Canon R6 writing issue - missing image files.

[laphoto]

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! 

[Peter]

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.

[stevet1]

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

[laphoto]

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. 

[stevet1]

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

[laphoto]

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! 

[jrhoffman75]

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.

 

[stevet1]

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

[p4pictures]

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. 

[laphoto]

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!