For paid work. Should you shoot back up?

Raymond Lin

Raymond Lin

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From the other thread about the dual cards, it is my observations that some people against the idea and practice of shooting a back up image on the go because of the reason "the chance of happening to you is like winning the lottery".

Is this really the right attitude to take?

I am not talking about just weddings, but any kind paid job.

Is having insurance enough? what about your reputation? Future recommendations?

I am actually utterly shocked that anyone would take this stance against shooting back up cards for a paid job. What are your thoughts on this?
 
I shoot backup cards (jpeg). I also backup after downloading/editing, TWICE. I also don't format the cards until I know the transfer/backups have been successful.
I'm less diligent about personal images, but the ones I am particularly fond of are also backed up twice (once offsite).

Card/HD failures are rare, as is having your house broken into and all of your computer stuff stolen... but I've had it all happen to me before.
 
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Card failures happen, I've had one let go suddenly and one give warning signs and errors then let go.

Not using the dual write feature in my experience would be an act of utter stupidity and such a person wouldn't be doing their job properly.
 
Raymond Lin said:
I am actually utterly shocked that anyone would take this stance against shooting back up cards for a paid job. What are your thoughts on this?
Click to expand...


I only shoot to two cards — RAW, pro or leisure.
An old habit maybe but the Devil never sleeps.
 
Oversimplified comment!

Like everything in business ~ all about risk management & due diligence.

PS if a paid job.....or indeed one I deemed 'mission critical' were it me I would write to both onboard cards. FWIW I typically write all stills to CF and reserve the SD for short movie clips as the mood takes me to shoot a movie clip ;)
 
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I've had about 3 or 4 cards fail on me throughout my career.

I've even had a situation where the camera died, and it turned out to be the card pulling the camera down. It would not power up with that specific card.

Why would you not take advantage of a dual card setup?
 
Box Brownie said:
Oversimplified comment!

Like everything in business ~ all about risk management & due diligence.

PS if a paid job.....or indeed one I deemed 'mission critical' were it me I would write to both onboard cards.
Click to expand...

It is simple because it IS SIMPLE.

PAID job you are paid to deliver photos. and like you said Due Diligence.

The simple solution for this due diligence is shoot dual cards.
 
I think dual slot would be one of the considerations of buying a camera to do the pro jobs. Having got it, it would be foolish to not use it.
What about for the backup camera? Would it be acceptable for that to be a single card body?

Although I guess it depends on the job. When shooting cars I used to have some 400D bodies that were tethered low but then that was when I'd have 2 or 3 cameras all being triggered by a master trigger.
 
If your camera has the facility then I see no reason not to. I'd probably shoot RAW to both (as Canons slow down when mixing RAW and Jpeg) but what happens if you miss the shot due to the buffer being full because you were shooting RAW instead of Jpeg. Now it may well be that you consider only RAW will do, in which case you need the right tool for the job i.e. one that will allow sufficient burst speed without hitting the buffer limit so you arent handicapped by effectively a dead camera.
 
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Byker28i said:
I think dual slot would be one of the considerations of buying a camera to do the pro jobs. Having got it, it would be foolish to not use it.
What about for the backup camera? Would it be acceptable for that to be a single card body?

Although I guess it depends on the job. When shooting cars I used to have some 400D bodies that were tethered low but then that was when I'd have 2 or 3 cameras all being triggered by a master trigger.
Click to expand...

I like to shoot with 2 x 5D4 side by side both with dual cards. I have actually 2 more cameras in the car but they are not dual cards, my Fuji cameras with a set of primes. I did used to have a back up 5D3. I plan to get a Sony A7R3 or A7iii for this year so I can use my Canon lenses.
 
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Backup camera is more important than dual cards, no? Dual cards on a single camera is a sensible additional precaution.
 
Noticed the other day that I have over 2 million images backed up during that time I have had 4 card failures. All 4 where genuine Sandisk cards which they replaced.

I also back up to a second card and while it’s only been an issue 4 times, for me that’s enough to keep on doing it.
 
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newbie1 said:
Backup camera is more important than dual cards, no? Dual cards on a single camera is a sensible additional precaution.
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Dual cards prevent you losing photos you have already shot.

Dual cameras prevents you losing photos which you are about to shoot.

They are equally important.
 
Raymond Lin said:
It is simple because it IS SIMPLE.

PAID job you are paid to deliver photos. and like you said Due Diligence.

The simple solution for this due diligence is shoot dual cards.
Click to expand...

Consider two scenarios.
1. You can shoot 20fps, but to one card only
2. You can shoot 10fps to two cards at once.

You’re shooting a confetti shoot. Option 1 gives more images to choose from and eliminate the errant piece of confetti from obscuring the brides nose. Option 2 would give you resilience if one card fails.

It’s not possible to have both, so which do you use? You make an assessment of the likelihood of each scenario happening, the impact if it does and you make an informed business decision to go with option 1 or 2.

It’s not always simple.
 
i dont think the consideration is paid.. i think the consideration is how much you value the pic.. paid or not... a once in a lifetime holiday or a childs birth or getting paid :) many reasons why... if the option is there... i would shoot to both cards at once...

I never actually gave it a thought until someone on here mentioned it.. now i am paranoid about it haha
 
Furtim said:
Consider two scenarios.
1. You can shoot 20fps, but to one card only
2. You can shoot 10fps to two cards at once.
.
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is that possible? mine shoots the same to both cards... honest question as i dont knwo about other makes or models.. seems odd they would be two different write speeds ?
 
KIPAX said:
is that possible? mine shoots the same to both cards... honest question as i dont knwo about other makes or models.. seems odd they would be two different write speeds ?
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Hypothetical really, but illustrative of when descions must be made. :-)
 
IMO It would be stupid not to use the back up facility if its there and shoot RAW with RAW being written to both cards.

If there was a situation during the shoot that required a Higher 'write speed' than RAW + RAW can give I would write RAW to the fast card and Jpeg to the slower card; I accept that isn't a 'true' back-up but for the 20-30 seconds of the shoot I would consider myself very unlucky if the fast card failed but I would still have Jpeg files for that very short duration so, if the fast card failed during this I wouldn't completely miss 'the shot'. I would still have full RAW back-ups for the rest of the event.

I would hope this would give me enough 'insurance' for the job in hand :)
 
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Fraser Euan White said:
If there was a situation during the shoot that required a Higher 'write speed' than RAW + RAW can give I would write RAW to the fast card and Jpeg to the slower card
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If your shooitng to two cards and one is slower than the other (why wouldnt you have 2 same speed?) then surely the camera saves to both cards at the lower speed anyway ?. it doesnt save to one faster than the other.. it goes be the slowest speed ?
 
Never mind paid work, as an amateur ever since I've had a camera with dual slots I've used them (getting on for a decade now). RAW to both cards. In this time I have only had a single corrupt image (which wasn't a keeper anyway).

However, until time travel is possible and I'm guaranteed a way to go back and capture something I've lost due to a potential card failure I'll take whatever redundancy I can get.

For you working pro's, it is surely a no-brainer?
 
KIPAX said:
If your shooitng to two cards and one is slower than the other (why wouldnt you have 2 same speed?) then surely the camera saves to both cards at the lower speed anyway ?. it doesnt save to one faster than the other.. it goes be the slowest speed ?
Click to expand...

That is correct (I think)? For Raymond's work I believe he has a camera that uses different types of cards, one of which has a faster write speed; this isn't normally a problem but there is a certain type of shot where he needs to use continuous high speed shooting and the camera 'slows' down because of the write speed in full RAW + RAW back-up hence the suggestion of the RAW + Jpeg so the buffer doesn't fill?

I may also be completely wrong & maybe one of the contributors who understand all this write speed/card type jargon will put me in my place :-)
 
Not a pro, so i can't justify spending big bucks on a dual card camera, but on the occasion i do some paid work, i have used my Panasonic G80, set up to transfer files instantly to my smartphone, not perfect and the backup is only jpeg but it does allow me to feel a little more relaxed knowing i do have some form of backup if my card goes tits up.


Although if my camera did have dual card slots i would definitely use that feature.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
I like to shoot with 2 x 5D4 side by side both with dual cards. I have actually 2 more cameras in the car but they are not dual cards, my Fuji cameras with a set of primes. I did used to have a back up 5D3. I plan to get a Sony A7R3 or A7iii for this year so I can use my Canon lenses.
Click to expand...

That's got to be the best solution, two similar bodies, just for familiarity. It was a pain swapping from 5D mk3 to a 500D and trying to remeber where the buttons/options were.
 
KIPAX said:
is that possible? mine shoots the same to both cards... honest question as i dont knwo about other makes or models.. seems odd they would be two different write speeds ?
Click to expand...

Canon 5D mk3 has a CF card slot and a SD card slot as a backup. Because of the interface they have different write speed performances but this is what the buffer takes out. You can also mitigate using fast cards. The situation only occurs when theres some heavy spray and pray going on and the buffer can't write to the cards quickly enough so you lose your 6 frames a sec.

It's a known limitation but theres a lot of frames before you hit this, around 30 frames Raw? I know if you shoot at 3fps you can just keep shooting. If you shoot large jpg its over 60 frames
 
Byker28i said:
Canon 5D mk3 has a CF card slot and a SD card slot as a backup. Because of the interface they have different write speed performances but this is what the buffer takes out. You can also mitigate using fast cards. The situation only occurs when theres some heavy spray and pray going on and the buffer can't write to the cards quickly enough so you lose your 6 frames a sec.

It's a known limitation but theres a lot of frames before you hit this, around 30 frames Raw? I know if you shoot at 3fps you can just keep shooting. If you shoot large jpg its over 60 frames
Click to expand...


Yes i understand that two different card albiet CF nd SD or two different speed cards would be different.... but what i am led to believe is that writing to both at once can only be done at the same speed and this has to be the lower speed.. so in the 5d3 case if writing to both then it would be done at the sd card speed to the cf..

happy to be corrected.. I am not offering this as fact.. only what I ahve learnt from these forums in the past that writing to two card can only be done at the speed of the slowest card.. no matter how fast the fatser card is?
 
Fraser Euan White said:
That is correct (I think)? For Raymond's work I believe he has a camera that uses different types of cards, one of which has a faster write speed; this isn't normally a problem but there is a certain type of shot where he needs to use continuous high speed shooting and the camera 'slows' down because of the write speed in full RAW + RAW back-up hence the suggestion of the RAW + Jpeg so the buffer doesn't fill?

I may also be completely wrong & maybe one of the contributors who understand all this write speed/card type jargon will put me in my place :)
Click to expand...

Raymond has Canon 5D mk4, which has CF card and SD card. The confetti scenario was a suggested scenario of a couple walking down a line with confetti being thrown, hence the need for continuous shooting
 
KIPAX said:
Yes i understand that two different card albiet CF nd SD or two different speed cards would be different.... but what i am led to believe is that writing to both at once can only be done at the same speed and this has to be the lower speed.. so in the 5d3 case if writing to both then it would be done at the sd card speed to the cf..

happy to be corrected.. I am not offering this as fact.. only what I ahve learnt from these forums in the past that writing to two card can only be done at the speed of the slowest card.. no matter how fast the fatser card is?
Click to expand...
Nope you're right (as usual :D )
I remember using Magic Lantern which can record write speeds and from memory I was getting something around 90mb/sec
 
Raymond Lin said:
From the other thread about the dual cards, it is my observations that some people against the idea and practice of shooting a back up image on the go because of the reason "the chance of happening to you is like winning the lottery".

Is this really the right attitude to take?

I am not talking about just weddings, but any kind paid job.

Is having insurance enough? what about your reputation? Future recommendations?

I am actually utterly shocked that anyone would take this stance against shooting back up cards for a paid job. What are your thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

People really are against that - really?

I assume these people don't have contents insurance on their house, or life insurance below the age of 65 then?

On paid work I always have the 2nd card set to backup, for that one in a million chance. I have the 2nd card, why not use it?
 
cambsno said:
People really are against that - really?

I assume these people don't have contents insurance on their house, or life insurance below the age of 65 then?

On paid work I always have the 2nd card set to backup, for that one in a million chance. I have the 2nd card, why not use it?
Click to expand...

Apparently “it’ll never happen to me” is the reason.
 
On the recent wedding I shot (it was a family thing) I was shooting RAW to one card, JPG to the other.

The main reason for this is that it was a small intimate wedding in Thailand, most of the families were not with us. I wanted the JPG's to do a quick wifi transfer to my iPad and upload to Social Media for the friends & families to see. This worked very well & the B&G liked the idea. JPGs transfer over the air much more quickly. A quick crop/straighten and they were online.

I'm not a pro, but I just can't understand why anybody that is would never shoot to dual cards. I'm from the IT industry where backup & dual systems are very common place, especially if it's costly to lose...
 
Most of my cameras have two card slots, but none of them have equal bandwidth card slots. I presume this is because bandwidth costs money. Given this it will will be a tradeoff between
A) better redundancy, and
B) lower burst rates and (maybe) higher cost for extra cards.
For myself I never use backup cards as that would mean I would need twice the number of cards. It would also add time and complexity to my processes, which in turn adds to the chance of a mistake. The largest component of data loss is usually human error. At least, it is for me.
If I was taking weddings, I suspect that I would use dual cards, but in my case, no.
I do however keep dual backup (more correctly, archive) of everything I store on my computer.
 
I shoot xcd and sd and have raw to xcd jpeg to sd for paid work.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post from a photographer who had a choice of shooting to 2 cards and chose not to for an important shot.

I do know plenty of people who only have single card cameras, and that’s perfectly valid, there’s plenty of great cameras only have one card slot. :)
 
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