Any risk removing SD while camera is on?

T

tonpole

Carbonite Member
I'm doing some timelapse and need to change out cards during the shot. Is there any risk of damage if i do this while the camera is on but not recording?
 
If the card is being accessed, then yes you can damage the card. You have to make absolutely sure to never insert or eject a card when it's being accessed (either being written to, or being read from).
 
I lost data once by either turning off the camera while data was still written to the card after I stopped recording, or by removing the card too quickly. I don't know what I did wrong exactly but I do know that I lost an important 30 minute clip.
 
i wonder how that goes in terms of continuing the sequential file names. be interesting to find out. I have taken my card out while camera is still on, only because i had forgotten to turn it off so there was no card writing during the process. did not corrupt or lose data. i guess you have to be a ninja in between those time lapse intervals =)
 
tonpole said:
I'm doing some timelapse and need to change out cards during the shot. Is there any risk of damage if i do this while the camera is on but not recording?
Click to expand...

I would really get a big enough card to handle the whole timelapse. One thing, you really would have to be shooting a very long time-lapse to eat up say an 8 gb card but obviously it depends on how long you're shooting for. The other thing is, I prefer to touch the camera as little as possible when shooting a timelapse and there is always the chance you could nudge the camera whilst accessing the card.

all the best

richard
 
If the SD card is not being written to, you will see a "no memory card" message when the card is removed but there should be no problem if the card was not being written to. As soon as a card is reinserted, it appears to be ready to capture again.
 
On a related note, does anyone know what happens when you're recording and the battery dies? Does the file get written completely before the camera quits? Does it not? Should you stop recording before the battery runs out?
 
If we are talking time lapse using stills, the file names won't be a problem, in a new card the naming of files will start from number of last file on previous card. This can be changed in the menu.

MR Fanny said:
i wonder how that goes in terms of continuing the sequential file names. be interesting to find out. I have taken my card out while camera is still on, only because i had forgotten to turn it off so there was no card writing during the process. did not corrupt or lose data. i guess you have to be a ninja in between those time lapse intervals =)
Click to expand...
 
If the card is not being written to at the time of removal it will be fine. (The same is true for removing a card or USB drive from a PC.) However, if there is a write operation in progress "unpredictable results" (meaning usually bad ones) will definitely happen.

Losing power in the middle of a write operation will have the same "unpredictable results."
 
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