OMD E-M10 - how to delete a folder?

[soalle]

Hi,

very stupid question...

...I have not found a way to delete a folder from the camera while viewing the calendar.

I can delete a single pic, selected multiple pics (one by one) and delete them at once, but I am not able to delete an entire day of pics with just a click or two.

Can anyone help me here?

Thanks ;-)

 

[spdavies]

Don't think it's possible -
calendar "days" are not really separate folders.

 

[soalle]

so the only options are:
- delete everything
- delete one pic
- select one by one and then delete all selected

if this is the case, I think Olympus can do better... hopefully in a firmware upgrade?

 

[Clint]

A best practices for digital cameras is to remove your memory card and download your images every so often, then reinsert the memory card and reformat it in camera. This practice seems to have significantly reduced corrupted cards or other memory cards issues when using digital cameras.

Since Olympus has not given the possibility to create folders for photos in camera, I doubt they will add such a feature or the possibility top delete folders.

 

[soalle]

I might have been just lucky.... I have been shooting digital for more than 10 years, and never formatted. Never had a problem.
Anyway, if Olympus offers just these options, I guess I'll have to adapt...

 

[Mikefellh]

While I've been shooting electronically 25 years (7 years analog still video on floppy, rest of the time digitally), and have ALWAYS formatted! Let's just say it prevents possible problems.

Getting back to the original question, recommend not deleting on the road, but wait until the images are copied to the computer, and delete from the hard drive (BEFORE erasing the card by formatting)...then backup and after you're sure the backup is good format the card.

There's currently a photo "exhibit" right now on our public transit titled, "Things We Lose" and this one guy who lost a memory card lost 8 years of pictures of his children because he only kept the images on his memory card and never transferred the pictures to a computer.

 

[Sammyboy]

I might have been just lucky.... I have been shooting digital for more than 10 years, and never formatted. Never had a problem.
Anyway, if Olympus offers just these options, I guess I'll have to adapt...

.... you are indeed very lucky ......

 

[mcasan]

Very lucky indeed.

After a day of shooting, the card comes out and is downloaded into LR. Once that is done, the card goes back into the camera and is reformatted in the camera. That gives the camera the opportunity to verify the card's file system is good and ready to receive images. I never try to download images via a slow USB 2 cable from the camera or use the laptop to format a camera's memory card.

 

[soalle]

Very lucky indeed.

After a day of shooting, the card comes out and is downloaded into LR. Once that is done, the card goes back into the camera and is reformatted in the camera. That gives the camera the opportunity to verify the card's file system is good and ready to receive images. I never try to download images via a slow USB 2 cable from the camera or use the laptop to format a camera's memory card.

That's what I do. Take out the SD, put it in my pc download the pics, and put it back into the camera WITHOUT formatting.
Then I was deleting folders when I needed more space...

 

[mcasan]

When I download files into LR on my Mac, I put the card back into my EM-1 and format it. I have no need to keep images on the card when they are inside my LR catalog and file folders. After downloading a card into LR, I always tell Time Machine to backup my Mac. So I have at least two copies of the image in the Mac file system. That frees up all the SD card space for the next shoot. And the reformatting of the SD card makes sure its file system is good to go.

 

[owczi]

Hmmm... Is the in-camera format tool not just a quick format that merely wipes the file allocation table, not actually erases the whole memory region? If so, then with regards to detecting and working around corrupt bytes, there's no difference between deleting and doing the in-camera format. Unless the SD spec has some special format command akin to wiping an etch-a-sketch. There's a low level SD format tool you can download from the SD Association's website: https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/

 

[Growltiger]

Hmmm... Is the in-camera format tool not just a quick format that merely wipes the file allocation table, not actually erases the whole memory region? If so, then with regards to detecting and working around corrupt bytes, there's no difference between deleting and doing the in-camera format.

There is a big difference because deleting files so there are none left can still leave a card with a corrupt FAT. Formatting writes a new FAT which is correct. So the rule is simple, always format a card when you put it in the camera to start using it.

 

[owczi]

Well - I still think corrupt or unusable data regions masked by quick formats can do an equal amount of damage as a corrupt FAT. As a side note, having used FAT since the early 90ties, I've seen more cases of file corruption than FAT corruption.

Anyhow, I'm not arguing, I'm just saying that a low-level format is more beneficial to keeping an SD card in good health than the in-camera format alone. Truth is however, that I have some cards I haven't formatted for many years and they are still running fine... until that one day that is.

 

[bassman]

I think this "never delete a file from the card, only format" is an old wive's tale. I believe there may be several roots to the origins:

- Just formating the card in your computer doesn't create the DCIM folder structure needed for the camera to work properly;
- Manually deleting individual items on your computer (image files, folders) may leave a structure on the card that the camera can't deal with;
- Really ancient cameras may have had buggy software when deleting individual images, leading to corrupted files or folder structures;.

There may be others as well. However, while I too follow the practice of uploading from the card into my Mac using a card reader, followed (later) by a reformat of the card in the camera, I don't shy away from deleting individual images in the camera as needed. The chance that the camera will corrupt the card during this operation, and not during all the other operations it carries out, is miniscule.

I generally wait to reformat after I'm sure that one or more of my Mac backups have occurred, so I never have fewer than two copies.