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Panasonic FZ30 - SD Card Clean-Up


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Is it necessary to apply the SD Card Clean-Up procedure on my FZ30?

 

The manual suggests that continual shooting and deleting of images will reduce the card processing

speed and Clean-Up will return the card to full speed. I am using a standard 1 Gb Panasonic card.

 

My card now indicates two or three files more than the number of images I have actually shot although

all images download without problems. I have tried downloading from an 'empty' card (all images

deleted) to isolate these ghost files without success. Will a Clean-Up solve this problem?

 

Any advice much appreciated.

 

Bruce

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I have been monitoring 'properties' folowing using Windows Explorer to download files from my FZ30 and the amount of unused space has been remaining the same since I started doing this check around four months ago. So I see no need to re-format the card.

 

This is different from my CF cards in a Canon and Nikon cameras which have been dropping, except following the last Nikon shoot, the amount of free space has increased by about 700 bytes. But I have yet to reformat them, interested to see what is happening.

 

I do not know if my check is a meaningful procedure but until I am told otherwise I do not see any point in re-formating to save a few pixels. I have 512Mb cards and rarely do I need the full capacity before downloading into my computer.

 

I did once reformat with my FZ20 when there appeared to be a problem, forget what is was at this stage. So reformating is not something I do :-) but if I was going to I would do it in the camera the card was to be used in. I hope this reassures you :-)

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Many thanks for the advice and comments.

 

I have now run the card through Clean-Up and the ghost files have been deleted and

processing seems to be marginally faster.

 

I normally clear the card via the Delete All drop down in the Review Menu which is slightly

quicker than reformatting, although I now realise the latter is more efficient. I note that

reformatting is not advisable on a low battery charge.

 

Neil: The Clean-Up function is built-in on the FZ30 (see pages 114-115 in the manual)

and is Panasonic's term for reformatting the SD card. Most if not all digital cameras have

this facility.

 

Bruce

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If one were to continually delete all images from card it would eventually acquire so many file folders that the camera would read memory card error. The card clean up si right next to format card. Once you have safely downloaded your card and backed it up you can then format your card and never have to worry about this ever happening.
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I guess the answer depends on if you have a high throughput. If anything, what takes time is the copying [Copy to]of the files to my archive folder. The 'move to' a working folder is very quick. Probably not as quick as a delete/format but after I have put the files into their working folder my card is empty .. so I don't need to format:-)

That is apart from a few bytes which doesn't amount to one shot.

 

Strange how people have all these tales of woe about files filling up the card, when I strike a empty folder following a number change over in the sequencial system I just delete it.:-)[every 999 shots]

 

I was hoping somebody would say, "Ok, Windows Explorer's Properties shows you that, but the secret monster is hoarding up bytes that you cannot see and are not recognised by WE"

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