Question on memory cards

[inTempus]

How many cards have you had fail on you? I've never had a CF card fail on me in my cameras. I've never had an SD card fail on me in I don't know how many years of using them for things other than photography.

I've seen cards lost and damaged... but I've never had one just stop working and lose data.

I have, doesn't happen often compared to hard drives but it does happen. Everything will fail at some point in time. The question is, do you want to take the risk that if a failure happens you want to have a catastrophic loss or a controlled one.

There's no such thing as a "controlled loss", there's just loss in my view. I rarely fill a 8gig card on a shoot. Unless you shoot a camera with dual card slots (and mirror your images to both cards) and if you have a card failure, you're losing everything... that is unless you shoot 30 images to a card, swap and shoot 30 more, then swap again. I doubt many people do that. Even if you did and you lost a card, you've still lost 1/2 or 1/3 of your images depending on the number of cards you shot to. Whos to say the keeper wasn't on the card that failed?

If you're a wedding photog you better shoot a dual card camera or have a second shooter.

I use 8gig cards because they match the storage capacity of my DVD's.

 

[table1349]

How many cards have you had fail on you? I've never had a CF card fail on me in my cameras. I've never had an SD card fail on me in I don't know how many years of using them for things other than photography.

I've seen cards lost and damaged... but I've never had one just stop working and lose data.

I have, doesn't happen often compared to hard drives but it does happen. Everything will fail at some point in time. The question is, do you want to take the risk that if a failure happens you want to have a catastrophic loss or a controlled one.

There's no such thing as a "controlled loss", there's just loss in my view. I rarely fill a 8gig card on a shoot. Unless you shoot a camera with dual card slots (and mirror your images to both cards) and if you have a card failure, you're losing everything... that is unless you shoot 30 images to a card, swap and shoot 30 more, then swap again. I doubt many people do that. Even if you did and you lost a card, you've still lost 1/2 or 1/3 of your images depending on the number of cards you shot to. Whos to say the keeper wasn't on the card that failed?

If you're a wedding photog you better shoot a dual card camera or have a second shooter.

I use 8gig cards because they match the storage capacity of my DVD's.

Well if your house catches on fire, I guess there is no reason to call the fire department cause once there is a bit of burn somewhere on on the building the whole place and all the contents are a total loss. Unless you have dual homes.

If I shoot two college sporting events in a day, I will usually use on average 4 cards per event. If I loose one card I have lost 1/4 of the shots. While I never want to loose any, If it happens I prefer to loose 25% rather than 100%. Controlled damage.

 

[robertwsimpson]

I love ridiculous analogies!

 

[fiveoboy01]

Not rediculous in the least.

Multiple smaller cards > one huge card if you're going to be at one spot snapping off a couple thousand images.

 

[robertwsimpson]

that's an opinion.

I enjoy not having to deal with swapping cards out. So my opinion is that having 1 giant card is better.


the only one who has made a logical argument was tharmsen when he said he uses 8G cards because it's the same size as a DVD. That makes perfect sense to me.

 

[fiveoboy01]

I figured it was a given that it was an opinion... Certainly not stating it as "fact".

I'd rather swap cards and retain some of my images, rather than 3/4 of the way through the day have the card crash and lose ALL of my images.

Years ago I had a tiny 16MB(!) memory stick take a dump on me for no apparent reason... It can happen though I'd say it's rare.

Likely to happen no, but if it does then it stinks.

To each his own

 

[itznfb]

Or you could just buy quality cards and not deal with worrying about losing images. Just a thought.

 

[Mr. Murmeli]

Slightly offtopic (CF):

I might upgade my 450D to 40D within a few days (friend want's to buy my current body), so inevitably i'd have to move to CF cards.

40D:st burst mode is rated at 6,5 FPS so would i see any difference in the performance with a 8gb Sandisc Extreme II (15 mbs) and Extreme III (30 mbs). I mean in the price I certainly DO see a difference . I'd be using bursts every now and then but i wouldn't do long ones.

Any experiences??

 

[robertwsimpson]

I don't use bursts often, but I've already been annoyed several times with slow card issues... I guess you either pony up the big bucks, or deal with it.

 

[table1349]

that's an opinion.

I enjoy not having to deal with swapping cards out. So my opinion is that having 1 giant card is better.


the only one who has made a logical argument was tharmsen when he said he uses 8G cards because it's the same size as a DVD. That makes perfect sense to me.

Might make sense if I was such a rigid shooter that every shoot always filled an 8 gig card to the max, no more no less. Plus, I prefer single layer archival DVD's (4.2 gig) to dual layer DVD's (8 gig). Again less chance of corruption with a single layer DVD.

Disaster recovery and convenience don't really belong in the same sentence together if you want true protection. But if I wanted convenience I wouldn't be paying the bank $20.00 a year for a dedicated bank box that holds all of my backup DVD's along with backup hard drives that get updated bi weekly.

 

[itznfb]

Slightly offtopic (CF):

I might upgade my 450D to 40D within a few days (friend want's to buy my current body), so inevitably i'd have to move to CF cards.

40D:st burst mode is rated at 6,5 FPS so would i see any difference in the performance with a 8gb Sandisc Extreme II (15 mbs) and Extreme III (30 mbs). I mean in the price I certainly DO see a difference . I'd be using bursts every now and then but i wouldn't do long ones.

Any experiences??

It depends on what type of burst shooting you will be doing. If you're taking 3-4 shots in under a second (most common) then no you won't see a difference in performance.

 

[Mr. Murmeli]

Slightly offtopic (CF):

I might upgade my 450D to 40D within a few days (friend want's to buy my current body), so inevitably i'd have to move to CF cards.

40D:st burst mode is rated at 6,5 FPS so would i see any difference in the performance with a 8gb Sandisc Extreme II (15 mbs) and Extreme III (30 mbs). I mean in the price I certainly DO see a difference . I'd be using bursts every now and then but i wouldn't do long ones.

Any experiences??

It depends on what type of burst shooting you will be doing. If you're taking 3-4 shots in under a second (most common) then no you won't see a difference in performance.

Thanks for the tip!

I actually bought the 40D just a few hours ago (1 month old body), and immediately went to store and bought myself some 8gb 133x CF card which the seller assured to be sufficient for my use. And it seems to be that. No problems with burst or anything so far.