When To Clear, When To Re Format

[Kirislin]

Just that, with CF cards when are you supposed to clear them and when are you supposed to reformat? I am not sure I understand the difference, I think you can recover images if you just clear them, but you cant if it's been reformatted, is that right? Other than that is there any benefit to do it one way or the other?

[Luke W]

Just that, with CF cards when are you supposed to clear them and when are you supposed to reformat? I am not sure I understand the difference, I think you can recover images if you just clear them, but you cant if it's been reformatted, is that right? Other than that is there any benefit to do it one way or the other?

You can often recover even after a reformat.

I don't think it matters that much.

I reformat every time.

[Kirislin]

thanks Luke.

[rubiton]

I'll leave the images on there (will copy them to the hard drive) until I have the ones on the hard drive named and copied to the external storage (so I have two copies at least plus the cards). Then when I go out again I try to use the oldest card/s and reformat in the camera at the start of the day so they are ready when I get to the races or show.

[TangerineDream]

I've never reformatted a card and haven't had any problems.....have run a good few thousand images across them all.

[Ashanali]

We always reformat.