What size cards do you use and what brand?

[MLeeK]

I have a gazillion 4G cards. A few 8G and a couple of 16G.
Memory cards do fail, I NEVER NEVER NEVER want to have all of my eggs in the basket that may break, so the 4G's are my staple. I do use the 16's for tournaments where I am shooting a lot of shots of individual matches. Otherwise? I rarely use anything over 4G.
If a large capacity card full of a wedding fails-or you lose it? you are F'd. BIG TIME. Your indemnity insurance will cover it, but the bad press from losing an entire wedding or critical family portrait shoot will ruin you faster than light.

As for brand-I have a bunch of them. I have a couple of Hoodman's and I WISH I could afford to have a ton of them-they have a published failure rate of 0. However they are expensive.
I have SanDisk, Lexar, Kingston and something cheap as hell my kid picked up when she was out and needed an extra card one day.
I take care of my cards-kind of. I do reformat using MediaRecover's format/repair and I feel like it has helped me to keep cards working longer. I have a couple of 2G cards I bought probably 7 or 8 years ago? They're Kingston's second in line and they still work perfectly with no capacity loss.
Now... I have to admit I have ran cards through the washer and dryer a few times. Each time I've re-formatted them with MediaRecover and I couldn't tell you which ones it was that got washed & dried.

 

[480sparky38 37]

I use 16g class 10s. I currently have 6 of 'em for my D7000. 16g easily gets me through an entire day with the way I shoot and how I have the camera configured.

I have 9 2g cards for my D60.

I have a four 16g class 4s for back-up.

 

[tirediron]

I use mostly 4Gb cards because that makes backing up simple. One CF card = 1 DVD. I have some bigger and smaller ones as well, but 4s are my staple.

 

[MReid]

1 big card less chance of failure

Oh? Could you explain how/why a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card?

just percentages

if you use 20 cards vs 1 card

better chance of one of the 20 being bad than the 1 card being bad.

I will say for weddings....I use a camera with two cards...and the second card is a backup card....I bought the D3 specifically for this reason. Because the "bunch of cards" thing didn't work for me....never needed the backup card, but there it is.

I also always use two cameras to shoot all my paid shoots, so I would never lose all of anything.

Bottom line to me is:
Are you very organized and not a person who will misplace, lose, or send cards through the wash. Then the multi card system is for you.

If you have a hard time remembering where you left your car keys, then the single card system is for you.

 

[Bossy]

1 big card less chance of failure

Oh? Could you explain how/why a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card?

just percentages

if you use 20 cards vs 1 card

better chance of one of the 20 being bad than the 1 card being bad.

I will say for weddings....I use a camera with two cards...and the second card is a backup card....I bought the D3 specifically for this reason. Because the "bunch of cards" thing didn't work for me....never needed the backup card, but there it is.

I also always use two cameras to shoot all my paid shoots, so I would never lose all of anything.

Bottom line to me is:
Are you very organized and not a person who will misplace, lose, or send cards through the wash. Then the multi card system is for you.

If you have a hard time remembering where you left your car keys, then the single card system is for you.

Pretty sure this is a fallacy. It just doesn't work like that. Someone could have 20 cards which never have failed and you could have 1 that does.

As the bottom line, I have multiple cards *because* I misplace them, not because I don't. If I only had one mega card (which I wouldn't anyway since my camera holds 2 cards), I would lose it, and then have nothing to shoot with in the interim.
I should note I've never lost one before it got into my laptop, only after

 

[480sparky38 37]

1 big card less chance of failure

Oh? Could you explain how/why a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card?

just percentages

if you use 20 cards vs 1 card

better chance of one of the 20 being bad than the 1 card being bad.
.......

Totally flawed logic.

There are many reasons why a card fails. Some of them are due to being handled. Static discharges, dropping them, twisting them when inserting into a card slot improperly..... all can damage the card & cause failure. Another reason may be removing the card while it's being written on by the camera.

Having just one card means all improper handling will be inflicted on that one card.... not spread out over several.

Memory cards are not ascensioned beings..... they do not 'know' things like us humans do. If a card is going to fail, it will fail regardless of how many other cards you own. A single card cannot say to itself, "Hey, I'm getting doused with bleach and run through the dryer.... but I'd better stay on the straight and narrow because I'm the only game in town here."

 

[MReid]

My mega card never leaves my camera until I get home and take it right from the camera to the card loader.
.....and percentages do work like that.

Like I said before you have to do an honest evaluation of what type of person you are and from there you can determine which method holds the most risk....for you.

Of course this is all just opinion....there is no right or wrong....there is risk either way. Each person has to decide the risk they are most comfortable with.
I wasn't comfortable with either....so I shoot with two cameras and use the D3 with one card as a backup....and I never take a card out of the camera unless it is going straight to the card reader.

 

[480sparky38 37]

.............and percentages do work like that.........

So a person who only owns one vehicle is less likely to be in a car crash?

 

[MReid]

now that is flawed logic

 

[Bossy]

Technically if you're going to go for the percentage thing, it would be like, 1 card has a 100% chance of failing, while if you have 10 cards, there's a 10% chance of failure. But either way it doesn't work like that.

 

[480sparky38 37]

now that is flawed logic

No it's not.

If I drive 20,000 miles a year in one car, I have the exact same chance of being in an accident than if I drive 5,000 miles a year in each of my 4 vehicles.

 

[MReid]

you guys are funny

ok

you have 100 cf cards.....you pull one out and set it to the side.
this leaves 99 on one side and 1 on the other side

You have $1000 dollars to bet.
Do you place your bet one of the 99 cards going bad before the one card....
....or do you place your bet one the 1 card going bad before one of the 99 does.

That is all I am saying.....your logic may work differently.

 

[480sparky38 37]

..........you have 100 cf cards.....you pull one out and set it to the side.
this leaves 99 on one side and 1 on the other side

You have $1000 dollars to bet.
Do you place your bet one of the 99 cards going bad before the one card....
....or do you place your bet one the 1 card going bad before one of the 99 does.
.............

Doesn't work.

Each one of the 99 cards will be handled far far less than that one single card. You're comparing apples to Japan.

 

[KmH]

1 big card less chance of failure

Oh? Could you explain how/why a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card?

just percentages

if you use 20 cards vs 1 card

better chance of one of the 20 being bad than the 1 card being bad.

I will say for weddings....I use a camera with two cards...and the second card is a backup card....I bought the D3 specifically for this reason. Because the "bunch of cards" thing didn't work for me....never needed the backup card, but there it is.

I also always use two cameras to shoot all my paid shoots, so I would never lose all of anything.

Bottom line to me is:
Are you very organized and not a person who will misplace, lose, or send cards through the wash. Then the multi card system is for you.

If you have a hard time remembering where you left your car keys, then the single card system is for you.

What all that says is - No. You can't explain how/why, or even if, a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card.

You would need card failure data from the card manufacturers to substantiate your claim that big cards fail less often than smaller cards, and you don't have that information.

Plan for the worst. Hope for the best.

 

[MReid]

seriously??????

If you have 1 small card next to 1 large card....there is (all things being equal) no reason why one would fail before the other.