lost photos

[careolinen]

hi so i have an eos rebel t5 eos 1200D camera. i wanted to learn how to you use manual mode instead of auto focus. so i took initative read through the mauals and went through the manuals and as i went through the menu features on my camera i pressed format card and all my photos were then erased. im not sure what this means? but surely they have not all been erased or i will be devastated. PLEASE HELP!

[Waddizzle]

First and foremost, remove that card from the camera, and use a new, freshly formatted card.  There are a number of data recovery programs "out there", but that is slightly beyond the scope of these forums.  But, try a search in the camera forum for answers to how to "recover data images".

As for using manual mode, I suggest using P mode, and observing how the camera sets the exposure under different scenarios.  Another advantage of using P mode is that you can set the camera to always use the center AF point, instead of letting the camera select any AF point it wants, and focusing on the subject that it wants.

There are two topics you should familiarize yourself with by doing a web search.  Search for " exposure triangle ", which will help you better understand the settings.  Search for " depth of field ", to better understand what aperture does.

[RobertTheFat]

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@careolinen wrote:

hi so i have an eos rebel t5 eos 1200D camera. i wanted to learn how to you use manual mode instead of auto focus. so i took initative read through the mauals and went through the manuals and as i went through the menu features on my camera i pressed format card and all my photos were then erased. im not sure what this means? but surely they have not all been erased or i will be devastated. PLEASE HELP!

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That is what formatting does; it erases the card and starts over. If you did a "low-level" format, your pictures are permanently lost. Otherwise, some or all of them may be recoverable. There are various programs that undertake to do this. Sometimes they work, sometimes not.

All pictures should be copied to a computer or disk drive as soon as possible. The card should be saved as a backup and erased only after the computer or disk drive has been backed up. But it should not be counted on. Most cards today are very reliable, but it's very easy for them to be lost or overwritten.

[John_SD]

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@careolinen wrote:

hi so i have an eos rebel t5 eos 1200D camera. i wanted to learn how to you use manual mode instead of auto focus. so i took initative read through the mauals and went through the manuals and as i went through the menu features on my camera i pressed format card and all my photos were then erased. im not sure what this means? but surely they have not all been erased or i will be devastated. PLEASE HELP!

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As Waddizzle and Robert have noted, there are recovery programs you can Google and try. But if the card has been low-level formatted, the images are gone for good.

I am curious as to why you would be devastated though? Are the shots reproducable? If they were merely family or friend photos, you can shoot again at your next earliest convenience and you may get even better photos. Good luck. 

[StanNH]

Like Robert said, there is no reason to keep your images on only the SD card in the camera.  It is simple to transfer the contents of the card to any smartphone, tablet, or computer using an inexpensive card reader.  Those photos can then be easily backed up to one of the many cloud services, or to an external backup drive.

When you format a card, you first have to select that format option in one of the menus, then confirm that you really want to format the card.  You are warned at that a point that all data will be deleted.  Still, accidents happen ... so never use your camera's card as your only storage option.

As far as your present issue, it might be worth calling or visiting a data recovery service to see if they think they can help.

[careolinen]

no it didnt warn me anything would be lost on card it simply said format or cancel? i took a photo again and seen if that was what happened because i wasnt sure what format meant still. then did some research

[BurnUnit]

I don't think anyone has mentioned it yet, but do not add any more images or write any more data to this card until you've made any and all attempts to recover the missing images from it. There is some free recovery software available online, and I've had fair luck recovering image files with Recuva and another bit of freeware, the name of which escapes me at the moment.

[careolinen]

all of my pictures from my second child are on there. (birth till about 12months) i know i should have backed up so im kicking myself in the butt. i dont know what kind of format it is. but i called a local it tech and they said they should be able to extract the photos but for a pretty hefty sum. 

[Bryston3bsst]

My friend used to do the same thing....keeping all of his pictures on the SD card and I would beat him up for it all the time.....for this very reason.

I have used Recuva as mentioned above and it worked very well for me, recovering the great majority of the lost files. I cannot imagine your camera not providing a warning prior to formatting. I know my 600D used to and my 6D does, so perhaps you just overlooked it.

If Recuva doesn't work for you then certainly try another recovery software or two.

If these efforts fail then I guess if nothing else you've learned a valuable and very costly lesson.

The very first thing I do when returning from a shoot is to remove the files from the SD card to two outboard drives. Then format the card.

I wish you luck.