so I just shot a wedding in Florida. They day before the wedding I did trash the dress session (with a different dress) and rehearsal dinner. To make a long story short, I got my entire wallet of cards (2 card full and 6 cards blank) wet in salt water. I let them sit in the sun for a bit to let it dry. Then I shoot rehearsal dinner, one camera was full, changed card... card error.. changed card .. error... on all cards! So I have no cards left. Luckily I still have 300 shots left on one camera's card so I just shoot with one camera and try to keep my composure because I dont want them to get worried. At this point I thought I lost 2 whole cards and all of my blank cards and I have to shoot again tomorrow for the wedding. Went back to the hotel, filled a glass full of fresh water, submerged all the cards in there and shake it around for 1 minute, dry, hair dryer (from far), let it sit over night, go to best buy and buy a couple of overpriced 16 gb cards, shot the wedding.

I went back home... all the cards are readable. No data is lost... I'm happy. Whew!

Lesson learned, getting your cards wet is fine. Just make sure you dry it first or it wont work. If it is salt water, better rinse it with fresh water first before you dry it. Now I need a stiff drink! Here are a few pics.

Wow nice save!

Damn, close call! Last shot is HILARIOUS!

Nice save on the salted cards! Nice work as always but your third image is going down as a true favorite.

Nice shots, what cards did you use? My sandisk extreme pro sd-cards have endured the elements and they are still alive and kicking . Even heat (80°C+) was no problem! (one of my older ones failed under such circumstances)

playerofwar wrote:
Nice shots, what cards did you use? My sandisk extreme pro sd-cards have endured the elements and they are still alive and kicking . Even heat (80°C+) was no problem! (one of my older ones failed under such circumstances)

I have sandisk and transcend. I am pretty sure it is not about the brand. This is CF cards so it has holes that would retain water and moisture. With SD cards, I am pretty sure you could have wiped it and it will still work. CF is totally different.

I always have a Tupperware container of rice in the house for emergencies.

#2 & 3 rock. Where'd you shoot in FL?

La Playa Hotel in Naples.

nice save. cool under pressure.

I would never of had the balls to rinse them with fresh water...WOW!...great save. Just for future reference for those last minute best buy/sandisk extreme runs- Best Buy price matches amazon.com if the item is sold by Amazon. I think BB sells the 16gb sandisk extreme for $99 and Amazon generally sells it for $60. Decent savings and of course that's for any item at BB.

Geez CF cards are tough. I've read of them surviving the washing machine and being dropped from large heights, but salt water kills anything electronic - amazing that they survived, and great that you managed to recover everything

I'd be surprised if you don't start seeing issues with these cards eventually. I would plan on replacing them sooner than later. You might also think about a way to do a cleaning of the contact pins in your camera. Salt is really nasty and any little bit has the potential to be corrosive.

As a side note...I'm one of those who has washed a card. That was a couple years ago and it still works fine but between the capacity and the lingering doubt I new use it for anything important.

rinsing in fresh water is fine... most good cards are very very resilient and will hold up well to getting wet in both fresh and salt water.
nice job down there Robin

Nice save Robin! I would have assumed the cards would be toast and therefore would have started managing expectations with the clients, perhaps with the intention to redo some critical shots using any dry cards (especially since this was a destination shoot). Though, I certainly hear your point about preventing the clients from panicing! It's good to know that these cards can actually sustain some water damage.

I'm not sure what type of memory card wallet you use, but we use these waterproof wallets from Amazon that can fit 4 CF cards. Our process is to have the cards facing up when they're empty, and facing down if they're full.

-Lincoln

Another trick for drying just about anything in water - get a bottle of PURE alcohol (aka Everclear) and after your water rinse in fresh water, rinse in alcohol! It displaces the water, and evaporates a LOT faster