• Please use real names.

    Greetings to all who have registered to OPF and those guests taking a look around. Please use real names. Registrations with fictitious names will not be processed. REAL NAMES ONLY will be processed

    Firstname Lastname

    Register

    We are a courteous and supportive community. No need to hide behind an alia. If you have a genuine need for privacy/secrecy then let me know!
  • Welcome to the new site. Here's a thread about the update where you can post your feedback, ask questions or spot those nasty bugs!

How many CF memory cards is enough?

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
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

New member
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

pro member
Two memory cards of sufficient volume plus a battery-driven HD-cum-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

New member
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
 
Dierk Haasis said:
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.
 
Nill Toulme said:
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
 

Dierk Haasis

pro member
Nill Toulme said:
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.
 

Nill Toulme

New member
Sean DeMerchant said:
... 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 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

New member
Dierk Haasis said:
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

pro member
Nill Toulme said:
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

Well-known member
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

pro member
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

New member
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

New member
Sean DeMerchant said:
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

New member
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

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
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

New member
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
 

ChrisDauer

New member
Nill Toulme said:
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

New member
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

New member
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

New member
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
 
Nill Toulme said:
Formatting would cost me time, not save it, as it would be an extra step. Among the many extremely useful things that Downloader Pro 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

New member
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
 

Diane Fields

New member
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

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
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!
 
Top