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This would protect you from mischievous kids (or malicious brats, as the case may be).

TRiG
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    I don't know of any, but great idea. In fact, I'd love to be able to require a PIN to change a number of options, which would keep me from doing it by accident. – mattdm Aug 02 '11 at 12:27
  • Well, I've just lost three days of photos to a brat. I've not taken any others on the same SD card, so I'll probably be able to recover them, but it looks expensive. I've been quoted €50 from a camera shop and €40 from a computer shop (I think I trust the camera shop better, he sounded more confident and I think he's seen this before). I'm going to check out on SuperUser the possibility of doing it myself. – TRiG Aug 02 '11 at 12:46
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    If you haven't touched the card, there's some chance. See How can I recover deleted photos from an SD Card? – mattdm Aug 02 '11 at 12:51
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    Here's another option for protecting your photos in the future: Toshiba has just announced a write-once SD card. There was an attempt to sell something like this a while back, but it was a big flop. Maybe Toshiba will have better success as a targeted niche product, as long as they can make the price reasonable (which is a bit doubtful, really). – mattdm Aug 02 '11 at 12:55
  • Mhhm. I've been waiting for cheap mass-packaged WORM-cards for some years now. Except for governmental uses they do not seem to really come along. – Leonidas Aug 02 '11 at 13:09
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    There's a ton of programs you can use for free to recover the deleted pics. First thing you should do though is move the Lock switch on the card to Lock so that no more data can be written to the card. Edit: this is what I used last. I think it's command based rather than GUI, but should be fairly simple to use the photorec bit http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk – Dreamager Aug 02 '11 at 13:27
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    Also, if the child is yours (and old enough to understand), you should 'bill' them for your loss of work ;) whether it be threatening them with "it's going to take this many years of no pocket money to pay it off" or "this many years of <insert chore they don't like> should be enough", it might discourage them from trying again ;) – Dreamager Aug 02 '11 at 13:44
  • I'll second getting a shareware application (check it's reputation before using) to restore the photographs. Something like this is bound to happen again (accidental or otherwise) and already having the software on hand will make it a lot less stressful and you will save money by not taking the card to a shop. – David Rouse Aug 02 '11 at 15:27
  • On the other question, it looks like I have my answer at http://superuser.com/questions/40058/recover-data-from-sd-card/40089#40089. – TRiG Aug 03 '11 at 01:49
  • @TRiG — or the answer on this site which I linked to above. :) – mattdm Aug 03 '11 at 03:07
  • @TRiG: I am using free program Piriform Recuva to recover my photos and was always successful (in cases nobody write any data on the card after picture deletion). – Juhele Aug 03 '11 at 14:36
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    @mattdm. Photos recovered. I'd still like a camera with a PIN, so if anyone knows of one, please add another answer to this question. – TRiG Aug 08 '11 at 21:25

2 Answers2

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No, there are not.

I have heard of rather expensive write-once memory cards, if you are truly serious about preventing deletion.

Also expensive but at least reusable is an Eye-Fi card which sends photos to a WiFi access-point as they are shot. That way, even if they are deleted from the card, the photos will be on a computer somewhere.

Itai
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  • I like the sound of the Eye-Fi card. I must look into that. – TRiG Aug 02 '11 at 13:11
  • Good though Itai. TRiG, be sure to look at the Eye-Fi card that allows for sync over an ad-hoc network in addition to a Wifi network. If you're in the field shooting, chances are you won't have a Wifi connection, but if you get the right Eye-Fi card, you can create a link between your computer and the camera without a problem that does the same exact thing. – Jon Aug 02 '11 at 17:43
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Most SD cards have a little lock switch on the side of them. I don't know about every camera, but my Nikon D5000 refuses to take a photo or delete anything if that switch is set to Lock. As long as you remember to flick the switch on the card before you let the camera out of your sight, you have at least a little insurance. Depends on how clever and/or devious said brat is.

ElendilTheTall
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