Originally Posted by
DanK
I don't understand. I have had 4 Canon bodies that used CF cards, and none has had a spring ejection of the CF cards. The CF cards are ejected by pressing a large square button at the base of the card, which seems to use leverage to force the card out. The SD slot in my 5DIII does have a spring ejection mechanism. So, I think I am misunderstanding what the problem is.
Yes, I have read this numerous times. I'm no expert, but it makes no sense to me. I assume cameras work like computers: when you "erase" a file, you are simply breaking the link between the file allocation table and the sectors where the information is, freeing the device to write new data to those sectors. Other devices do that kind of erasing over and over again, some with no re-formatting at all. Maybe nonvolatile memory is more vulnerable than RAM to problems from doing this, but even if that were so, I don't see why reformatting after the images have been uploaded wouldn't take care of any problems, e.g., sector misallocations. Can anyone here clarify?
My two Lexar card readers avoid these problems. They hold the SD card in by friction, and the user pulls it out manually. At least, that's what I have been doing for years. I'm traveling, so I can't see whether they do in fact have a spring release that I haven't used.
I do the same, although I can't rationalize it. My 5DIII will write to both cards if I tell it to. This might slow the camera down in burst mode, but I rarely use burst mode, so it would make sense to set the camera to do this. The only cost would be reformatting two cards each session rather than one. However, in all of the years I have done digital photography, I have never had a card failure of any kind, so I play the odds.