Sun Nov 22, 2015 2:35 am
Christian,
Rick is right. As a once-upon-a-time wedding photographer who feels your pain and now a computer consultant who understands your issue, the problem is overwriting the data. A simple, quick format would most likely be recoverable. The problem is when the data is replaced by new data. Unfortunately, you'll have to work magic with the remaining coverage from the second camera operator. Also, if there are guests who took coverage, and if what you have remaining is quite weak, you may be able to piece something together by using all the resources available from the event.
So, a quick war story:
"Back in the day" which means early 1980s, I was doing my still photography thing and attempting to do video (very new concept at weddings) at the same time. Back then, cameras and recorders were separate devices. On this fateful job, I used a brand new recorder that had "logic" controls on it instead of the old, tried and true manual levers (logic meant computer controlled). Well, this new technology had a hiccup right at the start of the ceremony; the logic controls locked up. No matter how many times I pressed the record, stop, eject, or pause buttons, or the order I pressed them, the shiny new piece of equipment wouldn't respond. Now-a-days, reboots are the well-known first fix, but back then, using this new logic technology for the first time, the idea of rebooting a recorder just didn't occur. I assumed the recorder was dead, only to find it started working again later, after being shut down and started up again.
To make matters worse, my usual format was 35mm. I was using an unfamiliar medium format camera for the first time, a Hasselblad. The customer was also a pro photographer, and wanted medium format used. Ok, no big deal; I rented medium format equipment for the job. Back then, camera technology using flash still remained backwards compatible to the previous generation of flash photography, i.e., flash bulbs. Well, flashbulbs were before my time (sort of), so I didn't quite get the significance of the bulb setting for flash sync, and as bad luck would have it, the lens (not the body) was set to B flash sync instead of X flash sync. Flash bulbs literally burn (which takes a bit of time) whereas strobes were instant. In the X setting, the flash would trigger while the shutter was open, whereas with the B setting, the flash would trigger prior to the shutter opening to compensate for the small amount of time it would take for the burning flash bulb to reach full brightness. All those great off-camera lit shots ended up virtually blank, because the "bulb" setting on the lens triggered the flash prior to the shutter opening.
I ended up with a double-failure on this job; a job I was trying my very best since my client was also a pro, and as a young hot-shot photographer, I had a sense of pride on the line. This was my first-ever failure on a job, and it ended up being a double failure.
I retired from doing gigs like that more than 10 years ago. In over 2000 jobs spanning more than 20 years, I had only this one major failure, and I still remember it very well. My resolution for the missing video was to create montages out of stills. For the missing stills, I was SOL. Thankfully there were outdoor sessions, so not all was lost, just as you have your 2nd camera footage. I also learned through the school of hard knocks to always fully check the image pipeline (i.e., lens, shutter, flash, etc.) by test-firing shots prior to loading film, and then to also intermittently check equipment throughout the gig. This included making sure flash would sync, lens iris would stop down, etc. The lesson caused me to be very gun shy about problems, so I ended up carrying backups to the backups and performing multiple checks of equipment before the job and at every venue change (house, church, park, reception). Some years later while working for a medium format studio... using Hasselblads, on just one occasion all this extra checking and caution really saved my butt. I suffered a double failure with Hasselblad camera equipment when both the primary and backup cameras failed during the pre-ceremony picture session. I resorted to using 35MM equipment (not the studio's but my own) while the studio scrambled to bring replacement equipment. If I didn't bring this 3rd backup which the studio didn't really support, there would have been a substantial loss that day.
I'm sure we all have our war stories.
Anyway, I rarely do filming stuff, but just recently did take some shots of stuff I'll be saving for a number of years for a possible documentary. The setup for these pictures (filmed shots) is now gone and can never be replicated. Since I know computer equipment can be troublesome, I did copy all this data to my RAID6 volume, but since even RAID6 can fail, and because I can never take these shots again, I have not formatted the SSD until I can create at least one or two additional backups of the data.
As an IT consultant, I will comment that there is one problem with computer equipment being so relatively reliable (this may sound strange that "reliability" can be a problem): Since failures are indeed so rare, it's easy to get a little complacent on making redundant copies (backups, etc.), especially when exhausted after a long day, and knowing that things can be backed up tomorrow. Tomorrow ends up being during the week, and then backups start getting missed altogether. Believe me, this happens to IT departments in large businesses (typically overworked depts) so it's easy enough to happen to very small operators. Months-years go by without a problem... then BAM. When BAM happens, it's heartsink and all the rest, praying for the damage to be minimal, while contemplating just how bad it probably is.
My one suggestion from this little diatribe, is that you should be immediately be duplicating this precious footage at the end of the day, even during the day if the burden is not too great to do it out in the field. It's just not worth it , not knowing when the next problem will hit... and that can include theft (this happened to the studio; all the equipment from a gig and film too was lost) as well as a plethora of other unknowns.
FWIW...
Good luck with your client and here's hoping they're understanding.
