Memory Cards - Size vs Number

[play18now]

Until very recently I had just one (I know, shameful) 8gb CF card. It holds ~475 RAW in my camera and I just empty it after every time I shoot, then format it. Never had an issue, although I finally did give into social pressure and buy a second 8gb CF card. If I ever end up going somewhere and I know I'll take more that 1000 photos with no chance to unload, I'll buy another one. I'm guessing if I was shooting professionally for someones wedding, I would want to have several cards in case I have a failure. It would be hard to explain to a coupe how I lost ALL of their wedding photos and can't recover them. Much easier to explain how I lost a small portion.

 

[TCampbell]

Never mind "card" failure... I'm more worried about "brain" failure.

I suggest multiple cards because invariably... you'll pull the card out of the camera and stick in your computer so you can import the photos. Once you import ... of course they need to be processed. One distraction leads to another.

Next thing you know, you're out to do the next shoot and you get the dreaded "no card" error on your camera... only to remember that that this is because your card... is still back at your home/office stuck in your computer.

 

[bogeyguy]

I disagree. if you buy quality cards and take good care of them they very rarely fail. I've only had one card fail and that was because I stepped on it.

Then stop stepping on them.

Ha I try not to.

But yeah these are the cards I have on my desk and none have failed.
View attachment 56052

I would say that the odds of one of your cards failing are now very high.

 

[SCraig]

I disagree. if you buy quality cards and take good care of them they very rarely fail. I've only had one card fail and that was because I stepped on it.

I agree. I use 64gb cards in my cameras and when I get home I transfer my images to the computer. I do not want to have to change cards while I'm shooting photographs so I like 64gb cards. Plenty of space on them, and I have come close to filling it in one day.

I've never understood the philosophy that larger cards mean a greater risk. If one transfers their photographs to the computer when they get home the risk of loss with a large card is identical to the risk of loss with a smaller card. 500 photographs on a 64gb card is the same as 500 photographs on a 32gb card or 500 photographs on a 16gb card. The advantage being that I never have to change a memory card when I'm busy and prone to making a mistake.

 

[Kolia]

The bigger the card, the more potential loss if you put a lot of images on a single card. I like 8G and 16B best.

I disagree. if you buy quality cards and take good care of them they very rarely fail. I've only had one card fail and that was because I stepped on it.

I don't think he meant "more chances of failure" but rather "more pictures lost" in the event of a failure...

I consider all my picture potentially lost until they are copied to a hard drive and usually wait for that drive to be backed up before formatting the card. So the redundancy of cards in my case is just to be able to keep on shooting until I have my backup.

I have 2x 8GB, one 16GB and one 32GB. Plenty for my recreational use of my 2 still camera and the handycam. I bring my portable HDD along when leaving overnight.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I have said this many time, so please forgive me, but in my opinion Samsung memory cards are the best, they are fast and very reliable and built like a tank.

John.

 

[bratkinson]

Count me in the multiple cards group...16mb each...3 'sets' of CF and SDs. As I upgrade cameras, the sizes of the JPGs produced got correspondingly larger. So, the old CFs or SDs were sold off with the old camera and new, larger/faster ones acquired. Worked fine until I upgraded from a 60D to 5D3 10 months ago. I kept a pair of (slower) SDs as I got a free CF from B&H with the camera. I replaced the 8mb SDs with 16s and gave the 8s away at the same time I increased my CFs.

Shooting RAW+JPG these days really zooms through the memory. I've only ran out of CF space (RAWs only) once during a shoot at church and wouldn't you know it! I had left my case with 2 more sets at home! Fortunately, home is only 3 minutes each way, so that was quickly remedied.

Being a retired mainframe computer geek, always having backups is mandetory to me. So I don't erase the cards until I have at least two copies on my computer on different drives. Having multiple sets of cards allows me to pop out the 'exposed' set and pop in another set and format them both in the knowledge I have copies of what they used to contain.

 

[Tinderbox (UK)]

I always worry about damaging the card slot by changing the card too often, that`s why i normally use large cards when i am outside, in the house i use a eye-fi card and the images are sent straight to my notebook.

John.