Pre-formatting Cards in Camera

FarCountry

FarCountry

Member
I am wondering if anyone has done testing or knows definitively if you can format a handful of cards before a shoot and have them ready to swap out as you go. i have been nervous to do this, but I end up with around 3 minute card change-outs which is longer than I like. I usually shoot long form stuff, with two HMC-150s. For a two hour long form shoot with two cameras, I have four 16G cards in play. I would love to format them all before hand and just shut down the camera swap, and go. I cold shave a good 2+ minutes off in the middle of an event. I could do testing, but would love to save myself the trouble.
 
I just remembered that I had a part two to this question. If you can pre-format, I wonder than if you can partially record on one card, take it out, record some on a different card and then go back to the first and record more clips. There are some organizational reasons for doing this, as well as a situations in the field where you are running out of room and can make use of some remaining space on a card not completely full. Anyone know if this works reliably?
 
I pre format all my cards before an event, then i switch them as needed... you don't even have to turn the camera off, Just make sure the card-light is not blinking and you're viewfinder card icon is not blinking and you're good to swap them!
Usually only takes a few seconds (maybe 10)
 
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