Do you buy lots of small amounts of memory on a lot of cards or one big card with lots of memory?

Do you buy lots of small amounts of memory on a lot of cards or one big card with lots of memeory?

  • One big card e.g 32/64gb

    Votes: 10 31.3%

  • few small one for example e.g 3 X 8gb

    Votes: 22 68.8%
  • Total voters
    32
formula400 said:
will this affect the speed of the card whilst taking loads od shots (i.e motorsports)
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Yes, the camera has to write each file twice. So if you are shooting 2xRAW then this could take some time. I guess it's a compromise between speed of clearing the buffer and the risk of your card failing and ending up with nothing.

I am mainly a wedding photographer so rarely shoot continuous bursts. When I do it's never for long such as the confetti shot. Given the once in a lifetime nature of weddings I'm happy to sacrifice write speed for the safety of dual cards.
 
rob-nikon said:
Currently using dual card slots with backup selected, slot 1 4x 8gb and slot 2 1x 32gb card. Only problem I've found is once the 8gb card in slot 1 is full the camera locks up until thecRd is changed, I only need to change one card to get it working again so it's a bit quicker than changing both.



I've never quite understood why consumer level nikon dslr's have dual SD slots(d7100 2x sd) but the pro level dslr's different card types (d800 cf and sd, d4 cf and xqd), seems a strange choice to me.
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It could be to keep the size of the camera small in line with a crop sensor size.
 
shapeshifter said:
It could be to keep the size of the camera small in line with a crop sensor size.
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Sorry I was not very clear before, what I meant was matching memory card types, the d4 and d800 both have different memory card types for each slot yet the consumer dslr's (d7100 and d600) have sd memory types for both slots. I always thought it would be easier to have only one type of memory card rather than two different types in one camera.
 
decigallen said:
Camera is only as fast as the slowest card in it if you're backing up the same files to both slots. Dunno if backing up sRAW to the cf would change this.
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Incorrect.. it's actually slower than that on the D800.

shapeshifter said:
Another cock up by Nikon .LOL
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All systems have their flaws In fact the 5D MkIII can only support up to 133x SD cards as it doesn't support UDMA7 or higher, so if you stick the fastest possible CF card in a 5D MkIII and then insert the fastest possible SD card, the fastest it will clear the buffer is stil only 20MB/sec.

If you think about it logically, if the buffer is clearing itself to BOTH cards, then it can only possibly do so at the rate of the slowest card in an ideal world.

Incidentally, on the D800 the files are NOT written simultaneously to both cards, but sequentially, so it's academic - if it takes 5 seconds to clear the buffer with CF, and 8 with SD, then using back up mode will take 13 seconds to clear the buffer. However, if you urgently need to be constantly clearing the buffer on a D800 can I suggest you've bought the wrong camera instead of finding fault with it?
 
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I shoot with dual cards in the D7000 and that's plenty enough peace of mind for me. Never had a card fail yet but I'd be gutted if I ever lost data. After all, you've taken that photo for a reason, you'd never want to loose it.
 
Two x 32GB cards in my Nikon D7100, usually have it set to overflow except during portrait shoots when I set it to backup as a rule unless I'm tethered shooting straight to a laptop.

Did used to have them set to card 1 - RAW, card 2 - JPG but got fed up with having to delete stuff twice (if you delete a RAW it doesn't delete the corresponding JPG if they're on separate cards). and rarely using the JPGs anyway, so just switched it to RAW only and set the cards to over flow). Very occasionally I shoot RAW+JPG if I want a quick way of giving people some shots without having to convert them first but not often.

I have two x 8GB cards for my old D90 although of course that's only got the one slot.
 
Use a mixture of 8/16 or 32.
No real rhyme or reason - just what I have at the time gets used. On holiday etc I usually start large and scale down if needed
 
Slightly off topic, but I'm surprised that makers of cameras that can have 2 card slots don't have a mode that lets you write images to the cards alternately, i.e even numbered images go to one card, odd ones to the other. That way you maximise the capacity but should one card fail you haven't lost the whole of the first (or last) half of the shoot. That would be better for me.
 
Be very careful. There are lots of FAKE memory cards out there, and they can be damned hard to spot. I always buy card sold by reputable outlets (usually from Amazon sold BY Amazon) ,and I've never had a card fail. As a former microchip designer I can tell you that it can happen, albeit very rarely indeed. Most cards have a lifetime of at least 100,000 read/write cycles, which is probably far more tan the camera does.
 
It makes sense to buy 16gb/32gb memory cards as they are cheaper and if you get a faulty one then at least you don't lose loads of pics. If i'm shooting for the day in RAW then I'll take 3000 - 5000 pics and use 10 cards. It takes about 10 seconds to change cards!
 
Somersetman said:
Slightly off topic, but I'm surprised that makers of cameras that can have 2 card slots don't have a mode that lets you write images to the cards alternately, i.e even numbered images go to one card, odd ones to the other. That way you maximise the capacity but should one card fail you haven't lost the whole of the first (or last) half of the shoot. That would be better for me.
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it could be a pain when reviewing images on the camera if you kept needing to select the other card to view them in the sequence they were shot in
 
Not so long ago 4 gig cards were big so it is relative
 
Somersetman said:
Slightly off topic, but I'm surprised that makers of cameras that can have 2 card slots don't have a mode that lets you write images to the cards alternately, i.e even numbered images go to one card, odd ones to the other. That way you maximise the capacity but should one card fail you haven't lost the whole of the first (or last) half of the shoot. That would be better for me.
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But of what use is a back up that only saves 50% of your work? :)

It already has a feature to back up card A to card B. If you are concerned with space.... just buy bigger cards - they're cheap enough, and you don't need stupidly fast, ultra expensive cards unless it's mission critical to be constantly filling the buffer with high speed continuous shots.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Great big massive ones... in pairs, and use both card slots - set so B backs up A. I hate arsing about changing cards.
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This. I don't have any cards smaller than 16Gb now - and I tend to use slightly older pro cameras like the D3s where file sizes aren't too big. When I've hired a D800 for studio work, it usually gets at least a 32Gb in each slot so I can shoot all day.

At the end of the shoot (or, if for any reason I have to change cards) my cameras go in the bag and the cards go in a waterproof Peli case in my pocket. Always, always, always.
 
Even 32GB only gets you 400 RAW files in a D800 though :)
 
Pookeyhead said:
Incorrect.. it's actually slower than that on the D800.
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I was referring to the D4/D4s and made no mention of the d800. This is an important consideration when if you're considering pairing an expensive and fast xqd card with a much slower CF.
 
I use 32gb transcends atm

I will say it time and time again, transcends are the best CF cards money can buy imo. I've had sandisk's fail on me before.
 
The 160MB/S Transcend CF card looks good value compared to the Sandisk version but its write speed is over a third slower than the Sandisk.

It's slower than the UDMA 6 Sandisk even so if you're trying to maximise your buffer maybe not the best choice even though they are priced competitively.
 
boyfalldown said:
don't you use compressed lossless RAW? - Although mine say they'll only get 400 on a 32gb card the reality is normally 6-700 depending.
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That's with 14bit lossless compressed, yes.
 
Zephyr said:
I use 32gb transcends atm

I will say it time and time again, transcends are the best CF cards money can buy imo. I've had sandisk's fail on me before.
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All down to personal experiences. My one and only transcend card (bought because i forgot a card case and needed a card) failed after 5 months. Ive never had a sandisk card fail on me - sd or cf - and ive owned dozens.
 
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