A Digital Photographer's Worst Nightmare

If you are shooting film, you have to protect that film. You make sure it is completely rewound before removing it from the camera. You worry about sending it through the X-ray machine at the airport. You dread someone opening the door of the darkroom while you are developing, and you pray that you don’t have the “new guy” processing your precious prints at the lab.

As a digital photographer I am blissfully unconcerned about those issues. But I have my own fears to face. Hard drive failure and no back-ups (note to self, make sure my back-ups are up to date), losing a CF card, or having a CF card go south.

That last one hit me last night.

I had spent the afternoon with the family at Saguaro National Park, just outside of Tucson. I shot 150+ pictures of the previous night’s snow on the peaks of the mountains, an almost full moon rising in the midst of a saguaro cactus forest, and my family climbing rocks and enjoying the crisp cool air. As I turned to snap some pictures of the setting sun the camera informed me that the card was full. I quickly found a couple of shots to erase, and grabbed two shots of the sunset before heading back home.

Once we arrived home I popped the CF card out of the camera an into the card reader, eager to see the afternoon’s pictures. For some reason iPhoto did not detect the card. Bad omen number 1.

I switched to the finder to see that the card had mounted, but when I checked the contents, it was still showing what had been on the previous card. Bad omen number 2.

I ejected the card and reinserted it into the card reader. iPhoto still refused to acknowledge it’s presence. Bad omen number 3.

Checking it in the finder showed that the card mounted but it contained a folder full of random garbage text. Bad omen number 4.

I ejected the card and put it in the camera, hoping that it would be able to read the card. It showed that there was room for 9 more pictures. Bad omen number 5.

Further, when I tried to see if it could read any images on the card, it told me there were “No Images.” Bad omen number 6.

At this point I was resigned to the fact that an afternoon of shooting, along with many family memories, were gone. But then I remembered that this was not film. Mess up the processing on film, and you’re stuck with bad images, no matter what you do. Foul up a few bits or bytes on a CF card and you can no longer access the data on that card through traditional means, but that doesn’t mean it is all gone forever.

Searching for solutions

I’ve heard it said that if there is no solution to your situation, then there is no problem. For example, there is nothing we can do about aging. We can delay it’s effects a bit, or try to cover them up with makeup or surgery, but we are all getting older, and we can’t stop that. Therefore, aging is not a problem.

My situation was definitely a problem. And I knew that there was a solution out there, and I knew where to go to find it. I entered “photo recovery software” into the Google search widget on my browser, and I had several potential solutions waiting for me in a few seconds.

The first page of results didn’t show much promise - even the paid ads were for Windows machines. So it was off to Version Tracker. A similar search provided three results.

Try before you buy

You have to remember the mindset of someone who has just “lost” a card full of images. These are images that can not be re-shot. It would have been better not to have shot them at all than to have them on the card and then loose them. The feeling is desperation. But you have to stop and think clearly before you pull out your credit card.

Thankfully all of these software developers were smart enough to allow you to see what the software can do before you send in your money. Unfortunately none of these three pieces of software could do what I needed.

I shoot RAW. Mostly because I can. Actually it’s because I am still learning, but when shooting RAW I can salvage some images that might have been too problematic had I shot JPGs. And shooting RAW is like having digital negatives. When a better RAW processor comes out, you can go back to your RAW image files and reprocess them with better results.

Apparently the three photo recovery programs on Version Tracker don’t do RAW. They can find the files, but in the process of recovering them they become corrupted.

I was beginning to lose hope.

Back to Google

I tried some slightly different search terms this time - “image recovery os x.” This time there was a promising link among the first results: Photo Rescue. Clicking through to the site revealed that they promised to deliver Canon RAW files. I was encouraged. They had two versions of their software - a novice “Wizard” version, that does everything behind the scenes, and an “Expert” version. I tried both, and both were able to recover the RAW files.

Even better was that this software was only $30. The other software I downloaded and tried ran from $30 - $50. Good news for the Low End. And this company had one more thing going for it. They offered a refund. If the demo version of the software promised that it could deliver your files (showed you thumbnails) and the paid version did not deliver those files, then you could get your money back. None of the other software companies offered this.

So out came may wallet, and this morning I was able to successfully recover all my images from the card, leaving the other software in the Trash.

Posted by Mark in: 300d/350d | Canon | Digital Rebel/XT | Photos | Software | Comments (14)