*Emergency* Video footage missing on CF Card

[impactfuze]

Shot footage today on a rented Canon 5D Mark III

The footage was checked and verified on set.

Audio and video were perfect and functional (on the camera).

Took the CF card home to transfer files to the mac and the card was empty and the footage was gone.

I have raised a ticket with Canon customer support, But any sort of help or suggestion is welcome as I am working on a very thin timeline.

Thank you so much.

[diverhank]

Are you sure the video is not on the other card?

[impactfuze]

yes,

The rental company took out the SD card before handing us the camera.

We were expected to come up with our on CF card.

[Ray-uk]

Are you sure the card is empty or is the file in a format that your mac doesn't recognise.

[impactfuze]

Empty

[Ray-uk]

The file could still be there, try using a file recovery program. There are various free recovery programs available, a google search should find them.

[impactfuze]

I just purchased Data Rescue 5 and Recuva Neither of them were able to work 😞 !!

They succeeded in getting a weird file of the video with pink noise playing in the background with a couple of stutter frames of the video that I shot. Both failed miserably in getting my file.

Now I am 110$ poorer and about to lose my first big job.

[Ray-uk]

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@impactfuze

They succeeded in getting a weird file of the video with pink noise playing in the background with a couple of stutter frames of the video that I shot. Both failed miserably in getting my file.

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Well at least you now know that the file was there but it is just too corrupted to be able to rescue, not much consolation though. I think I would bin that CF card rather than trust it again for anything important.

[Waddizzle]

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@impactfuzewrote:

Shot footage today on a rented Canon 5D Mark III

The footage was checked and verified on set.

Audio and video were perfect and functional (on the camera).

Took the CF card home to transfer files to the mac and the card was empty and the footage was gone.

I have raised a ticket with Canon customer support, But any sort of help or suggestion is welcome as I am working on a very thin timeline.

Thank you so much.

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Maybe during your trip home your card was exposed to a strong magnetic field.  

You use the term “transfer”, not copy.  Could they have transferred to a folder that is different from the one you expected?

[TCampbell]

The camera doesn’t have any capability to store images internally... they can only be saved to one of the two card slots (either the CF card or the SD card).  Diverhank asked if there was any possibility you saved the images to the ‘other’ card.  From your answer, I’m inferring that you only inserted one card (if so then the camera has no choice where to save the file).

Normally when I import my images (I use Lightroom) I choose the “copy” option (they have “move”, “add”, and “copy” ... “move” causes the camera to do a copy, but then erase the original image.  “Add” causes the lightroom Library to manage the file in-place (without copying it).  “Add” would be in used in situations where you manage the organization of your photos on disk and don’t copy them to the Lightroom masters folder.  This might be used when you have lots of disks.  “Copy” is the safe choice because it doesn’t touch the original image... it just makes a copy in the Lightroom masters folder.  

Using “copy” gives you the option to make sure the images really did end up on your computer before you make any changes to the memory card.

If the images are not on the memory card, it makes me wonder if they have actually been copied to your computer... just not where you expect to find them.

You might search your hard drive for files dated the day of the import and see if they turn up.

Also... did you only have ONE card? (Is there any possibility you put the wrong card in the computer and aren’t actually using the very same card that was in the camera?)

Best of luck.