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A trip to the mountains goes horribly wrong

Ray Dunakin

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On March 19th I had the rare (for me) opportunity to go to Mt. Laguna during a significant snow storm. It had already been snowing during the previous two days, so there was 6-8 inches of snow on the ground when I arrived, and more coming down.

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The trees were decorated with a heavy blanket of snow that turned stately pines into fanciful Christmas trees:

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Oaks and other deciduous trees were transformed as well:

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Winds were light, and I was able to make numerous flights with my drone. I flew it over, around, under, and between the snow-draped trees, often while snow was still falling, and captured some truly epic video footage and stills:

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I went home satisfied with the both the experience, and the amount of great video I had shot.

Then...DISASTER!!

I couldn't find the microSD card that had all of my best footage from the drone! Somehow I had lost it after putting in a new card. All I had were the last two, brief flights that were on the new card.

Two days later after most of the snow had melted I went back to the place where I had removed the full card from the drone. This was on a little-used driveway to a private observatory. I searched through the remaining snow and ice that still covered portions of the asphalt, but no luck. :(


.
 
Sorry to here about the bad luck.
That’s the reason I started using a case for my SD cards with numbered slots and putting my card in it’s place after each flight.
 
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Sorry to hear of your loss. To prevent this in the future, why not get a larger SD card, then you never have to worry about changing the card for all your flights? I have 5 batteries, can record 100% of the flights on a single card, and my card never gets completely full. Of course, I always copy all the video to my external USB drive when I get home, then erase all the files on the SD card so it is ready to go for the next flight. I use 64GB SD cards. I do carry a blank spare in my flight case, just in case.
 
Sorry to hear of your loss. To prevent this in the future, why not get a larger SD card, then you never have to worry about changing the card for all your flights? I have 5 batteries, can record 100% of the flights on a single card, and my card never gets completely full. Of course, I always copy all the video to my external USB drive when I get home, then erase all the files on the SD card so it is ready to go for the next flight. I use 64GB SD cards. I do carry a blank spare in my flight case, just in case.

I thought of doing that, but decided against it for fear that I might lose everything if the drone crashed in some inaccessible place. I use a 32GB card, so I'm not changing it frequently, but on longer trips if I do lose the drone, I could still have some footage from it.
 
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I thought of doing that, but decided against it for fear that I might lose everything if the drone crashed in some inaccessible place. I use a 32GB card, so I'm not changing it frequently, but on longer trips if I do lose the drone, I could still have some footage from it.
Per my post above. This is the best insurance against data loss as long as you take the couple of seconds to keep the cards organized.
I’d hate to shoot 90-120 min and the lose it due to a crash/ flyaway/etc.
 
Sorry to hear of your loss. To prevent this in the future, why not get a larger SD card, then you never have to worry about changing the card for all your flights? I have 5 batteries, can record 100% of the flights on a single card, and my card never gets completely full. Of course, I always copy all the video to my external USB drive when I get home, then erase all the files on the SD card so it is ready to go for the next flight. I use 64GB SD cards. I do carry a blank spare in my flight case, just in case.
I have to disagree a little bit ( ;) ), never a good idea to put aal of your eggs in one basket... There's always a possibility of card failing, drone flying away, you name it, and all of your footage is gone, just like that. But, if you have few smaller cards, you change your battery - change your card. Better safe than sorry.
 
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Per my post above. This is the best insurance against data loss as long as you take the couple of seconds to keep the cards organized.

That was my fatal mistake. I'm usually very careful about doing that but this time I was feeling rushed and set it on top of the drone case, intending to put it away after the flight. So of course the one time I do that, it gets lost. Been kicking myself ever since.
 
That was my fatal mistake. I'm usually very careful about doing that but this time I was feeling rushed and set it on top of the drone case, intending to put it away after the flight. So of course the one time I do that, it gets lost. Been kicking myself ever since.
Understand.... guess how I developed the system I use. ;)
Better to lose 5 min out of 3-4 hours than to lose the data.
 
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Wondering if a memory card could be searched with a metal detector.

Phew... at least your drone is safe. I was ready to read of another aircraft loss.

Lovely pictures.
 
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I agree about not putting all your eggs into one basket. Accidents happen all the time, nobody is perfect,
we all make mistakes. Accidents happen with SD cards, I was a Wedding photographer for 45 years, many of those years used film cameras. Had to sell all my Nikons, twin lens cameras for a huge loss.
A new learning curve with Digital cameras, and learned that having smaller SD cards was better because if I lost one card from a 10 hour shoot. No big deal, but if something happened to one
large SD card. I would be in big Doo, Doo, I apply the same principle today flying my drones, and using my
DSLR camera. I make a plan as to what I am going to photograph, how much time its going to take, how much space I need on My memory card. I do have quite a selection, of SD cards now. And don't have to buy any more, been down loading images, and reusing card for another trip. Give you example of one photographer, after a entire day at a wedding shot. He, made the mistake of not putting the memory card in a protective holder. He put it in his pants pocket, where the protective holder for the SD card was. He some how hit the edge of a table, while he was packing up his gear. And snapped the card in half, fortunately, he always did his wedding with two cameras. And he had back up pictures, second camera.
 
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