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Cold, malfunctioning D60

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Robert Schlauch

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Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk, but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home, but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced this problem?

Bert
 
As far as I know, you have lost your images after you have reformatted your CF card & there's nothing you can do to recover your 20 images.

Jules
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
 
but be aware the Canon specs call for an operating range of from 0 to 40 DEG C. The basic limitation is the CF card or microdrive!! I doubt that there was any way to access those lost pics. Here is one thing you can try next time.

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Good luck,

Rich
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
 
Rich,

I thought that I might have a problem with my D60 in cold weather, but I didn't know how it would manifest itself. I assumed that if the drive failed, I would be able to download to my computer the images that were captured prior to the failure. My mistake (The photos were not that important anyway, my fellow riders will just be wondering why I took so many photos and didn't share them with the group).

I knew that when I reformatted the CF card I would never have access to the pics -- at that point I just wanted to verify that my camera still worked and that the CF card still had its original capacity.

Thanks for the tip for recovery of a failed drive. I'll try it if there ever is a next time. Another option might be to switch CF cards after 20 minutes. In any case, temps below 0 deg C are too cold to be taking photos anyway. It was almost too cold to ride my bike, but that's another story.

Bert
RichW said:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Good luck,

Rich
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Bert
 
lexar's image rescue would have gotten them back for ya
RichW said:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Good luck,

Rich
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Jeff,

I was using a Lexar CF card, too! Thanks for that tip -- I found the info about it here on DpReview's news announcements. I am including that announcement here for others.

*******************************************************
Lexar delivers Image Rescue for consumers
Tuesday, 24 September 2002

Photokina 2002: Lexar has today announced that it will be opening up Image Rescue for purchase by consumers. Lexar's Image Rescue software is designed to retrieve deleted or damaged images from their own brand cards, it does so by interacting with the cards controller at a lower level than is possible with other Compact Flash cards. Lexar also note that they will be providing a copy of Image Rescue for free pre-loaded onto their new range of 'Write Acceleration' cards.
**********************************************************
Jeff Graeber said:
RichW said:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Good luck,

Rich
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
--
Bert
 
Robert - based on my experience with the D60 and cold weather, your problem was probably caused by something else. I have found that, as long as you can keep the battery warm enough to shoot, the camera will keep operating and recording images - and at much colder temperatures that 20 degrees.
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
 
The only problem I had when shooting below 0 was that the LCD works very slowly. It can take up to 10 sec for menu or any pix to show up (I use Ritec and Trenscend 256mb cards) other than that my D60 performs fine in cold weather.

Yiyan
 
I am pleased to hear that others have had better luck in cold weather. I notice that you use a different brand card than I do. Do you think that this or differences in the speed with which these cards store data could be affected by cold-weather condiitons?

One helpful respondent to this thread believes that the source of my problem is something other than cold weather based on his experience. That could be true, but I have taken over 800+ photogrpahs in warmer conditions and not experienced any problems with the camera writing to the card. I have taken 20 or so photos since that incident earlier today and the camera is functioning normally. It seems parsimonious to assume that cold weather played a role in the dysfunction.

Bert
Yiyan Chao said:
The only problem I had when shooting below 0 was that the LCD works
very slowly. It can take up to 10 sec for menu or any pix to show
up (I use Ritec and Trenscend 256mb cards) other than that my D60
performs fine in cold weather.

Yiyan
Click to expand...
--
Bert
 
Have you let the camera some time to adapt to the cold? maybe this was the cause, a big change in temperature, too brutal? I read some posts about this, where people said they kept the cam under their coat just to take it out, take the shot and back into the coat!

You've used a Lexar, which just might not be the poorest of the card brands, so the failure might come from something totally unknown.

I recently got the EXACT SAME problem than you: took 20 pics or so, looked at the size occupied on card via the format option of the menu. The capacity of the card wasn't exact. oops! back to shooting mode, i pressed the Play button and the LCD showed "No image"!!! i had 20 of them!! reviewed 2 minutes ago!!

Back home from this paid job (unlucky me, true!) i got the solution from members of this forum, which told me to try Digital Image Recovery and it saved 18 pics over 24 or so (i can't remember!!). It also found old files from older shooting sessions.

FileRecovery was useless. It found an awesome number of files on the 512MB card, all 1,4MB and all useless.

Digital Image Recovery is here http://dl.winsite.com/bin/downl?win95/sysutil/dir.zip~176~5000000038088
You should run it on your card to see if some pics can still be found!

If you get your hands on Lexar's rescue utility, please drop me a line... My Lexar card wasn't stuffed with it when i bought it :-(

http://www.at-sight.com
Sports & general event photography
 
I was out in -15´C for about 5 hours but didn't have any problem except ont time when I switch lens. First I get an error 1 message after that I switch the camera off/on now I could not shot beacuse that it said it has a 00 shutterspeed. I taked the lens off and put it back I and now its works normally agian and I had one more hour to shot.
I'm usin IBM microdrive.
Regards
O.Olsson
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
--
O.Olsson
 
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
 
Robert Schlauch said:
I am pleased to hear that others have had better luck in cold
weather. I notice that you use a different brand card than I do.
Do you think that this or differences in the speed with which these
cards store data could be affected by cold-weather condiitons?
Click to expand...
At first i thought it was the card, but the menu poped up pretty slowly as well. That had me scratched my head. I have not really looked into this problem as it only happened once and I didn't loose any pix from it. : ) (touch wood)
Just thought i'd post it and share it with others.

Yiyan
 
I was out 5 hours yesterday again in cold weather -16'C very close to open water to do some bird pictures.

I had one problem during the day gor a error 99 (I think) just switch the camera off/on and cntain shouting.
I switch my IBM microdrive
I switch battery two times (the IS is eating power and so are the cold to)

Regards
O.Olsson
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
--
O.Olsson
 
Guillaume in Paris said:
Have you let the camera some time to adapt to the cold? maybe this
was the cause, a big change in temperature, too brutal? I read some
posts about this, where people said they kept the cam under their
coat just to take it out, take the shot and back into the coat!
Click to expand...
I thought the problem was going from cold weather to warm. The jacket solution seems to try to avoid the camera getting (too) cold in the first place.

AFAICT the issue is that the cold camera, when exposed to the warm air, will cause condensation which might disturb the D60's electronics. If you (after you've finished shooting) wrap your camera inside a plastic bag (somewhat airtight) and let it rest inside there for half an hour after you get back in the warm, then the condensation will form on the outside of the cold bag, and not inside. Tossing some silica gel in there will probably help as well...

My experience is limited though, I've only had two cold exposures so far, first roughly 30 minutes and the second a mere 15 minutes. Both about -12 to -15 degrees Celsius. I wish I could afford a carbon tripod! I could've lost my tongue had I been in the habit of licking tripods.
Guillaume in Paris said:
FileRecovery was useless. It found an awesome number of files on
the 512MB card, all 1,4MB and all useless.
Click to expand...
It's probably a good idea to format the card in your PC from time to time. When you format the card in the camera, it'll just zero out the cluster allocation table, and that's pretty much it. Clusters containing directory structures will survive, and you could have a bunch of these, each "containing" 100 images. I.e. "FileRecovery" (whatever that is) will hopefully detect less old garbage on the card if you format regularly.

The other solution you mentioned seemed to give you less false positives? Strange though that you lost 6 images -- did you loose the first 6 or the last 6 shots? Were these in a different folder? i.e. did you cross an even hundred boundary so that the D60 created a new folder?

--
Rune, http://runesbike.com/
 
I had the exact same experience as you Robert. Same error message. Using Lexar 12X 256. I tried everything I knew and consulted a digital expert and we couldn't recover them. I knew there was 240mb of info on the card, so as a last resort I put the card in my Lexar Jumpshot reader and ran Scan Disk on it from windows. It repaired the files and I recovered ALL photos. Hope this helps.
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
--
Tim Young
Gotta film brain in a digital world!
http://photoguy.home.att.net
 
I'm glad someone else had that same experience as I did. I was beginning

to believe that my D60 was more succeptible to cold than others or that it has another problem, unrelated to the cold weather.

Thanks to all of your responses I now have several options to consider
the next time I have a write failure to the CF card.

Robert
Robert Schlauch said:
Anyone have any experiences with malfunctioning digital cameras in
cold weather? Here in Minnesota we have an abundance of it, and I
experienced a problem with my D60.

I just returned from a 1-hour plus bike ride with a group of
friends. The temp was about 20 deg. I shot about 20 photos of our
group, but on the last one I got an "err" message on the top of the
camera. The readout told me that there were 20 photos on the disk,
but the camera LCD said "no images."

After I returned home I was able to shoot a new photo in the home,
but I was not able to gain access to those 20 photos. I ended up
reformating the card, and that returned the space to me that was
taken up by those photos.

I know that I was operating outside the temp range given for the
camera, but the big disappointment was losing the photos that were
taken when the camera was warm.

Was there any way to recover those photos? Anyone else experienced
this problem?

Bert
Click to expand...
--
Bert
 
I've had my D30 out in extreme cold (as low as -30 C) many times. Other than extremely short battery life, I've had no problems.
 
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