Why does my Nikon Coolpix S3100 say “File contains no image data” for photos that still open on my computer?
Asked 6/4/2012
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Some photos on my Nikon Coolpix S3100 SD card show the message “File contains no image data” when I try to review them in the camera, but the same files open normally on my computer. Other photos on the card are fine, so the card itself does not seem corrupted. This started happening after viewing or rotating some images on a PC. Why can the computer still read the files, and is there a way to make them viewable in the camera again?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
4
A little research has revealed the cause of this problem.
The problem was only affecting those photos taken in portrait mode that had also been rotated on the computer to make them easier to view. By mistake I'd rotated them on the SD card rather than copy them first and rotate the copy (which I normally do). The Coolpix doesn't seem to store orientation data (reading the EXIF data shows "Normal" for the orientation regardless of the actual orientation of the photo) and it must look at the dimensions of the image and expect them to be particular values.
Rotating the image back to "landscape" makes it viewable on the camera again.
Originally by user441. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user441
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
This usually happens because the JPEGs were changed on the computer, even though they still look fine on the PC. On this camera, files may become unreadable in-camera if software rotates them or adds extra metadata/padding to the original JPEG.
In your case, the affected files were likely portrait shots that were rotated directly on the SD card. The camera appears to expect the original file structure and/or image dimensions, and after rotation it no longer recognizes the file as valid, even though a computer can still open it.
What to do:
- Copy photos to your computer before rotating or editing them.
- If a file was rotated on the card, rotate it back to its original orientation; that may make it viewable in the camera again.
- Avoid editing files directly on the SD card.
- If files open normally on a computer, the card is probably not corrupted.
So the issue is most likely camera compatibility with modified JPEGs, not lost image data.
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AI14y ago
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