ZAR – Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery

[Corey Kruitbosch]

After a trip to MT this last weekend. I had a flash card bomb out on me while in the process of transferring my images. It got through about 20% of the images before crashing… After rebooting my machine I opened the card/drive up again and no images! Doh! Lots of client pics, family pics, and FF pics were gone. My stomach dropped… After some searching I found “ZAR” – Zero Assumption Digital Image Recovery .. It will recover canon cr2 files and it worked fantastically! I recovered 100% of my files.

I hope none of you have this sort of problem in the future, but if you do maybe this will help you also! The image recovery portion of the software is freeware.

http://www.z-a-recovery.com/digital-image-recovery.htm

[Chad Simcox]

That’s a scary ordeal to go through! It’s amazing how well file recovery software works. I’ve been told that even after multiple reformats of cards you can till recover images.

http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.

http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox Instagram

[Corey Kruitbosch]

Lol .. Yeah it was scary. Your right, it was even able to grab images from a few months ago!

While on the topic .. I was thinking that one way to combat this sort of problem would be to shoot on multiple smaller cards. Eliminating having everything on one big card. Any thoughts or other ideas?

[John Bennett]

Corey thats what I do.

I only know of a few cases where cards have failed (Sandisk anyways) and even fewer cases of lost/stolen/damaged cards but the thought of losing all the data on an 8gig card to something as simple as dropping it in the river is enough.

If Im heading out for a full day or more I bring upto 10 gig with me.
1 4gig
2 2 gig
2 1 gig.

With my body

[Corey Kruitbosch]

Thanks … Lesson learned thats for sure!

I’m sure it was my card reader that was the problem and not the card itself.

[Chad Simcox]

Wow John that’s a lot of shooting! I have 2 – 1GB and 1 – 2GB and rarely fill them up. I usually use 2 cards at a time but I really can’t think of a single outting that I’ve used all 3 cards. I can’t imagine filling up over 4GB in a single day.
The idea of not putting all your eggs in one basket is a good idea, you never know what’s going to happen.
Corey, yesterday I came across your photo stream on flickr. You’ve got some cool shots in there. It’s funny that I just realized that it was your stream when I thought your avatar looked really familiar.

http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.

http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox Instagram

[Corey Kruitbosch]

I def think I will start carrying multiple cards, rather than a single large card!

Chad, Thanks for the compliment. I’m giving it some effort … Hopefully I’m able to capture some of those FF ‘moments’.

[John Bennett]

Chad my main interest (if that the rigt word) are action sequences, call it my “style”.

I shot a 3D archery tournament on Sunday. I shot while I was participating, which really crimped my shooting on both fronts . Not once did I take more than 3 frames. I still came home with just under 300 images.

A morning ( 2 hrs) out with Flanconers or chasing Whie Tails and I can fill 4gig in no time. I rarely take “extended” burst but even a .5 second burst puts 4 frames on the card. The slightest “tap” puts 2 images on the card.

20 seconds of shooting which = 170 images

A morning with alot of action and yeah I fill the 4 gig somewhat regularily.

[Chad Simcox]

Yeah i can see if you’re shooting sequences that you can easily burn through a few gigs of space. I’ve shot sequences with BMX riders and surfers, but I haven’t thought about doing so with outdoor type activities.
Do you bracket exposures much or just set and shoot the sequence?

http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.

http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox Instagram

[John Bennett]

Never, bracketing it slows down the body too much.

Im either in M or AV 100% of the time. Which, depends alot on how consistant the quantity and direction of the light of is.

For example Sunday the sun was moving in and out of clouds every few seconds. I’m not good enough to constantly dial in more/less SS or change f/stops on the fly like that. Also you can switch from shooting direct front light 1 second, and end up swinging 145 degrees the next to catch something happending over your shoulder, such the light is strong side light or some back lighting.
All of which lead can lead to bad exposures.

Once Im done for the day my first pass is weeding out the poorly exposed and out of focus. Then I weed out the very similiar..say two shots that are almost identical due to the fps but I look for minute differences.

End result is something like this. Its the 1 frame I kept from a 3 frame sequence. I was looking for the motion blur and the moodiness of the enviroment (casting the rain)

ISO 100, 1/320th AV -1/3 ev

Frame 1 the rod tip was still behind his shulder
Frame 2 nailed what I was looking for
Frame 3 the rod tip had extended off frame

I tried two takes. In all 6 or 7 frames and about 1 second worth of shooting.

[Mike McKeown]

This is kewl…

btw, ZAR also stands for “South African Rand” = “Zuid African Rand”

[Author]

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