Will constant reformatting affect a camera?

I've searched around all of these forums for opinions in regards to what is the best way of preparing a CF card for when we wish to use it again after downloading the images. As you know, the alternatives are deleting the previous images from the card or reformatting the card. After reading hundreds of messages posted on this web site, in relation to this subject, I've come to my own conclusion that reformatting the card in the camera is what I will be doing everytime I want to use it again. Honestly, I can't understand why there are people who wouldn't want to reformat their cards each and everytime they are going to reuse them. The life of the card is reduced in such a minimal amount that it isn't even worth considering this as an obstacle for not doing so. Nevertheless, there's still one question which was left unanswered; will this constant in-camera reformatting affect a camera itself in any negative way?

As far as a finite write count for the life of the memory chip, I rather doubt there's a lot of difference between format and erase. I strongly doubt that a format actually erases every byte. It probably just zeros out the file allocation table (or equivalent, I'm don't pretend I understand the file system of a CF card) while an erase likely just removes the file name from the FAT, and marks the clusters available.

My .02 worth of speculation.

Richard Gordon said:

I've searched around all of these forums for opinions in regards to
what is the best way of preparing a CF card for when we wish to use
it again after downloading the images. As you know, the
alternatives are deleting the previous images from the card or
reformatting the card. After reading hundreds of messages posted on
this web site, in relation to this subject, I've come to my own
conclusion that reformatting the card in the camera is what I will
be doing everytime I want to use it again. Honestly, I can't
understand why there are people who wouldn't want to reformat their
cards each and everytime they are going to reuse them. The life of
the card is reduced in such a minimal amount that it isn't even
worth considering this as an obstacle for not doing so.
Nevertheless, there's still one question which was left unanswered;
will this constant in-camera reformatting affect a camera itself in
any negative way?

Click to expand...

Why bother formatting? If you have a card reader just delete the files. If you don't, then you really need to get one! Ther are very inexpensive. It's way too slow to download directly from the camera.

Rich

Richard Gordon said:

I've searched around all of these forums for opinions in regards to
what is the best way of preparing a CF card for when we wish to use
it again after downloading the images. As you know, the
alternatives are deleting the previous images from the card or
reformatting the card. After reading hundreds of messages posted on
this web site, in relation to this subject, I've come to my own
conclusion that reformatting the card in the camera is what I will
be doing everytime I want to use it again. Honestly, I can't
understand why there are people who wouldn't want to reformat their
cards each and everytime they are going to reuse them. The life of
the card is reduced in such a minimal amount that it isn't even
worth considering this as an obstacle for not doing so.
Nevertheless, there's still one question which was left unanswered;
will this constant in-camera reformatting affect a camera itself in
any negative way?

Click to expand...

The question is:

Will constant reformatting affect a camera?

Can't imagine that it would have any affect on a camera.

Rich

Richard Gordon said:

The question is:

Will constant reformatting affect a camera?

Click to expand...

Actually - there is a side benefit to reformating off an operating system like windows 2000. Windows 2000 - if your CF card or Microdrive are in a usb reader writer - will also check your storage device for bad spots and map them out so you don't go belly up on a shoot. If bad spots are discovered then you have an early warning that you have a device that is failing. The normal - in camera format - like the D30 has DOES NOT check the device for bad spots but simply wipes the devices file allocation table. This is like "quick formatting" a floppy disk on a computer. I normally just quick format in my camera, but now and then I do the long format under Windows 2000 to check the device.

Erasing all actually does more activity on the FAT section of the device than the quick format does since it individual writes to the fat once for each picture. A quick format rewrites a clean fat table and only touches that area of the disk 1 time. So for least where, if that was actaully a valid concern, would be the quick in camera format.