's harder to permanently erase data than most people realise.

If I can help at all, let me know. It must be horrific to realise that all your wedding pictures have vanished - I'll bet the photographer feels awful as well.

Edited by Funk on Thursday 30th October 14:47

[cirks]

It really is worth speaking to him to find out what he's tried. I'm assuming he's not just believing whatever his software is telling him rather than really looking himself....I had 2Gb worth of photos on my card the other day which card reader software and the camera was saying "no images" or "no images to download" but I could still access the images perfectly well via the normal explorer folder structure. My error was caused by my hard-disk filling up and the download software crashing. I recovered everything without using recovery software.

[pauljc]

I have recovered images from reformatted cards. As long as you dont rewrite over them they should still be recoverable. I always copy from CF to PC. Not sure what happens to the card if you select MOVE to PC.

[miniman]

Surely to God a pro photographer would (a) not put an entire wedding on a single card and (b) know a little about data recovery?

[ThatPhilBrettGuy]

miniman said:

Surely to God a pro photographer would (a) not put an entire wedding on a single card and (b) know a little about data recovery?

I've asked him and he says 'yes, I did create a few of them'.

I think the word 'pro' is widely misused and misunderstood.

[sleep envy]

corrupted

still awaiting a return call from the photographer but spoke to my cousin who was less emotional this time she said that she's only lost due to a corrupted card the ones after the church and of the cake (!)

I take it that all is not lost??