Memory Card speeds

[Nikonfreak]

Ok Question for the rest of you.

I want to know from you guys as to what speed cards you shoot, what size cards, and how many you would normally take to a shoot...

With my D100 and concerts or dinner type events, I would take about 8 of the 1 Gig cards and I'd shoot in Jpg Large for the most part.

With the D200, I need much more space; however, I'm debating on having a number of 4 Gig cards or getting 3 of the 8 Gig cards... I have a 4 Gig microdrive but I definitely won't use it for events. That's more for my fun shooting of images I don't care if I lose them or not.

I also don't believe I have much to worry about in the way of speed given the camera's buffer, I doubt I'd run up against a problem writing to the card or miss shots because of it. I'm not doing any high speed sports ... just kid's sports here and there. (I'd love to land a city league photo deal or two... the ones here in the area do a terrible job)

Anyway, let's hear it... pros and cons... what you're using and why.....

Julio

[Jon]

Well, I'm a little old fashioned and paranoid. I won't use a card larger than 512 for several reasons:

A single 512 will fit on a single cd, and will dump to the laptop faster.

If I lose or destroy a 256 or a 512, I haven't lost nearly as much as I would if it were a gig or larger card. Also, I rarely shoot RAW except on some occasions in the studio, and in that environment card space isn't an issue because the laptop is out and running.

I have 8 256 cards and 4 512 cards, ranging from standard Sandisk to Sandisk Ultra II to PQI 40 and 100x.

I honestly can't detect a speed difference in the camera between the cards, but I can REALLY tell the difference when dumping the cards over my firewire cardreader.

Two items on my "to buy" list are a portable card-dumping hard drive and a dvd burner.

[JKSeidel]

Depends on the camera and the shoot.

If I had something like a 1DsMk2 and I was being paid for the shoot or planned to make money selling the shots, I'd use nothing smaller than a 2 GB card and nothing greater than a 4 GB card. I'd take plenty of them. This is to avoid losing the complete shoot because of a single card going south.

For personal use with something like an 8 to 10 megapixel camera, the loss isn't a great blow. If shooting JPEG then a 2 GB card probably suffices, with 4 GB being almost overkill. For RAW shooting 4 GB to 8 GB.

Note that the above are for CF cards. I wouldn't use a microdrive if you gave me one for free.

[Nikonfreak]

Yep, I definitely see a difference in speed of transfer as well and that is something to consider, but a few extra minutes on transfer isn't going to bother me much right now.

I had a lot of airplane sit time this weekend so I was reading in this month's American Photo and they did a "look in the photo bag" of a few of those labelled "Nikon Masters"... one lady out of California said she takes fifteen of the 1 Gig cards with her on shoots, which is what prompted me to ask the question here.

Now, fifteen cards could lead to one getting misplaced IMO. I have two of the Gepe card holders that take 4 cards each and I like to stick to the 8 cards if possible.

Heck, if speed is not a factor, the standard 4 Gig SanDisk cards can be had for $120 and the 4 Gig Ultra II for about $150-160... I was nervous about pulling the trigger on an 8 Gig SanDisk because if it did fail, I'd be asking for trouble.

Julio

[JKSeidel]

Originally Posted by Nikonfreak

one lady out of California said she takes fifteen of the 1 Gig cards with her on shoots, which is what prompted me to ask the question here.

I had the opportunity to meet two contract photographers for National Geographic last year. Both stated they wouldn't use a card over 1 GB. I would guess their bags each contain about the same number of cards as the lady you cite. I thought they were a bit overly paranoid. Then again, they are pros and use their equipment much more frequently and under much harsher conditions than I probably ever would. Their shots may be once in a lifetime deals, so I guess what I call paranoia is actually caution learned from experience. If I had their jobs, I'd probably feel the same way they do. Since I'm not, using a 4 GB card is fine with me.

[Jose]

Thru the last few years, as the memory size of the cards increased, I bough them. At this point I carry 8 GB, 6GB, 4GB, 2 GB (one of each) and two 1 GB cards. Mainly use the 8, 6 and 4 GBs cards...the others are just reserve.

The greater the card capacity the less I have to worry about replacing them when they get full, less handling and less chances of loosing them.

Why would one worry about one high capacity going bad more than a 2 or 1 GB? Never experienced a card failure, either solid state or microdrive in the last 5 years of using them. Only drawback, downloading them to a portable image tank or PC; it takes a long time.

[badpickev]

i have a fuij and it only needs 22x speed cards. its funny microdrives are faster in the camera. i have a 2gig md and 2 512mbs 35x cards i get 154 raw on the md and 38 on the 512's. since the s2 can only read 2gig max correctly. that is my limit. i and going to get a few seagate 5 gig md's for the planned d200 or s3.

[JKSeidel]

Originally Posted by Jose

Why would one worry about one high capacity going bad more than a 2 or 1 GB? Never experienced a card failure, either solid state or microdrive in the last 5 years of using them.

It isn't that anyone thinks a higher capacity card has a different chance of going bad than a smaller card. The concern is that if you are on a shoot and a card does fail or get corrupted, you lose a smaller percentage of your efforts with smaller cards. If a pro uses fifteen 1 GB cards before being able to dump them to another storage medium and one pops up with a problem, then only 1/15th of the work is lost. If that same amount of work were on two 8 GB cards and one fails, then half the shoot has disappeared.

I've never had a problem with CF card usage either, but that doesn't mean problems never happen. An early production run of some Lexar cards last year had problems with Canon cameras and were dropping random shots. They were all recalled for replacement. Other strange random events happen as well. Microdrives are even more prone to failure than CF cards. Not being a pro and handling equipment with some care under fairly tame conditions, most people never have an issue with CF cards. That may not be true for a pro over the lifespan of their gear.

[badpickev]

to add to this . its a form over function issue. the larger cards let you just shoot. thus more function over form. the downside is if one ever goes bad, its not a lot of shots lost.

i like to just shoot. so i like the larger cards. since i have a fuji, i dont need speed. cause my camera has one speed, slow. check the write speeds at robgralbraith.com. dont buy faster than your camera can use.

[dmacgee]

I use a KM-7D and carry to 1GB card and a 512 write speed isn't too bad even with the 4x cards. I shout Raw and can get about 100 photos per 1gb card. I also bought a Smartdisk fotochute 20gb storage, I can trasfer one card using a card reader while I shoot with the other card.

As soon as I return home I burn the new photos to a DVD and clear out the fotochute. Some of my favourite shots I'll convert to jpg and add to an archive on the fotochute so I can attach to a computer anywhere and show off some of my work or get prints.

Dave