Hi, I am facing the biggest disaster you can imagine. I have been shooting wedding for years and have never lost a single photo. 1000 images from the wedding I just shot are corrupt and cant be opened. Please help.
Heres the Story.
I have been a Wedding Photographer for three years now. I have a great business and structure set up. I work with a wonderful second photographer that amazes me every time. Last week she couldn’t make a wedding, so I used a girl who showed me her beautiful portfolio, and graduated from an art school with photography as her focus. No Brainer right.
We went to the wedding and immediately i noticed she used a flash for everything. I hate flash photography. But she assured me it was the way she did it and it would look great. I figured I should trust her since she has the degree and Im self taught. During the group portraits she told me to light a scene a certain way, so i trusted her. That was my first mistake. I should have done it my way and not let her influence my work. Anyways. We shot agains a super bright background so she used a remote flash that wasn’t strong enough. Needless to say the pictures came out poor. After the wedding i looked at her pictures on the camera and realized they all look horrible, like something you would get from a point and shoot camera. Its no wonder with her flash pointed directly at the people for every shot.
I dropped her off at her place and she insisted i give her MY memory card so she can fix the pictures. I said no but she insisted, she said she has the programs and skills to fix the pictures she had a part of making bad. So i gave her my card. She opened the files on her MAC and pulled out the ones that were poorly shot. The folder had 999 images. She then ejected the card and gave me my card back.
I got home and put the card in my MAC and now all of the 854 files (i think she removed the missing shots) that were in the folder she opened are corrupt. I dont know what happend. My files are name JM1_7412.NEF from the camera. All the files that are bad are now named _JM23553.NEF As you can see not only did it move the underscore, but it completely changed the number sequence and added a digit. There was a second folder on the card, when a folder gets to 999, the camera creates a new folder. Every picture in that folder is ok. She never opened this folder on her computer.
I took the card to a camera shop that insisted this would be an easy fix and they would be able to get me JPGs at the least. They just called and said what theyre doing isnt working. What can I do. This has felt like it isnt the standard Corrupt file. I realize all the mistakes I made, I shouldn’t have let a fancy portfolio and degree cloud my judgement. I should have kept complete control and not tried anything new for a wedding.
Also when i try to open an image in Photoshop CS5 it say “Could not complete your request because Photoshop does not recognize this type of file.”
When i try to open it in Lightroom 4 it says “The files appear to be unsupported or damaged”.
The kicker is that i have her card which she uploaded to her computer as well. The files were renamed, but those pictures DO open on my computer.
I’ve tried to simply rename them, but it doesnt work.
HELP!
Jon
