topic Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files. in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 16:31:14 GMT

Hi everyone ,

I am a wedding photographer - 3rd year in business, so I'm still inexperienced, but have become confident in my work and making sure I am as prepared as possible for photographing other's precious memories, and until this past weekend I never had an issue.

I just recently purchased the Canon R6 Mark 2 and also have a Canon R6 that I've used for the past 2 -3 years with no issues. I was shooting a wedding over the weekend and was culling through photos when I noticed the entire first kiss, walking down the aisle and a few shots out of the ceremony area were gone. Like completely missing. Everything up until and shortly after are still there. The file numbers skip about 150 photos. I have been completely panicking, but luckily I did have a second shooter and I am so thankful they captured everything that was missing, but obviously it is a cause for concern on my end.

My only guess is that because I shoot the first kiss at a higher speed than any other parts of the day , that the photos did not write/save to my card. I use the SanDisk Extreme Pro 200mb/s 64gb cards, which I have been told by other photographers that this is a great choice for weddings and again, I've never had an issue shooting at very fast speeds, until now, even with my R6, which I also used to use for sports photography. I realize that this is likely the answer I will get, that I need to get faster cards, but curious what speed you would recommend? And if anyone has had this issue with the Canon R6 M2 as well. Is there any way to recover those photos or did they just not write to card at all?

Any help or kind advice would be appreciated!

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

Peter — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 16:50:02 GMT

Run a file recovery. There are Recuva for Windows and Photorec för Windows, Linux and OS X. SanDisk has one you get for free when you buy cards.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

stevet1 — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 19:40:42 GMT

laphoto,

Is it possible that the missing photos went to a different folder on your card?

If you have a Windows computer, you could take your card out and using Windows Explorer, see what folders are on your card.

Your camera has two card slots. Is it possible they went to the other card slot?

If you were shooting one shot at a time, I don't think shutter speed would affect its ability to write to a card. Your camera is capable of shutter speeds up to 1/8000 of a second. Write speeds of memory cards is measured in terms of megabytes per second.

I don't think that's an issue.

Steve Thomas

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 20:22:07 GMT

Thanks Steve for the info,

I've checked all of the folders on both cards I had in camera at the time. When I look at the images on the card, there are about 150+ images missing right in the middle (jumps from IMG_3417 to IMG_3588), strictly the first kiss and walk out of ceremony area, which is when I was shooting in H+/burst mode, which is why that's the only thing I can think of, as those are the only photos missing from the entire day.

I have not formatted or emptied off any of my cards so I will continue to search but have been unsuccessful so far.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

stevet1 — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 21:26:49 GMT

laphoto,

You wrote, "I was shooting in H+/burst mode, which is why that's the only thing I can think of, as those are the only photos missing from the entire day."

Ah. I think that may be it, especially if, by chance, you were shooting Raw - which are rather large files. The write speed of your 64gb card might not have been able to keep up.

If that were the case, though, I would think you would have gotten some kind of error warning.

Steve Thomas

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 21:42:10 GMT

Okay, that's what I figured 😕 that's unfortunate, but I guess I've learned my lesson and thankfully had a second shooter with me!

Is there a write speed you'd recommend ? I will likely use a faster one for ceremony from now on!

Thanks for your help!

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 23:42:54 GMT

Were you using UHS II cards? U3 Class 10 would be an appropriate product.

No where in the manual does it state that using H+ mode could result in lost images. It does caution that slow cards and other factors could result in a fewer number of captured images.

You might want to give Canon Support a call at 1-800-OK-CANON and speak with them.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

stevet1 — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 02:29:31 GMT

laphoto,

I'm kind of out my league here, and would be reluctant to give you any recommendations.

You might try reading up on SD card write speed tests, or do as John recommended and call Canon Support and see what they recommend.

What does your manual say about cards for your camera?

Steve Thomas

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

p4pictures — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 08:49:53 GMT

I have the R6 Mk2 and if you shoot in High Speed+ drive you can fill the buffer with slower cards but then the camera simply stops taking photos until there is space in the buffer and the shots have been written to card.

if you are shooting with electronic shutter or silent shooting enabled then the camera shoots at 40fps so will fill the buffer quite quickly. Faster cards is a help, look for UHS-II cards with V90 specification. If you look at your cards they probably have the V30 logo on them, and only a single row of contacts on the back, V60 or faster V90 cards have two rows of contacts and write much faster.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 12:22:46 GMT

Yes , I was using a V30.

I would have expected the camera to stop taking photos or have an error warning if the card wasn't able to keep up, but neither of those happened so that is why I had no idea until I was culling through them. Also just very confused as to why there isn't a single photo from that burst. If the buffer filled, I would have expected all images up until that point to be there.

I will likely reach out to Canon and start buying some new SD cards

Thanks for the info!

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

p4pictures — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 22:30:15 GMT

I'm still at a loss as to why frames were lost, as that is not how the cameras work. They can't shoot if there is no buffer space available. One of the few possibilities for loss is that the battery was removed or died while the files were being saved. Other option is a dying SD card where the controller reports that the file is saved but it is not. Do you shoot to both cards simultaneously?

A thought just dropped in my head; were you shooting in RAW burst mode? In RAW burst mode the camera shoots at 30fps and saves all the RAW images in that sequence in a single RAW file. You then need to use either the camera or Canon DPP software to extract the individual RAW frames from the burst file? Sometimes people see the first shot of the sequence - what Canon terms the representative frame - and on the camera think it's not successful and delete it, which deletes the whole sequence since they are in the single file. If you use Lightroom to edit, then it cannot display the RAW burst file or extract the frames. Look for a single RAW file that is much larger than all the others. I've seen them over 1GB in size.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:24:29 GMT

Oh interesting…my battery was around half life at that point I believe, and I had two of the V30 cards in.

I was shooting in RAW and using the H+ setting (is that the same as RAW burst?).
what I notice when looking at the files is that it skips from IMG_3417 to IMG_3588 making me think that those files are somewhere and I just can’t see them or access them.
I will try looking into the file sizes and software to see if I can find them somehow.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

p4pictures — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 14:06:11 GMT

Do you write images to both cards simultaneously? I know that a lot of wedding photographers do write to both cards so they are creating a backup while shooting. If not then maybe you should.

H+ settings is just the drive mode and not the same as RAW burst mode, which is a setting on the sixth page of the red menus for the EOS R6 Mark II.

If you aren't writing to both cards at the same time then make sure to check the other card to see if the missing files are there.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 15:55:55 GMT

Yes I write to both simultaneously and have checked all folders on both cards and cannot locate those missing photos shot in H+ on either one

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

photopro — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 16:28:30 GMT

Although you shot in High speed the cards are not the issue IMHO. Slow cards take longer to write, but should still record. I had the same issue yesterday but there is no data after 830pm and I shot and reviewed images long after that. No images on either card. BUT when I discovered the issue I did test shots with the same cards and no issues. Repeated the test this morning and no issues. It's as if the camera showed the images were recorded and somehow deleted. Of course cards are the obvious 1st scapegoat, but there seems to be a lot of posts with the same issue. Canons immediate reply was they are not liable. You would think they would inquire about the shooting conditions instead of cta... sounds suspect to me. What was your solution?

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

Stephen — Mon, 19 Aug 2024 16:33:34 GMT

I let you know we're not liable because you said 'this is on Canon," which implies a legal threat.

As I suggested, perhaps you should call support.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

laphoto — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 12:50:56 GMT

I unfortunately never found a solution. I could've paid to see if I could recover them through a program, but because I had a 2nd with me that captured the images that I thought I had, I decided not to spend the money because I am not sure they would even be recoverable. I have not been shooting in highspeed since it happened and definitely am more cautious now about shooting at fast speeds. I haven't had an issue since and have shot probably 5 weddings since then, but again haven't been shooting as fast. I definitely don't trust my r6 m2 anymore like I had before and will likely contact support after my busy season. Hopefully because it seems others are having a similar (and very scary) experience, that Canon might look into it.

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

oakandmain — Sun, 10 Nov 2024 22:19:59 GMT

Hi, did you ever figure this issue out? I rented the R6 for a wedding yesterday, and the EXACT same thing happened to me. To a T. I don’t have ANY photos of the kiss or them walking down the aisle, and no second shooter. I rented it in hopes of buying, but now I’m thinking I’ll stick to my 5D mark iii. I’m baffled!!

Re: Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

horses_r_us_5 — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 04:32:56 GMT

I just shot a wedding this past weekend on my R6 and I am missing a lot of images that I know I took! I am using the Prograde sd cards with 128gb of data V60 250mb/s both cards were missing the same images, but I was able to recover around 20 photos from one of the 2 cards..... I'm missing family photos, the wedding ceremony, first kiss, the cake.... I'm so upset right now! Canon needs to look into this issue