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! 

[p4pictures]

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.

[laphoto]

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. 

[p4pictures]

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. 

[laphoto]

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 

[photopro]

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? 

[Stephen]

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.

[laphoto]

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.