I never really used a digital camera until 2009 or so, and since then I'm still climbing the learning curve, so to speak. Currently I'm playing with RAW files vs. .jpg files and getting familiar and comfortable with them, slowly that is.
🙂
Of course I've received much sage advice from the earlier adopters of digital, some of it very wise and valuable, and some of it, of course, questionable.
🙂 The advice I trust the most is from a few very hard-core techie types I work with who also shoot DSLRs. They seem to be somewhat in agreement with the "format, don't delete" suggestion. Two true-isms that I do believe in are:
1. Do all of your "write" operations (format, delete) in the camera and not in the computer.
2. Don't delete too much. This in terms of that it's usually OK to delete onesy-twosey to get a few more shots in, but don't push it. Re-format when you want to delete all.
The BEST advice I ever got was to not futz around with the cables, but to get one of those card readers and directly transfer the files to the PC. "{F-bomb} the cables!" was a direct quote.
🙂 It's MUCH easier and much faster, and this was one of the main headaches that turned me off to digital photography for so long.
Another, which is almost intuitive, is right after each shoot, copy the files to the PC to have a clean backed-up copy in case anything goes wrong.
Other advice which I've followed is not to try to use cards from one camera to another without reformatting, and to always use name brand cards from a known dealer and not Ebay specials.
That's the collection of advice I've been following and so far I have not lost a single {crossing fingers, knocking on wood} image to a technical error.