BE CAREFUL Lost over 300 pictures!

[Paula B]

We just got back from the Crown Princess and had a CD made from my card which was good. Then the last day of the cruise I had another CD made with over 300 pixs on it. I went back to pick up the CD and they had someone elses pictures under my name and room number and told me to bring my card back down and they would do it again. They were having some trouble and they ended up getting someone else to help them. They finally showed me the pictures on their computer and they looked good. When I got home on Sun. The CD only had a little bit of the top of the pictures showing on about 10 of them and the rest have nothing on it. They also ended up erasing my digital card. I have now lost pictures of our Aruba 4X4 jeep tour with the natural pool, natural bridge, etc. and all the Bonaire pictures. I have talked to Princess and they have had me email passengerrelations and I have also emailed the Corwn Princess ship. I'm still waiting to hear something. I was hoping they would have been able to recover some of them but, I haven't received any response of yet. I love taking pictures from our cruises and it has left me very upset.

[Colo Cruiser]

We just got back from the Crown Princess and had a CD made from my card which was good. Then the last day of the cruise I had another CD made with over 300 pixs on it. I went back to pick up the CD and they had someone elses pictures under my name and room number and told me to bring my card back down and they would do it again. They were having some trouble and they ended up getting someone else to help them. They finally showed me the pictures on their computer and they looked good. When I got home on Sun. The CD only had a little bit of the top of the pictures showing on about 10 of them and the rest have nothing on it. They also ended up erasing my digital card. I have now lost pictures of our Aruba 4X4 jeep tour with the natural pool, natural bridge, etc. and all the Bonaire pictures. I have talked to Princess and they have had me email passengerrelations and I have also emailed the Corwn Princess ship. I'm still waiting to hear something. I was hoping they would have been able to recover some of them but, I haven't received any response of yet. I love taking pictures from our cruises and it has left me very upset.

 

 

That is why I don't let the so called photographers onboard touch my stuff period. :rolleyes:

[Roses2]

That is a reason we carry a laptop and download our pictures every evening.

 

We, not they, are responsible for the shots. We get to review each days photos and they are secure on our hard drive--plus, we back them up on a downloadable flash drive.

 

Pretty easy and relies on no one else.

[-Lew-]

There are some computer utilities that can un-erase data on memory cards. If you haven't stored any new photos on the card in question, they may be able to be recovered.

 

Lew

[usnavywife]

yes there are free softwares out there that you can get to recover your pics. It is worth a shot.

I am sorry to hear this.

That is a reason that I am taking my laptop

[Pam in CA]

I'm sorry you have this experience -- how disappointing. I always bring at least two memory cards. They're so inexpensive these days that I can wait until I get home and not lug my laptop around.

[dforeigner]

I'm sorry you have this experience -- how disappointing. I always bring at least two memory cards. They're so inexpensive these days that I can wait until I get home and not lug my laptop around.

 

I do the same thing. On the other hand, I am sorry (to the OP) that you lost all of your pictures. I would be upset as well.

[Poulsbo Cruisers]

I bring a 1 GB memory card along with a 256 KB card. This was sufficient to hold all of our pictures from our 12 day Med cruise last year along with 3 days in Venice, 3 days in Barcelona and 2 days in London. These cards are really cheap now and there should be no need to let anyone else touch your cards. Really sorry to hear about your loss.:eek:

[Coral]

I also do not trust the photo employees. My next cruise - I am bringing (9) 1 gig cards...

 

I do IT support and I have used some of the photo recovery software for one of my users. We recovered all of her Egypt pictures. So if you haven't written over your pictures yet - I encourage you to try this. The software I used let me see the pictures that it could recover and then I paid a $20-$30 fee for the software.

 

Someone on this board posted a simliar problem a few years ago. In their case, they did a once in a lifetime exotic trip and somehow Princess lost their card or something similiar. Customer serivce worked it out to their satisifaction which I was surprised that they could do. I don't remember the location but it was pretty exotic.

 

Good luck with this and hopefully you will have prevented others from losing their photos with your warning/your experience.

[Solara]

That's why I bought an extra 256., I already bring a 1G and a 256., better to be safe than sorry later.

[DelRio]

Do not use your digital card. The photos are still on the card.

Take a look at this web site.

 

http://objectrescue.com/products/photorescuepro/

 

If you can find a local professional photographer he/she may already have the rescue program to recover your photos.

 

The photos are still on the card even though they may have been erased or deleted. They can be recovered.

 

But, do not use your card. If you take more photos they will cover up the photos that you think are gone.

[donaldsc]

This is from a previous post - hope it helps.

 

In the computer world, there are 2 groups of people - one who has had a disaster or near disaster and one who has not yet had one. Welcome to the club. As mentioned by many other posters, at least your disaster is easily recoverable.

 

Hopefully you will learn from this and set up a procedure to ensure that when (not if, but when) it happens again, you will be protected.

 

I recommend the following -

 

1. Have enough memory cards so that you do not have to reuse them. Memory cards are cheap - memories are not. I travel with four 4-meg cards. Except for really long trip, this is usually sufficient to hold all my pictures.

 

2. Purchase a laptop computer and a portable hard drive. Also, carry enough CDs or DVD to hold 2 copies of all your pictures. As mentioned by other posters, make sure that RescuePro is installed on your laptop.

 

3. Every day, without fail, download your pictures to your laptop. Then upload them to the portable hard drive. Also upload them to the CDs. Do the CD upload twice so that you have 2 copies. Remember to store the hard drive and the CDs in your safe. This means that you have your pictures in 5 places - your card, the computer hard drive, the portable hard drive and on 2 CDs.

 

4. Do not erase the camera cards unless you absolutely have to. Remember, cards are cheap, memories are not.

 

5. When you leave the ship and especially when you fly home, do not ever store all of your stuff in one place or even 2 places. You can hand carry the laptop and the hard drive. Your spouse can carry the camera cards. You can put the CDs in different suitcases.

 

6. When you get home, back up all your stuff to an external hard drive connected to your computer or to a WEB storage site. I do both. The hard drive backup is done weekly and the WEB site continually scans my computer for new picture files.

 

This may sound like I am being overly paranoid but if you do it regularly, it becomes habit and does not take a long time.

 

By the way, how many of you out there have all of your pictures on the hard drive of your computer with the cryptic file names given by your camera and totally not backed up. Your computer will die at some time and so will all your pictures.

 

Also, do you think that you could find a specific picture if they are all dumped into the My Pictures folder with names such as DSC1567? I store all of my pictures in logical file folders such a "Donald & Carole 2006" and within this folder in subfolders such as "Mexico Trip Dec, 2006". All pictures are renamed to reflect what they are. At a minimum, I will date identify the pictures.

 

It was a lot easier when we shot film since you could throw the negatives and prints in a shoebox. Digital requires a lot of planning.

 

Sorry for this really long answer but it is clear from your questions (and I assume from the questions that have not been posted by probably most of the other board members who are shooting digital) that you have not clearly thought through the implications of digital photography.

 

DON

[Coral]

This is from a previous post - hope it helps.

 

I recommend the following -

 

 

I just want to say excellent post!

 

I thought I was the only one who brings my laptop, makes cds and puts them in various suitcases :)

[chasetf]

I just want to say excellent post! I thought I was the only one who brings my laptop, makes cds and puts them in various suitcases :)

What a bum deal for the OP. I too also carry a laptop to download. Never can have enough backups. Too many things happen. When traveling with my brother we even back up each others files.

[Coral]

What a bum deal for the OP. I too also carry a laptop to download. Never can have enough backups. Too many things happen. When traveling with my brother we even back up each others files.

 

I agree - it is very unfortunate for the OP. I really hope they can recover their files using one of the methods listed above. If they don't - I hope Princess is able to "make up for their mistake" somehow.

 

My comment about an excellent post is directed towards Donald who posted some very savy info on being very careful.

[Paula B]

Thanks for all of the response and I will try to find a recovery for my card. I did have two cards and still have the 1st one with the pictures on the card and the CD princess made me. It was the 2nd. card I had the 300+ pixs on that they deleted my card and left me nothing. I was just trying to have a backup just in case something happened to the card.

[wdrl]

On our Island Princess cruise to Hawaii we were running out of space on our flash cards and had the staff download the cards to a CD. However, before deleting the cards I opened every file on the photo centers computer and confirmed that they were all there and working properly. Then I signed the receipt to charge the service to my cabin.

 

We also have taken our laptop and found it easier to save everything as we like. We also burned CD's as a back up and even gave a copy to our tablemates on the last night of the cruise.

 

The bad news though at disembarkation, we were told that due to a terrorist plot in London we had to reduce our carry on luggage to less than half the normal size. Needless to say between our SLR, lenses and laptop we had no room for anything else! And only one of our carryon bags was small enough. A messenger bag I used. My DH ending up carrying the laptop under his arm with the padded envelope from our regular carry bag. After four hours standing in line at Heathrow that got to be really a pain. So now we are hesitant to take the laptop overseas. What if the airlines change the carryon requirements during our travels again? BTW our backs were both hurting by time we boarded.:eek:

 

I am now checking into a smaller portable media device!

[jlp20]

I have only used the "photo desk" once on Princess with so-so results.

 

Long ago I discovered to "check" any digital work before leaving the desk/counter. Even if a disk works on the ship, there is still a small chance (much less than 1%) that it won't work at home.

 

I to take a lapto, does a lot more than just handle the pics. If anything happens, I've know exactly who to blame, ME.

[lake5298]

That's a real shame. :(

I usually take a few 512K cards, rather than one massive card. I bring the cards home, I never let anyone else touch my cards.

I remember in the old 35mm days, I would never drop off more than one film at the lab on the same day... just in case the film processing machine failed, I wouldn't risk all my films in one go.

Years ago, I photographed weddings for a living... I always used 2 cameras and duplicated every picture. The films from one camera were snet for processing, the others kept safe, just in case. It might seem overkill.... but it was a "Belt and braces" approach that helped me get more customers... everyone has a scare story about failed wedding photos... mine involves the motorway crash of a courier van carrying undeveloped films. :eek:

The old saying...modified for the digital age...

"Dont put all your images in one memory card" :D

[SaylorGirl]

I agree with the others don't use your card the images should still be there. I always take several cards with me and switch to a new card every few days so that if I lose my camera I don't lose all my pictures. I download my cards myself to a CD when I get home.

[Cactus]

This info is too late for OP, but it may help others.

 

For those that do not want to carry a laptop, there is a great alternative for backing up your photos. I use an iPod video with 30gig memory. There is a little attachment you can buy (Amazon and other photo or computer stores) that plugs into the iPod and accepts the usb cable directly from your digital camera and you then download and/or backup all your files from your memory cards. The little gadget is about an inch square by ¼ inch (of course it ain’t cheap) but it works great! Additionally, the pictures can be viewed on the iPod screen, you can stick the iPod in your pocket and bring it to dinner with you to share some of the great pictures you took!

[LRATL]

I had a memory card go bad on a cruise, but did not take it to the ship's photo kiosk. I had 4 extra memory cards for other pictures. When I got home, I went to a reputable camera shop and bought a CD called Media Recover by Digital Imaging. The CD cover said "Recover Lost Photos, Audio, & Video! Easily recover and fix lost photos, audio and video. Recover files even after accidental deletion, a format or corruption. For digital cameras and all removable media. 3 Easy Steps"

 

It worked and I retrieved about 200 pictures I had taken when we were going through the Panama Canal.

 

Don't give up.....there is hope.

 

Luck to you,

Laura

[NorcalGuy]

I had a memory card go bad on a cruise, but did not take it to the ship's photo kiosk. I had 4 extra memory cards for other pictures. When I got home, I went to a reputable camera shop and bought a CD called Media Recover by Digital Imaging. The CD cover said "Recover Lost Photos, Audio, & Video! Easily recover and fix lost photos, audio and video. Recover files even after accidental deletion, a format or corruption. For digital cameras and all removable media. 3 Easy Steps"

 

It worked and I retrieved about 200 pictures I had taken when we were going through the Panama Canal.

 

Don't give up.....there is hope.

 

Luck to you,

Laura

 

To the OP,

I think you should consider doing what Laura suggests. Hopefully you haven't overwritten on the card yet.

Knowing how hardware can mess things up, is exactly why I never considered using this service. It is just too easy to erase a whole card in one stroke! So sorry you lost your photos. I would be very unhappy also.

As side note, I never erase my cards at home until the images are on my hard drive and a least two CDs that I have tested.

[Cptn. Heimlich]

On other lines at least, they will keep your pics on their server for 30 days or more. Try contacting them and they may fix your problem quickly.

 

Good luck with it.

[Desert Cruizers]

I am new to digital Cameras but was told my Canon A520 has like a backup within the camera, so my pictures are stored on the card and in camera ? Not sure what that means.