I lost my pictures again
 

I went to Italy some 20 odd years ago and lost my first set of Italians pictures ( a long story) that I took, which i never got over. This past year I started planning my trip, I reseached everything read every message on this board and others. The entire trip( 3 weeks) went flawlessly had a great time trip report to follow. I was so excited I bought a new digital camera so I could take a million new pictures. I maxed out the memory card a few times, went to have them burned into a cd to start again happily snapping away at everthing every angle a few of each to make sure I captured absolutely everything. I came home put the cds in the computer ready to show my family and friends to discover that some how I lost 300 pictures from Florence and beautiful Cinque Terre now I can't stop thinking about them never getting over the first set then it happens again I am very upset but I did throw coins into Trevi so heres hoping to return to do it all again...stay tuned

Oh, nooooo!!!!

I'm a photo-happy person and I know how I'd feel if I were you.

How can you stand the situation? I'd plan for another trip to Italy right now, to go there by the New Year's.

I can't stand it, it did cross my mind to go back right away have time coming up found out while I was away that I will be layed off from my job in Oct. but I'm more upset about my pictures than I am about my job which I actually like. I was traveling with my mother so I will see what pictures she has and make copies but it's not the same.

If it was the last set you took, they can probably be retrieved. See this thread for information.
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34839029

There was another longer thread, but can't locate it at the moment.

Did you look at the CDs at the time they were burned? When I download pictures to my computer I sure look to make sure they are "somewhere" else before deleting my memory card.
For me it is another reason to just take a LOT of memory cards rather than download somewhere that you are unfamiliar with. Memory cards can also be downloaded to some Ipods.

I can imagine how you feel - that's my worst nightmare. I'm sure you'll be ultra careful next time but just in case- make sure you have back-up. I guess I'm just not a trusting person cause I always have back-up (not just for photos, for example I would never turn in a paper to a professor without making a copy first and now that I am a professor I find it amazing how many students trust that I won't loose their precious work). But back to the photo issue. Memory cards are really cheap now if your search on-line. While still moderatley expensive if you just go to your local Best-Buy, on line I've found 1 gig cards for about $20 on line. So take five of them, that would be enough for most people. I even made a special pouch for them out of plastic baggies and carry them in my money belt along with my extra credit cards and passport. But you could, as back up, have them burned to a CD while traveling. Just know that a full 1gig card won't fit on a CD (would have to be a DVD and not all places burn those). But then just have that as back-up, don't erase the memory card.

You could also get a portable hard drive device to download them to. But make sure it's one DESIGNED for photos. They are fairly expensive (about $300) and they are another thing to carry. For $300 think how many memory cards you can buy. But whatever you do, don't count on an iPod. I bought one specifically for downloading photos, the music aspect was going to be just an added benefit as far as I was concenred. It has never worked right, been incredibly frustrating, they won't repair it (say there is nothing wrong with it) and I have lost many images that it says were downloaded that I can't retrieve from it. Thank god I didn't erase the memory cards. Sorry, but for photo storage, iPod sucks.

So sorry to hear about your photos. But at least you have the photos in your mind, and you will return!

A few thoughts about the lost images:

Are you positive the images aren't on the CD? Some image viewing and editing programs will only show JPG, and if you shot in RAW, those files won't appear on the list by default. For example, if you open up MS Word and then go to open a file, usually the default is for all DOC files to appear. If you have an XLS file in that same folder, it won't show up.

Also, not sure what resolution your camera takes, but 300 images on an 8 mega pixel camera shot in RAW is about 3 Gig. As a CD holds just under 700mb, that would be 5 discs, a lot of images to disappear. It's really important to know how many CDs to expect back from the shop, and to number the CDs as you go, so you can spot right away if you've misplaced one during your travels.

Finally you mentioned you bought a new camera for your trip. Is it possible that you accidentally deleted the images in the camera. Cameras, with their mult-hundred page user manuals, really take time to figure out. It's so important to buy a new camera far in advance of an important event so that the controls become second nature.

I'm not saying any of that is what happened to your images, but I think it might be good for anyone to keep in mind ...

Thanks for all your comments had hope when I read that I might be able to retreive my photos. I think what happened was that when I went to burn them on a cd the clerk did mention that I might need two cds I said whatever it takes, the store got busy we got to talking,not thinking, he did show me the 1st and last picture on the freshly burned cd so I thought thats it they all made it. thinking all was good I asked him to delete the card so I could take more pictures until I filled another card. I went to a photographer friend of mine today and as try as he might he was unable to retrieve any, so thats it, there gone. so if any fodorites out there have any pictures from Cinque Terre to spare it'd cheer me up thank you in advance

kasam4m,

I'm not clear as to what happened to your memory card. Did you delete the photos from the card after you thought they were burned on the CD?

Please respond because I have a similar story with information that may help you.

yes, we deleted the card and i took more photos on top of them.

Oh.

Okay, that's bad. I was so hoping to help you out because I too bought a new digital camera before our trip.

Quickly, this is my story: After two weeks of six hours a night in Italy, I accidently reformatted my memory card, BUT I shut the camera off and never touched it again.

When I got home I called Kingston Technology, the manufacturer of the card. They sent me a Fed Ex envelope with a return Fed Ex envelope to ship the card back.

After two working days, I received a call from Kingston that they recovered all my 387 photos. They burned them onto a CD, which they mailed to me, and they sent me a free 1GB memory card as well. Kingston kept my photos on their computer for 30 days to ensure I was fully satisfied and that I received the CD.

All this was for FREE. How good is that?

The technician told me that the best thing I did was to shut the camera off and not continue taking photos.

Do you think you have taken a lot of photos on this memory card? I don't claim to know anything about this stuff, but is it possible some of your photos are still retreivable?

Have you called the manufacturer of your memory card?

kasam4m -if you go to www.pbase.com/annforcier/image/56791451
you'll find my photos of the CT (including Camogli, that's where we stayed when we were there, don't know if you got to that town). You are welcome to download them to your computer. They are resized small for computer use so not sure how well they'd print but you could try and you are certainly welcome to use them on your computer. Don't know how you show/look at your photos.

kane - I'm interested in the company you used to retrieve your images (in case it happens to me). Do they have a website?

kane
I tried sandisk they have retreival software but it didn't work. I took photos on top of the ones that deleted.

isabel
thanks very much I will look into your photos

isabel,

Remember, I didn't DELETE my photos. I REFORMATTED the memory card. I literally wiped everything off.

I did not want to risk using a software company that retrieves photos because it wasn't a simple deletion problem.

It made perfect sense to me that I should contact the manufacturer of the card, namely, Kingston Technology in Fountain Valley, CA (they are a huge international company). This is their product, and they know exactly how it works (for lack of a better word).

It was the right thing to do. This company bent over backwards for me, and it wasn't their problem. Clearly, I was wrong. There was nothing wrong with their product.

I just don't see customer service like this anymore.

kasam4m,

I apologize (it was dinner time), and I didn't read your post carefully.

So you did contact SanDisk directly. Did they have you send the memory card to them, or was this done over the Internet?

This is so important for so many people to know that (sometimes) their photos are retrieveable.

(BTW, I meant to write that I only had six HOURS of sleep every night for two weeks.)

I'm guessing you haven't given up on finding out if there is some way to retrieve these photos because you posted here.

I hope someone can help you.