Memory Card Management and Travel?

480sparky · Feb 9, 2022

I travel exclusively with 16g cards to force me to change cards more often. The way I shoot, that's once a day. Fewer images on a card means fewer lost if the card is corrupt/damaged/lost.

Winona · Feb 25, 2022

I use a different card each day. Part of it is my laptop is always full and hard to get photos on it. I need a full weekend to work on that issue! I also figure that I only lose one days photos if something happens to a card. I do want to look at backup storage on the road, so this thread is interesting.

mrca · Feb 27, 2022

Remember, if you download to a device and erase the card, you only have 1 copy and no backup. I prefer to download to a device, back up to a small hard drive, THEN erase the card, otherwise, I carry plenty of smaller cards, If one fails. I don't lose all my photos. But as a pro, I have MULTIPLE backups when I do a shoot.

480sparky · Feb 27, 2022

Remember... if you 'erase' a card and never use it, the images are still there. You just need special software to recover them. Same applies to reformatting.

And even if you DO use the card, a portion of the images are still recoverable. How many depends on how much you use the card after erasing or reformatting.

RacePhoto · Mar 4, 2022

mrca said:
Remember, if you download to a device and erase the card, you only have 1 copy and no backup. I prefer to download to a device, back up to a small hard drive, THEN erase the card, otherwise, I carry plenty of smaller cards, If one fails. I don't lose all my photos. But as a pro, I have MULTIPLE backups when I do a shoot.

Pretty simply that's about what I do. Everything to the laptop, or netbook or whatever, and then everything from that to an external drive. I can backup at home later from whatever computer I had and save the external for a long time. Computer gets deleted when I remember.

Only thing I'd say I do that's very different from everyone else and we're all about the same, is I use smaller cards, all day long. If I have a chance to back up, I can be out working. I still only have one 64GB card, all the rest are 32 and 16GB. But I'm the guy who doesn't shoot RAW, so there's lots of free space.

I might have cards by session, or morning and afternoon, I don't go for whole days on one card. I'd rather have many small than one big. Cheaper too.

Sharpshooterr · Mar 10, 2022

For $50 you can get a 256gb SD card. That's enough to put about 20,000 pics on it. That should easily hold you for a week.
I would never ruin a good vacation by carrying a computer, backup devices or what have you and wasting time with it.
You didn't mention the camera or the memory capabilities.
SS

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-256GB-Extreme-UHS-I-SDSDXXY-256G-GN4IN/dp/B07H9VX76D/ref=asc_df_B07H9VX76D/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=312760964359&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11153171233053599057&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1013778&hvtargid=pla-614724147323&psc=1

RacePhoto · Mar 12, 2022

Sharpshooterr said:
For $50 you can get a 256gb SD card. That's enough to put about 20,000 pics on it. That should easily hold you for a week.
I would never ruin a good vacation by carrying a computer, backup devices or what have you and wasting time with it.

SS

And if that card goes bad, or you lose it, or some other unusual misfortune, you have nothing? That would ruin my vacation.

I guess we all have differences in opinions. I shoot more along the lines of 1-2 hours on a card, then change.

You are right though, the prices sure have come down. My older cameras used expensive CF cards. Now I can get a 4GB for ten bucks.

Sharpshooterr · Mar 12, 2022

RacePhoto said:
And if that card goes bad, or you lose it, or some other unusual misfortune, you have nothing? That would ruin my vacation.

I guess we all have differences in opinions. I shoot more along the lines of 1-2 hours on a card, then change.

You are right though, the prices sure have come down. My older cameras used expensive CF cards. Now I can get a 4GB for ten bucks.

Yes, you’re right, it’s possible a card could corrupt or you get the camera ripped off etc.
He didn’t give us much info. I have not owned a camera in the last almost ten years that did not have dual card slots. If he is a pro he would not be asking. If he losses a card, we’ll gosh, he’d just gotta go there on vacation again!
Yes we all have different needs and varying degrees of paranoia too. I’ve had two cameras stolen, years apart, and I’ve had cards corrupt when there was only one slot and the world did not stop turning and my vacation was no less fun, only how it was remembered was different!
Take LOTS of tiny cards, two for each day, as one thing we both agree on, cards are CHEAP!
Though I’d still leave that nasty computer home!!!
Ss

PJM · Mar 13, 2022

You are correct. I am not a pro. :drunk:

The camera is a Nikon D500 with dual card slots. I will set the second as a backup of the first. After reading these posts I am going to with a greater number of smaller memory cards and not reuse them. I'm also going to download the cards to an SSD drive at night. That will give me three copies of them. Overkill, maybe. But hopefully at least one set will make it home with me. Then I'll just have to find another excuse to go back.

Thanks everyone for all the comments and suggestions. I found them useful in helping formulate my plan.

Dave Maciak · Mar 17, 2022

RacePhoto said:
Pretty simply that's about what I do. Everything to the laptop, or netbook or whatever, and then everything from that to an external drive. I can backup at home later from whatever computer I had and save the external for a long time. Computer gets deleted when I remember.

Only thing I'd say I do that's very different from everyone else and we're all about the same, is I use smaller cards, all day long. If I have a chance to back up, I can be out working. I still only have one 64GB card, all the rest are 32 and 16GB. But I'm the guy who doesn't shoot RAW, so there's lots of free space.

I might have cards by session, or morning and afternoon, I don't go for whole days on one card. I'd rather have many small than one big. Cheaper too.

Me too. Smaller cards. Airport in Gambia, Africa, loaded 64 card in my Nikon removed and confiscated for "checking" for derogatory content. Got it back after an hour or so damaged and useless. Now when I travel it's with smaller cards--and shoot (mostly) jpeg.
You're not the only guy who shoots jpegs! Better to lose a few images due to loss, damage, or whatever than an entire 128 or 64! I do regret not down loading right away--lesson learned
Some would say it's a pain in the "card slot" changing, but I would say worth it. Just saying. BTW the camera had only one slot. Now I shoot with Nikon and Fuji each having dual slots.

SquarePeg · Mar 17, 2022

PJM said:
You are correct. I am not a pro.

The camera is a Nikon D500 with dual card slots. I will set the second as a backup of the first. After reading these posts I am going to with a greater number of smaller memory cards and not reuse them. I'm also going to download the cards to an SSD drive at night. That will give me three copies of them. Overkill, maybe. But hopefully at least one set will make it home with me. Then I'll just have to find another excuse to go back.

Thanks everyone for all the comments and suggestions. I found them useful in helping formulate my plan.

Solid plan. Where’s the workshop?