How many CF memory cards is enough?

[Will Thompson]

Really, how many?

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Will,

It all depends on the file sizes and the number of images you shoot. I have a 5D for WA and a !DII for fast work and they do consume file space when one shoots in RAW.

One just has to give away any small ones. First I gave away the 64MB, then the 250MB now all the 500MB are gone. Soon I won't bother with the 1GB either.

Too many cards increases the risk of loss or mixing things up. today, I only buy 2GB cards and keep 6GB of fast CF cards and 6GB of SD cards as reserve.

I would say one should have at least twice what one think one might need.

If I'm working on a specific project, I could manage with one 250 MB card! However, I'd never put myself in that position.

Asher

[Scott B. Hughes]

We have ~eighteen CF cards. Our need may vary from yours. We often will fill up 24 Gbs of cards in a four-five hours.

OTOH, I feel very comfortable going out on a 'casual' shoot with room for sixty images on a card.

To be more direct, having one empty card in the bag at the end of the day is perfect!

-Scott

[Dierk Haasis]

Two memory cards of sufficient volume plus a battery-driven HD-***-card reader.

For a D2x, shooting NEF compressed: 2x 2 GB fast brand cards like Lexar's Pro series or Sandisk's Extreme III/IV, one X's-Drive. Even more versatile but much more expensive is the Jobo Giga Vault Pro evolution instead of a cheap X's-Drive without anything but card reader and HD.

If you want to be really save, get yourself a second or even third HD with card reader; say, the Jobo (or comparable Epson or Nikon) as work horse incl. viewing and several other capabilities, and a cheap X's-Drive or two for backup in the field.

Going for more, smaller cards has the advantage of faster download and reuse times; you also won't lose everything when one card fails. OTOH, the probability of card failure goes up with more cards [the failure probabilities of the individual cards add up]. Recently I found one very good reason to use smaller cards instead of larger ones: Since we usually format any card after use [that's after downloading files], new files will be written from the beginning of the card first, then go on to parts farther to the end, meaning that the former sectors will be written over more often, thus increasing failure probability for those parts.

If most of your sessions are [way] below the capacity of any given card you are more likely to lose files than with using smaller cards you have to exchange during a session.

[Nill Toulme]

Strictly speaking, one card of sufficient capacity is "enough." But you never want to go out on an important shoot with only one of anything if you can help it, so my view is that the "right" number of cards is two, each of sufficient capacity to shoot anything you might want to shoot.

I'm not a believer in lots of cards, although I have lots of cards (about 40GB worth). In my opinion a card is in the most danger of being lost or damaged when it's OUT of the camera, OUT in the field.

Ideally, I prefer never to open the camera in the field. But I'll often shoot 1,500 RAW frames at a sporting event. How to reconcile those things? With an 8GB CF and a 4GB SD in each of my 1D Mark II's.

With memory as cheap as it is now (the very fast 12GB in each of my cameras cost me about $225), I also don't see the point of the portable hard drive things. With those gizmos you really do put your eggs in a basket, and I'd think they're at least as likely to fail as any given CF. Plus you still have the hassle of downloading, etc. AND then you have to transfer to the computer again when you get back to the shop. I really don't get it.

I'm also not in the format-every-time camp. I've put more than a quarter million frames through various cards of just about every type (including a lot of microdrives), and I bet I haven't formatted them, all together, more than a dozen times.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Sean DeMerchant]

Recently I found one very good reason to use smaller cards instead of larger ones: Since we usually format any card after use [that's after downloading files], new files will be written from the beginning of the card first, then go on to parts farther to the end, meaning that the former sectors will be written over more often, thus increasing failure probability for those parts.

With newer and higher quality cards this is not an issue. My understanding* is that the cards circuitry actually maintains a counter and as the card fills up it sets the zero point where the next word should be written to the card so that in general it makes an effort to balance out the wear and tear.

Add in that with 10,000 duty cycles for an average card and multiply that by 500+ photos per large card and you are tlaking about 5 million photos. Your shutter is likely to die and yourself having upgraded the body and bought larger cards before it practically becomes a common problem.**

enjoy,

Sean


* I cannot remember the reference but have seen this written several times.

** I have had bad cards, but they were defective rather than worn out.

[Sean DeMerchant]

I'm also not in the format-every-time camp. I've put more than a quarter million frames through various cards of just about every type (including a lot of microdrives), and I bet I haven't formatted them, all together, more than a dozen times.

There are two reasons to format every time. And a fresh file system is the minor one. The real reason is that formatting a card is anywhere from two to ten times faster than deleting huge numbers of files in camera. You can talk about reliability all you want, but you only need to practically do that every month or two for nearly identical benefit. But the time savings can matter if you start counting it in missed shots due to a failure to empty the card by accident.

enjoy,

Sean

[ChrisDauer]

Memory Cards? How quaint :) It's very 2005 of you.
J/K!

One word: WiFi

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/09/nikon-scores-fcc-approval-for-d200-dslr-wifi-transmitter/

[Dierk Haasis]

With memory as cheap as it is now (the very fast 12GB in each of my cameras cost me about $225), I also don't see the point of the portable hard drive things.

Using prices in Euro in Germany, 80 GB:

1 X's-Drive II Plus, pre-configured = € 125
40 Sandisk 2 GB Extreme III* = € 2,200


Prices for memory cards may be dropping but the difference to me still looks mighty impressive. HD technology's tried, tested and improved for more than 2 decades, notebook HDs have been proven to be very stable in every respect. Getting two or three of those [with card reader built in, batterie powered] is much cheaper than getting enough cards in the same storage space range - and it is safer even when only probabilities are taken into account [that is, technology in both is considered to be equally robust].

In this example it is assumed that only part of the CF-card is actually used for shooting, the rest is for backup [although I don't see how to do that without a computer and a card reader**].





*Cheapest per MB.
**Epson's, Jobo's and Nikon's portable HD-monitor-card readers count as computers.

[Sean DeMerchant]

Memory Cards? How quaint :) It's very 2005 of you.
J/K!

One word: WiFi

http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/09/nikon-scores-fcc-approval-for-d200-dslr-wifi-transmitter/
Looks cool! But hauling a laptop to use it plus the cost of the laptop exceed the cost of 40 GB of CF cards in both weight and cost. ;)

enjoy,

Sean :)

[Nill Toulme]

... The real reason is that formatting a card is anywhere from two to ten times faster than deleting huge numbers of files in camera. You can talk about reliability all you want, but you only need to practically do that every month or two for nearly identical benefit. But the time savings can matter if you start counting it in missed shots due to a failure to empty the card by accident.

Formatting would cost me time, not save it, as it would be an extra step. Among the many extremely useful things that Downloader Pro (http://breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm) does for me (including automatic folder creation, file renaming, downloading, backing up, and confirming the downloads) is automatically clearing the card.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Nill Toulme]

Using prices in Euro in Germany, 80 GB:

1 X's-Drive II Plus, pre-configured = € 125
40 Sandisk 2 GB Extreme III* = € 2,200

Prices for memory cards may be dropping but the difference to me still looks mighty impressive. HD technology's tried, tested and improved for more than 2 decades, notebook HDs have been proven to be very stable in every respect. Getting two or three of those [with card reader built in, batterie powered] is much cheaper than getting enough cards in the same storage space range - and it is safer even when only probabilities are taken into account [that is, technology in both is considered to be equally robust].

In this example it is assumed that only part of the CF-card is actually used for shooting, the rest is for backup [although I don't see how to do that without a computer and a card reader**].

I'm not sure I follow your argument. Are you saying this is for use of the HD device strictly for field backup, as opposed to freeing up the CF cards for reuse? I would agree that could make sense in extended field situations. For multi-day trips I've always just used the laptop though.

What I'm saying is that I don't see the point of these HD-devices as substitutes for adequate CF capacity.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Dierk Haasis]

What I'm saying is that I don't see the point of these HD-devices as substitutes for adequate CF capacity.

Well, the question is: What is 'adequate'?

My definition can be read in my first posting, one card with enough to cover an average session, another one to cover the time I need to download from card 1 to a portable HD. Everything else - more or bigger cards, backup HD's - is nice. Hence my set-up for D2x shots, one 2 GB CF, one 1 GB CF, one X's-Drive with 80 GB [was absolutely cheaper than any other configuration or I would have gone for a 40 GB].

Another definition would be: use the largest card available.

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi,

I bought my first DSLR a week ago. I also bought 2x 4GB SanDisk Extreme III CF cards. They take up to 380 RAW files each, so for a long day of shooting I might lack some CF-capacity. I am considering buying a battery powered HD unit with a built in CF-card reader so that I can off-load the CF-cards to the HD-drive and keep on shooting. As a matter of fact, I was just about to order the Vosonic 2160 X's 80 GB drive which costs 179 Euros in the Netherlands. Dierk: is this the same drive you are using too? If so, is it any good? Any remarks/comments/tips will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Cem

[Dierk Haasis]

I've got the 2060, discontinued long ago. The 2160 is the one I used to calculate costs.

Nothing much to say about them, the HDs are well-known brands and you can easily go for a case only, putting in your own (probably from an old notebook). Never had trouble with it, guess you know that it might not be a good idea to throw it around a lot while switched let alone copying files.

Apart from the non-existence and higher price-tag, I'd now go for the Jobo Giga Vault Pro evolution [essentially a Linux computer optimised for viewing images and movies] would leave me with the X's-Drive as an in-the-field backup.

[Ray West]

I've just had a look at the vosonic website. Not much information there. Makes me glad I bought the hyperdrive, if you are looking for speed of copying cf to the hdd, its 1Gb a minute. I do not know if many others do that.

Best wishes,

Ray

[ChrisDauer]

Looks cool! But hauling a laptop to use it plus the cost of the laptop exceed the cost of 40 GB of CF cards in both weight and cost. ;)

enjoy,

Sean :)

Perhaps, but it goes under the theory that sooner or later you're going to put your images on a computer and do post processing and then printing/posting. So I'll grant you weight, but for cost, you'll need 'a' computer, why not a laptop? :) Besides, you'd save yourself the 40 GB of CF cards! :)

[Nill Toulme]

I guess the main reason the HD solutions don't appeal to me is that when I'm shooting, I'm shooting. I'm not downloading and fiddling with computers and whatnot, and I don't have an assistant to do that for me. So I want enough CF capacity to let me do that without distraction.

I also don't like to have to do things twice — e.g., download something to the HD gizmo, then download that to the processing machine.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Asher Kelman]

What about using the SD card as backup? At least that might work for those cameras that can take two cards. Nikon takes 1CF card AFAIK and Leica just one SD card.

Anyone test the speed for dual saving on a 1D series? For a lot of work, that could be sufficient.

asher

[Nill Toulme]

Now that I have a couple of 4GB SD cards I intend to do exactly that for highly critical shoots. So far I haven't had anything highly critical enough to try it with though. ;-)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Asher Kelman]

It's "Backup" on the middlest of the five menus.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[ChrisDauer]

I'm not sure I follow your argument. Are you saying this is for use of the HD device strictly for field backup, as opposed to freeing up the CF cards for reuse? I would agree that could make sense in extended field situations. For multi-day trips I've always just used the laptop though.

What I'm saying is that I don't see the point of these HD-devices as substitutes for adequate CF capacity.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

What about as a substitute for a laptop? I purchased a 60 GB harddrive unit that reads CF and SD (and even has a cute little LCD screen a tiny bit larger than my LCD on my camera). Point is, I took it for a 2 month trip overseas, as a substitute to taking my laptop.

This is over a year ago now, so CF prices were even higher. The 1 GB I am still using ran me over $100, and the portable harddrive was only $500.

I'll now make 2 qualifications.
1.) The weight I saved on the trip for the portable over the laptop was significant over the duration of the trip (approx 6-7 lbs, lugged through 12 countries over 60 days.)
2.) I am not a paid professional (like many of you are). These images are for me. Were I a paid professional, I would likely do 'both' just to be safe. I would not want to risk my livelihood.

[Ray West]

Hi Nil,

Whatever works for you, but this is the hyperdrive scenario (one of many)

You wear it on your belt, if you wish. You have 2 cf cards.
One in the camera, one in the hyperdrive. You swap them over when the camera one is nearly full, it copies at 1gB/minute, which is maybe faster than you shoot, I don't know re your sports style. You obviously have to format it in camera before reusing, so maybe an interruption to your shooting flow. However, I think (other than the formatting,) the time taken in the field will be no longer than taking out the old and putting in the new cf., which you do at the moment.

Once you get home, you download the whole 100gb or less at usb2 speed, while you have your supper - you don't have to be feeding cf cards into a card reader every few minutes.

It depends on your particular shooting style, and I think that a load of cf cards may save you some time in the field (format time) but I don't think there is any other time saving. Of course, I expect if you dropped a cf card, it would still be usable, not so sure about any hdd device.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Nill Toulme]

Well I suppose that's another thing. It's very rare indeed for me to on an overnight trip without my laptop. I can't stand to be away from the net that long. :-(

But even so I often wait to DL the cards till I get home, unless I just really feel like looking at them on the laptop.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Nill Toulme]

Ray that would drive me nuts. The last thing I need when I'm dashing up and down a football sideline is a HD grinding away on my belt. I don't even like to open the camera if I can help it — that's why I have 12GB of storage in each camera.

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Sean DeMerchant]

Formatting would cost me time, not save it, as it would be an extra step. Among the many extremely useful things that Downloader Pro (http://breezesys.com/Downloader/index.htm) does for me (including automatic folder creation, file renaming, downloading, backing up, and confirming the downloads) is automatically clearing the card.


I am not comfortable with that. I prefer to reformat cards after the files have been validated with a RAW converter. And I do not like to mess with camera file directories with a computer as I have almost lost images due to that once.

enjoy,

Sean

[Nill Toulme]

DL Pro just deletes the files; it doesn't mess with the directories as far as I know. But hey, whatever makes you happy — you're the one arguing for time saving. ;-)

I've done about a quarter million frames this way without a loss. Knock wood. (I prefer knocking wood to formatting the cards, but again, different strokes...)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Ray West]

fwiw, afaik, sandisk are bringing out 16gB cf within a month or two.

[Diane Fields]

I have a number of small 512 cards, but only use 2/1GB and 1/2GB at the moment. I'm not a big shooter LOL. However--since I blamed Nill on another forum for instigating photo related purchases, I have to say that because of his post about cheap 4GB cards, I have one on the way. Still-there are often times I don't fill the 2GB card on a day's worth of personal shooting.

I'm one of those that uses an external drive to upload to---but never on a personal shoot (except on a long trip---I seem to always want redundancy so upload to a laptop and my P2000 at the end of the day). On commercial shoots I've replaced an external drive with the P2000. I've rationalized that by feeling if my laptop goes down, I can still check to make sure I have the shots I want by checking the P2000 screen. Call me paranoid LOL Since I only do the commercial shooting parttime, this works okay for me. BTW Nill, I couldn't stand it on a belt either LOL.

Diane

[Nicolas Claris]

I use 1DS2 (making Raw files only).
On a full day shoot on location I need 12 to 16 Gb.
I have in the bag:
1x8 Sandisk Extrem IV
2x4 Fuji Microdrives
and a bunch of 2.2 Gb, I Gb, 340 Mb coming from the old days, I keep them "just in case".

So I'm covered during the day, first thing at the hotel in the evening, I do back-up on the Powerbook internal HD, AND another time in an external firewire HD.
Then and only then, I format all the cards in camera.
Never had a problem since I use that workflow.

The Powerbook also gives me the privilege to check if I do have all "in the box". So I can return with peace of mind, though still hopping that airline will accept my Lowepro cabin sized bag, but this is another story!

[Dierk Haasis]

I was just about to order the Vosonic 2160 X's 80 GB drive which costs 179 Euros in the Netherlands.

After Ray's mention of the Hyperdrive, I'd urge you to have a look at them. I don't have any experience with them but the specs look very impressive - using one set of rechargeable LR6 [AA] to transfer 80 GB is awesome as is the 2 min number for transferring 1 GB!

If you are in for a simple HD-card-reader without image view etc. this may be the better solution.

Ray, can you tell us a bit more, I was particularly taken by your claim you have it on you belt transferring while still shooting with another card, wouldn't that be a bit too bumpy even for a portable HD?

[Ray West]

Hi Dierk,
the other thread is here, http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25 I feel hyperdrive should be paying me for selling their device, but it is about the only highish tech thing I have bought recently, that performs, looks, etc _exactly_ as advertised ;-)

The full manual is here, http://www.hyperdrive.com/shop/downloads/HD80_Manual.pdf If you go to their home page they suggest the method of work I was mentioning. If the drive is well strapped to your body, your body damps out the shocks. (for example, if you're videoing from inside a moving car, you can have gyro stabalised camera platform, or strap the camera to your head/helmet.) I never actually claimed I was running about doing it, I never actually claimed I had done it, I merely said it was a method of working. However, I am confident it would work in many situations, but as always, you have to use common sense.

I think I mentioned in some other thread that I used it on holiday - first time without using a notebook, and it worked fine, even though I'd forgotten the manual - its so easy (in fact the manual tends to make it seem harder than it is).

I don't know what else I can say about it, its all on their web site. Basically you buy it, charge the battery, save money on buying numerous cf cards, save time in transferring to pc, and so on. I have also used it to transfer files between non - networked pc's, and as a normal external drive/card reader.

Now, it may be better if it was painted black, labelled canon or nikon, and cost, say, four times the price, but for me the purchase decision was what I think our american friends would refer to as a 'no brainer'... ;-)

Best wishes,

Ray

[Cem_Usakligil]

...I feel hyperdrive should be paying me for selling their device, but it is about the only highish tech thing I have bought recently, that performs, looks, etc _exactly_ as advertised ;-)...
Hi Ray,

You have convinced me and I'm going to order two of those. If I can help you get any credits from this deal, let me know ;-).

BTW, this device seems to be an OEM one (possibly produced in far East somewhere) since I have found at least one other brand selling exactly the same device under a different brand name: see this link for example:
http://www.compactdrive.com/
http://www.eastgear.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=446

An another link with a user review:
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00CkG0


Cheers,

Cem

[Asher Kelman]

It's not clear what the differences are there in the different models?

Asher

[Ray West]

Hi Cem,

The pd70X is the same device, different label, produced for the far east market, all units made in china, iirc. I bought mine after a lot of discussion on the fm site, from the usa. It is always out of stock, but the deal was you got extra batteries and a car charger. The pd70x advertised a spare cover for a few dollars, but not in the usa, may be different now. I wasn't bothered, if the cover broke, I could make another.

On the fm site, there was a fair bit about emails not being answered, but I understood the size of the distrubutorship, and had dealt with chinese companies before. I google earthed the locations - I knew where the guy lived!!! Google couldn't get enough resolution for identifying the Chinese outlet/factory.

For what it does, its a very reasonable price. At the time, getting them to fit the 100gB drive cost less than me buying a drive, and fitting it myself.

Beware of the velcro strap - I mentioned this before, in layback cafe. Overal, I think you will be well pleased.

iirc, there was a suspicion raised that the distributor, or an associate, read this forum, I don't know, but If you want to mention my name you can, but it is unlikely that any benefit will come my way. You could try yourself, for a quantity discount ;-)

Its just a good product, imho, far better than the iriver and other things I'd tried before

Best wishes,

Ray > edit Its Singapore, not China, oops - see here http://www.hyperdrive.com/shop/information.php?info_id=15

[Ray West]

Hi Asher,

The difference other than the name, afaik is none, between the usa and far east pd70x. You can buy it empty, to fit your own drive, or with various sized drives pre fitted. It is explained on the hyperdrive website http://www.hyperdrive.com/shop/index.php?cPath=1

Best wishes,

Ray

[Dierk Haasis]

Thanks for all the info (also from the other thread); highly interesting.

Now, here's some info on the Jobo I mentioned, the correct name of which isGIGA Vu PRO evolution (http://www.jobo.de) [instead of Vault, which I picked up either from an older series or another manufacturer of a very similar device]. There should be a tunnel page linking to Jobo International, Germany and USA; first and second should bring up English info.

Unfortunately the company is still unable to supply enough units to dealers.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

You have convinced me and I'm going to order two of those.

Here are some Dutch addresses:
http://www.compact-drive.nl/buynow.htm

Bart

[Cem_Usakligil]

....as I said I would. Here comes some immediate obvervations:

1) The set is complete with a set of 2500mAH NiMH batteries, car adapter and AC power adapter. A carrying case is also included.
2) Did some speed tests with a SanDisk Extreme III 4 GB CF Card. The device has copied 2.04 GB (233 files) in exactly 4 min 15 sec. This is according to the speed specs promised by the manufacturer.
3) The device is bulkier and heavier than I thought it would be. It is very robust, but the battery door is flimsy, looks as if it can break easily.
4) Connecting to a PC using USB 2.0 is working as promised. Transfer speeds are around 15-20 MB/s.
5) Here comes the big personal disappointment :-(. In my enthousiasm and in order to be prepared for the future, I went out to buy the biggest hard disks I could get (2x 160 GB Samsung M60 drives with 8 MB cache and 5400 rpm). I've paid a premium of course, only to realise when it was too late that the FAT32 formatting limits the partition size to 128GB. So 32 GB on each of the drives is not usable/accesible. I should have known this, being the PC expert I am and all that, but somewhat I did not think about it when I should have. Bummer! My only criticism towards the producer is that they do not mention this in any published information/specs for this product.

Except for the point 5, I am very satisfied so far! Will report back later...

Cheers,

Cem

[Ray West]

Hi Cem,

Don't rely on the velcro belt strap of the case, unless they have changed the design. They have spare covers now, http://www.hyperdrive.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=14 but if you want a real good laugh, watch the video, you can hear precision assembly taking place in the background ....


Best wishes,

Ray

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Ray,

Thanks for the warning. It does not seem to be a very high quality velcro at first sight. I'll use the pouch only for carrying the unit in my photo bag. I do not attach things to my belt anyway ;-).

Cheers,

Cem

[Scott B. Hughes]

http://www.hyperdrive.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=14

Ray

Actually, that video was made in the 'durabilty test lab". <g>

[Sean DeMerchant]

.
5) Here comes the big personal disappointment :-(. In my enthousiasm and in order to be prepared for the future, I went out to buy the biggest hard disks I could get (2x 160 GB Samsung M60 drives with 8 MB cache and 5400 rpm). I've paid a premium of course, only to realise when it was too late that the FAT32 formatting limits the partition size to 128GB. So 32 GB on each of the drives is not usable/accesible. I should have known this, being the PC expert I am and all that, but somewhat I did not think about it when I should have. Bummer! My only criticism towards the producer is that they do not mention this in any published information/specs for this product.

Except for the point 5, I am very satisfied so far! Will report back later...


And how many months ago were drives with > 120 GB capacity introduced? And how many years ago was the product initially released? Send them an email.

enjoy,

Sean

[Anthony Arkadia]

I carry in my bag (8) 8GB Extreme IV Cards, (12) 4GB Extreme III & IV Cards, and (12) 2GB Extreme IV Cards and SD Cards. I also carry white labels and print on the labels on the outside of their plastic case holders, lens and camera. (I only shoot Raw)

[Cem_Usakligil]

I carry in my bag (8) 8GB Extreme IV Cards, (12) 4GB Extreme III & IV Cards, and (12) 2GB Extreme IV Cards and SD Cards. I also carry white labels and print on the labels on the outside of their plastic case holders, lens and camera. (I only shoot Raw)
Wow! That's about 136 GB in total. Assuming that you shoot RAW with a 16 MP camera, you can shoot around 9000 photos in total. If you take 5 photos every minute, you can take photos continuosly for almost 30 hours. Further assuming that you mostly shoot using bracketing and/or continuous shooting, you end up having a net capacity for around 3000 photos / 10 hours. Assumptions, assumptions :-).

The question for me is, why do you need that kind of capacity? Don't you backup your cards to image tanks in between shoots?

Happy new year!

Cem

[Michael Fontana]

What about using the SD card as backup? At least that might work for those cameras that can take two cards. Nikon takes 1CF card AFAIK and Leica just one SD card.

Anyone test the speed for dual saving on a 1D series? For a lot of work, that could be sufficient.
asher

Cards can fail too, I had it once, with a Sandisk CF, and couldn't recover half of the shots.

I just went today for 2 x 2 GB of SDcards, for the auto-backup and spare card reason.
They' re not the fastest, about half of the speed of a Sandisk 3-Ultra-extrem.

Speed is not a issue here; as all the shots are done on tripod, from selected views, the 1 Ds-2 buffers a few RAWs, too.

BTW: Rescue Pro - from Sandisk - can recover deleted RAWs from SD's, too.
Funny, they appear as "xy.TIF", canon's old RAW-format from the 1 Ds...

[Chuck Fry]

I'm a little late to the party, but here's my take on some of the issues in this thread.

I believe in at least 2 cards per camera in use at a shoot, more if I'm going to be at it all day. My favorite subjects are landscapes (OK, tourist landscapes, but still...) and motorsports, and it's not at all unusual for me to shoot enough photos to fill a card in an hour or two. It's much more convenient IMHO to carry a couple extra cards than to have to download to some other device in the middle of a shoot.

I'm using a battery powered flash for night auto racing. Conveniently, it works out that I have to change flash batteries, camera batteries, and memory cards at about the same time, usually during the intermission between the heats and the main events. I typically fill 1-1/2 to 2 cards in an evening of racing, sometimes more.

During a shoot, I would much rather trust solid-state memory cards than a hard drive device. Both do fail, but dropping a memory card is a lot less likely to cause a failure than dropping a hard drive.

Re FAT32 vs. 160 GB drives: Disk capacities are measured in decimal gigabytes (GB), memory and file systems are measured in binary gigabytes (GiB), which are larger. FAT32 is limited to 128 GiB, not 128 GB. 128 GiB is roughly 137 GB. So a maximum size FAT32 file system on a 160 GB drive leaves "only" 23 GB inaccessible, not 32 GB.

[Erik DeBill]

During a shoot, I would much rather trust solid-state memory cards than a hard drive device. Both do fail, but dropping a memory card is a lot less likely to cause a failure than dropping a hard drive.


Sometimes you still lose the files, though. I had a 1 month old Sandisk Extreme III die on me as I went to download images a couple months ago. I hadn't taken very many pictures on that shoot (random hike, didn't see much) so I lost ALL of them. I don't think there is anything I could have done to save them - my camera won't write backups to a second card.

I'd love it if Canon would give me a camera with two CF slots and a custom function to select between filling them sequentially (so that the first filled before the second was used), writing files to both of them (instant backup) and writing alternating files to them both simultaneously (double the throughput, for high speed shooting).

As it is, I prefer to have several cards, so if I lose one I don't lose all the files. I also like to keep separate shoots on separate cards if I happen to shoot multiple locations in a day. I start a fresh card when I start a fresh location. Since I download files to directories based on location, that makes subsequent file management easier.

On those occasions when I've got download capability with me in the field (usually longer trips when I take a laptop and flash reader) I try to download to hard drive as soon as possible, but don't erase the flash card until I need it. Just in case I lose the hard drive. The downside is that putting a new card in the camera will then require a format, so I lose more shooting time. Not a big deal for landscapes. Big deal if I was going after birds.