Sony A7R IV Deleting images question

[snafu]

I have the camera setup to record RAW on slot 1 and JPG on slot 2.
When I want to delete all of the stored images I go to Playback1 and select Delete - All images with this date.
When I do that only the RAW images are deleted. I even tried going to Camera1, page 4 and change Select Media to Slot2 and again try the delete method.
But that doesn't work.
How can I bulk delete all of the JPGs on Slot2?

(I want to keep my settings file on the SD card, so I would rather avoid doing a format)

 

[AlphaWorld]

Using delete instead of format is a bad idea - you will find quite a lot on the subject if you google it. Formatting is very much the preferred way to clear the card.

I would recommend having a small SD card for your settings, and load it when you want to load or save them.

 

[snafu]

Thanks for the tip. I guess having a dedicated cheap SD card to hold the settings is a good workaround.

 

[Clix Pix]

When I shoot a bunch of images, I put the memory card into the card reader and download them into the computer. Then I review the images and edit any that I'm going to edit. I return the memory card to the camera and format the card, which clears it of all the images that were on it and it is then ready for me to go out shooting again with an empty card.

When out in the field actually shooting, even though I might realize that, oops, I really screwed up that image or I pressed the shutter button at the wrong time, I still do not delete while the card is still in the camera. That can cause problems and screw up the sequencing, etc. I just move on and only when I have the image file in the computer and can properly see the images -- the LCD screen really is not large enough for a proper assessment of an image -- do I decide whether or not that image is worth processing. Sometimes I use Photo Mechanic to run through and delete any images that I know I'm not going to edit anyway, culling out the baddies before ever getting to the editing part of the process, but a lot of times I don't bother with that. The bottom line, though, is that I never, ever, delete anything in-camera, even when it's something really obvious. I just wait until I'm ready to handle the entire card's worth of images -- outside of the card -- and then simply format the card to start it fresh again.

 

[Jeff A]

Well, I'm not sure what kind of bad Voodoo is going to happen to me but I don't format the card when deleting. When I return from a shoot, I pull the card from the camera and put it in a card reader and make copies of them on my Hard Drive or delete then there.

I do have memorized setups on my SD cards and don't want to delete them, even though I have backups. I have been doing this long before I became a Sony owner. So, what am I risking?

 

[snafu]

Well, I'm not sure what kind of bad Voodoo is going to happen to me but I don't format the card when deleting. When I return from a shoot, I pull the card from the camera and put it in a card reader and make copies of them on my Hard Drive or delete then there.

I do have memorized setups on my SD cards and don't want to delete them, even though I have backups. I have been doing this long before I became a Sony owner. So, what am I risking?

Yeah, that was how I did it before switching over to Sony (Nikon D800). There was never any worry about corrupting a card by deleting files either on or off the camera.

 

[rgarven]

Friends,

OK I have a different workflow I save JPEGs to slot 1 which is an SD card and RAW images and movies to slot 2 which is a similar high speed SD card. For two years I've just been deleting the photos by hitting the delete in the menu delete all with this date.

I just started using Lightroom Classic but I have 80,000 photos in my Apple photo app on my computer. They are all organized pretty successfully but I'm trying to figure out a workflow going forward using Lightroom Classic and I have a few questions.

1. I'm a bit confused about everything that was said above. I guess my first one is: Going from the menu I press delete> then delete all with his data, that deletes all my JPEG images in slot 1. But it looks like there's no way to delete the images in slot 2. Is there any way to do this on the camera?

2. So if you take the cord out of the camera and put it in your computer can you delete your certain folders with your photos in it and then put it back in the camera?

3. When you reformat it, it doesn't destroy any of your firmware files right? So does it erase all of your personal settings? This doesn't make any sense and it seems like the designers would have not designed the camera delete all it settings, when you delete the photos as you all say is the correct way to delete them?

Hopefully someone can explain to me what I missing here.

Thanks

Rob

 

[AlphaWorld]

Ok, this was a three year old thread.

When you delete images the way you describe, it affects the current “playback” card. You change which is the current playback card from the blue Playback menu. On my cameras (I don’t have the A7IV) it’s the first submenu: Select Playback Target Media. Switch to slot 2 and you can delete from there.

However, the recommendation is to format a memory card in camera, not in the computer. And not to delete files by date - mostly to avoid fragmentation.

This does remove all the files from the card, including any firmware files you might have there, but you shouldn’t be retaining a firmware file after you have updated the camera (unless you are updating multiple identical cameras). The firmware is loaded into the camera permanently, and cannot be loaded again, so there is no point in retaining it.

If you are storing settings on the card, yes it would erase those, too. If you want to store settings on a card, I always recommend using a dedicated card for that - perhaps one that’s too small to hold a useful number of images. However, most of your settings are stored in the camera, and are completely unaffected by formatting the card. If you use, for example, custom modes 1 to 3, those are in the camera. It’s the extra modes (M1 to M4, I think) that are stored on the card. And you can store all your camera settings on a card (a CAMSET file) as a backup - that’s what I would recommend saving to a dedicated card.

I would strongly recommend NOT deleting folders from a card with the card in a reader on the computer - that’s because Sony maintains a record of the images in what it calls a “database” in a separate folder on the card. Deleting the folder puts the card contents out of sync with the database - simple way to correct this is to format the card in the camera.

For me, I shoot, copy the files off the card into the computer using a reader, hold onto the card until I am confident that the files copied cleanly, and I have backed them up, then I format the card in camera.

 

[rgarven]

Tony,

Thanks for your suggestions and advice. So as not to have repeated questions always search the forums to see if a similar question was asked, that's why I was piggybacking onto it.

 

[rgarven]

Friends,

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm beating a dead horse, but I have a book on the A7 IV, and I did a couple of searches which led me back to this form but what I'm curious of is: what settings are actually stored inside the cameras memory and what settings are stored on the digital cards. If reformatting the card is a preferred way of deleting images, it seems like they would've made some of the preferences stored in the cameras memory also?

Rob

 

[AlphaWorld]

Yes, your horse is dead. Stop beating it. Please stop beating it.

UNLESS YOU CHOOSE TO STORE SETTINGS ON THE CARD, THEY ARE NOT STORED ON THE CARD. They are stored in the camera. Even if you store them on the card, they are not loaded from the card every time - they are loaded into the camera when you tell the camera to load them, and they stay in the camera.

Clear enough?

The only two kinds of settings (that I can think of) that you can choose to store on the card.

1. A backup of settings (custom modes, button settings, etc) - known as a CAMSET file. This COPIES settings that are in the camera into the file on the card. It does not serve as the only place those settings are stored.

2. Extended custom modes (beyond the two or three that are stored in the camera). NOTE: on the more modern cameras you get three custom modes stored for each of stills / video / S&Q in the camera.

If you format a card in the camera, you only lose stuff that you deliberately stored on the card. The most likely thing to lose is images and videos, 'cause we all store those on the cards That's why I recommend downloading images, then backing them up to a second medium (NAS, DAS, Cloud Storage, whatever) before formatting the card.

Some things are, I believe, only stored in the camera. Things like the copyright info. I don't think these go into a CAMSET file, but I've never tested it and I could well be wrong. However, to repeat myself, the files stored on the card are only there because you told the camera to put them there.

I have formatted cards in cameras for decades. I might have lost images, but I have never lost settings by formatting a card. Part of the reason is that I've never used those extra custom modes. I never felt the need. I have stored CAMSET files occasionally, mainly when I wanted to try a new set of custom modes in my camera - backed up the old ones.

The one time I have lost settings was a known issue (unavoidable) where installing a particular firmware. It wiped out previous settings, and you could not save those settings to a card and restore them, because the new firmware rearranged how the settings were stored and could not read the old format. Annoying, but made extremely clear when doing that particular firmware update.

 

[rgarven]

Tony,

Thank you for your detailed response. I've been really busy with the band the last couple years, (Played 3 shows in Australia) so I haven't had a real chance to dive deeply into this camera yet. The information you provided it's not covered very well in the 400 page book that I'm reading, and several conflicting advice online so I appreciate your info. Im a Ferrari guy so I do not like beating any kind of horse!

Rob

 

[AlphaWorld]

Tony,

Thank you for your detailed response. I've been really busy with the band the last couple years, (Played 3 shows in Australia) so I haven't had a real chance to dive deeply into this camera yet. The information you provided it's not covered very well in the 400 page book that I'm reading, and several conflicting advice online so I appreciate your info. Im a Ferrari guy so I do not like beating any kind of horse!

Rob

Apologies if I expressed myself rather forcefully - the timing was bad, because someone asked me to share one of my custom modes, I wrote the custom mode to a memory file, he inserted it in his camera, formatted the card, then complained that he couldn’t find the file. I asked why he formatted the card, and he said “I always do that when I put a card in the camera”…

I try to cover all the edge cases (like those weird “extra custom modes”), but they are very rarely encountered. The custom modes are covered briefly here: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/2110/v1/en/contents/TP1000617341.html - it talks about settings stored against positions 1, 2, 3 on the PASM dial, and the ones stored on the memory card.

Here’s the page on saving all your settings in a file: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/2110/v1/en/contents/TP1000656910.html?search=Saving settings - this is the one I recommend saving to a dedicated card - it can be a small one, because the files are tiny, and you can only store ten on the card. It lists the things that won’t be saved, and I am pleased to see that I was right about the copyright info, but there are several more that aren’t saved - some of them make a lot if sense because the relate to security.