Does anybody know a shortcut to format SD cards on K-7?

[andrewg_ny]

<p>I've been in the habit of formatting cards in-camera after downloading pictures via cardreader. However I'm finding navigating to the 'format card' command in the K-7's menus to be more of a chore than it was on my *ist DS2, K10D, or K20D. Anybody know any handier shortcuts for doing this? For example, IIRC, Nikon has a button combination to do this.</p>

<p>Perhaps a 'My Menu', 'Favorites', or the like would have been a good addition.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>the card format was a sore point to me...buried deep in the menu. <br /><br />nope no shortcut. </p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>the card format was a sore point to me...buried deep in the menu. <br /><br />nope no shortcut. </p>

[andrewg_ny]

<p>Exactly. With earlier models it was something like right, right, down, you're there.</p>

<p>I think you can get there somewhat quickly with finger & mental gymnastics that are beyond my ability--something like one click (in the correct direction) with the front-e-dial, then one click (again, in the correct direction) with the rear e-dial, then d-pad 'up'. The catch is that I'm too stupid to remember the correct directions one after the other with two different e-dials.</p>

<p>A shame for a camera that seems to have gotten so many other things right. Again, a 'Favorites' first page would have solved this problem nicely.</p>

<p>Maybe I should attach a little diagram to the camera body. I'm semi-serious about this idea.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>No, what they needed was a simple, hold the DELETE button down for 5 seconds and have an option pop up, or do it Nikon esque with I believe the Delete button + the Av button 2X.</p>

<p>First press the option comes up, to confirm you either repress the same buttons or just the delete button. Very secure in that you will probably never accidentally select this.</p>

<p>much much faster.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>But hey, at least we have a dedicated ISO button now! (snickers from his own sarcasm).</p>

[laur1]

<p>Why do you need to reformat cards so often? I only format a card when I first use it or if I move it between cameras.</p>

[andrewg_ny]

<p>I think a lot of habits like this are from superstition. I never used to do it, and I didn't have any problems either...but when you do occasionally switch cards between cameras, there can be a few issues. One is that you may not see the other camera's pictures on the card and they may be using up the space you need. Two is that some superstition suggests that you're less likely to have data failure if you "repaint the parking space lines" fresh when you're going to use it.</p>

[rparmar]

<p>Wow, we really must be spoiled if the only thing wrong is that it's not easier to accidentally format a card. :-)</p>

<p>But the suggestion for a custom menu (and, further, soft buttons we can programme) is beyond nice... I think it is one of the main limiting factors on the interface of these cameras. The user setting never seems to remember just those things I want to do, so why not allow me to have the functions I want a press or two away?</p>

<p>Ever tried to do a series of multiple exposures? The damned camera needs to be set up each time. Now <strong>that</strong> is frustrating!</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p>Accidental Format seems unlikely in K20D. Is K7 Format less straightforward? <br>

I don't fiddle with the cards until files are safe on a hard drive. If K7 seems awkward, maybe Pentax now assumes users have lots of SD cards (I carry 5 x 4G ... pros carry lots more... I'd want more too if I was traveling extensively...they're cheap and tiny after all.</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>Laurentiu,</p>

<p>You can delete all, but there is no advantage to it, and you lose card space, as well as risk corrupted file systems. Formatting doesn't reduce the life of your cards, but not formatting might make life a little more interesting when you get a corrupt card.</p>

<p>I don't format/delete my cards until my next shoot. This generally means I have backed everything up. For instance, I had a major HD crash this winter, i lucked out that I hadn't deleted my cards, and I was able to repull the files 2 months later.</p>

<p>As far as formating, even if you format you can still pull files from the cards in the event you need to, but you have less chance of corrupt file system. The most important thing is that you don't overwrite the data. This is why virtual shredding machines write 0s to a disk when shredding.</p>

<p>BTW, on the original ist D the format option was the first option when you pressed menu. Now this was something that could be accidentally hit. Fortunately, you rarely enter the menu system on the D.</p>

[natufoto]

<p>Hi All,<br>

I re-format my cards every now and then, but usually I just delete the images because is faster. I don't remember having any problems since I switched to digital 6 years ago.<br>

Manuel</p>

[mountainvisions]

<p>true, but just because you haven't doesn't mean you aren't increasing likelyhood.</p>

<p>I hadn't had an SD/CF card fail in 10 years. Not a single card, and I own 5-8 brands.</p>

<p>However, in early 2008 I had a SD card fail, and mid 2009 I had one fail. (both transcend, but we had used these since early 2007 and had taken hundreds of GB of images on them, so no complaints).</p>

<p>The files were able to be pulled off the cards, but no amount of reformating would allow them to be used again. We tried in PCs, pocket PCs, cameras, MP3 players, etc. Cards were dead. I sent them in, and Transcend sent me replacements.</p>

<p>At the same time, I had never had a HDD fail, but I had 2 fail in the last 6 months. I usually fill my drives up within 12-18 months so they don't have a long life in terms of MTF, but all HDDs do eventually fail. Just because one hasn't failed on you, doesn't mean it's not a really good idea to regularly backup.</p>

<p>I look at card formatting like that. Just because you haven't had a problem, doesn't mean you won't. And formatting doesn't really take significantly longer than delete all. I think it's less than 5 seconds to format a 4GB SD card.</p>

[laur1]

<blockquote>

<p>You can delete all, but there is no advantage to it, and you lose card space, as well as risk corrupted file systems.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Why should you lose card space? And why do you think formatting prevents corruption?<br>

Reformatting made sense for diskettes and hard drives, but I'm not sure it's as useful with memory cards. With reformatting, you're just writing a blank filesystem, versus updating it when deleting. I'm not sure there is a big advantage in one over the other, except the delete all function is more easily accessible on some cameras.</p>