memory cards replace or format?

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FLANNERS

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As above really. I am coming to the end of a 4gb card and was just wandering should I keep it somewhere safe and buy a new one or wipe the one i have and reuse.

I do back up all my photos on an external hard drive.

May seem like a stupid question as I i can do either. Just wanted to know what others do?

Thanks.
 
I think you'll find that most people (especially those shooting raw) will get through multiple cards on a single shoot - I'll normally get through between 8GB and 16GB, sometimes more on a shoot.

How long have you been shooting on that card?
 
FLANNERS said:
As above really. I am coming to the end of a 4gb card and was just wandering should I keep it somewhere safe and buy a new one or wipe the one i have and reuse.

I do back up all my photos on an external hard drive.
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They're cheap as chips, so well worth having a few to hand and 'rotating them'; e.g. the one you have now can have all the images kept on it until such as a time when you're satisfied that the copy of them on your PC/Laptop have been processed ok and you no longer need the card's content (Processed stuff then saved onto ext. HDD).

Another point to having a handful of memory cards is that you could well be on a shoot where you've filled up the card! This is especially realistic when you've set the cam to record the largest/finest images both in JPEG and RAW.

Check out the Accessories & Misc classifieds section here, I'm sure you'll find some cards up for grabs ;) :thumbs:
 
Lee- I use about 40gb in a single wedding, so there is no way I could afford new memory each time. Once I have a copy on my pc (+backup) I wipe the card, and it's ready for the next wedding :)
 
Memory blocks on cards for cameras from reputable manufacturers are typically rated for 100,000 write cycles or more. That is, you should be able to write to a block of 64 pages 100,000 times. Some of the higher specification ones run to millions of write cycles.

Smarter controllers on the cards will use 'wear levelling' to ensure that the write locations for data are distributed evenly across the available blocks on the card (so that the first blocks don't always get hit more often than those at the end of the range) and the pattern of usage by cameras (write once, copy data off, erase everything and then repeat) is relatively benign.

In practice, this means you should be able to get tens of thousands of re-uses of your card before it is likely to fail. You're more likely to replace it due to upgrade to a larger capacity than failure.

I have cards still in use that I bought in 2004, although they tend to get used less these days simply because they're amongst the smallest cards I have.

e2a: FWIW I always reformat after each use.
 
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I am a serious dvd backup merchant since I had to do a lot of work to retreive images from a failing external drive.copy the images to pc and when finished any pp
I etc I then save them to discs before re-formatting the cards for re use.
 
Copy the files across, back them up, put the card back in the Camera and format it. If you only have 1 card, I'd certainly look at getting another as well :thumbs:
 
photorod said:
I am a serious dvd backup merchant since I had to do a lot of work to retrieve images from a failing external drive.copy the images to pc and when finished any pp
I etc I then save them to disc's before re-formatting the cards for re use.
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DVDs have a limited lifespan and deteriorate over time - i have disks less than 5 yrs old which now have issues trying to recover files.
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
DVDs have a limited lifespan and deteriorate over time - i have disks less than 5 yrs old which now have issues trying to recover files.
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Likewise - I have stuff that's lost for ever from 2002-2005 because it was backed-up onto DVDs rather than hard drive.
 
Copy to internal HDD, backup to external HDDs and CD/DVDs then format card in camera. It's almost at the point where cards are cheap enough to keep the originals rather than reusing (and with the prices some wedding photographers charge, an extra £100 or so to cover the cost will hardly be noticed) but it's still not quite cheap enough for amateurs to do that.
 
photorod said:
I am a serious dvd backup merchant since I had to do a lot of work to retreive images from a failing external drive.copy the images to pc and when finished any pp
I etc I then save them to discs before re-formatting the cards for re use.
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As others have said, get those DVDs on a hard-drive ASAP. They will fail and you'll lose the pictures forever - it can be anything from a year after they were burned that data starts disappearing.
 
Nod said:
Copy to internal HDD, backup to external HDDs and CD/DVDs then format card in camera. It's almost at the point where cards are cheap enough to keep the originals rather than reusing (and with the prices some wedding photographers charge, an extra £100 or so to cover the cost will hardly be noticed) but it's still not quite cheap enough for amateurs to do that.
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8gb cards are still £20 odd quid, so your talking an extra cost of £100 a wedding, rather than spending the £100 on a 2000gb (2tb) hard disk? Seems a bit silly to me :)
 
A 2TB HDD can fail just as easily as a 32MB one can, with the other problem of losing 2TB of files rather tha just a card's worth. The £100 card cost would be passed on to the customer anyway - possible as an optional extra. Then again, even a CD-RW will probably last longer than many marriages.
 
Nod said:
A 2TB HDD can fail just as easily as a 32MB one can, with the other problem of losing 2TB of files rather tha just a card's worth. The £100 card cost would be passed on to the customer anyway - possible as an optional extra. Then again, even a CD-RW will probably last longer than many marriages.
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Yes, that's why you have backup hard drives etc. SSD drives might be better for backup- if prices continue to fall.
 
Get a few cards because they are cheap as chips on ebay, and reformat them once you have backed up. I usually have two backups, on my two drives as i have suffered hdd failures before and lost everything. But definitely definitely reformat and reuse!
 
c4rv3r said:
Get a few cards because they are cheap as chips on ebay, and reformat them once you have backed up. I usually have two backups, on my two drives as i have suffered hdd failures before and lost everything. But definitely definitely reformat and reuse!
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I wouldn't recommend ebay actually, lot of fakes on there.
 
squizza said:
I wouldn't recommend ebay actually, lot of fakes on there.
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That is correct, but if they are selling for an average price then they are usually legit. I usually compare them to amazon prices and also the feedback is a big giveaway as the fakes will break after a short amount of use.
 
how does one come to the end of the card...unless you are getting a bigger one
format and keep as a spare..
 
aligibbs said:
8gb cards are still £20 odd quid, so your talking an extra cost of £100 a wedding, rather than spending the £100 on a 2000gb (2tb) hard disk? Seems a bit silly to me :)
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Transcend 8GB SDHC Card Class 6 £13.99 from www.gomemory.co.uk. I've bought 3 so far and they're fine. They come in correct genuine retail pack, work well, and quick delivery.
 
c4rv3r said:
I usually compare them to amazon prices and also the feedback is a big giveaway as the fakes will break after a short amount of use.
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Not necessarily, the fakes are just cheap cards, so they might not actually fail, but you won't get the speeds that a genuine card will offer. As most buyers wouldn't have a clue what is fake and what's not, and feedback is left almost instantly the feedback is pretty much a worthless guide in my opinion.

If you're comparing to Amazon, bear in mind that the market place sellers on Amazon might be just as bad as ebay sellers.

If I am buying from Amazon, I'll only buy stuff which is actually supplied by Amazon, or at a push fulfilled by Amazon.
 
OutLore said:
Not necessarily, the fakes are just cheap cards, so they might not actually fail, but you won't get the speeds that a genuine card will offer. As most buyers wouldn't have a clue what is fake and what's not, and feedback is left almost instantly the feedback is pretty much a worthless guide in my opinion.

If you're comparing to Amazon, bear in mind that the market place sellers on Amazon might be just as bad as ebay sellers.

If I am buying from Amazon, I'll only buy stuff which is actually supplied by Amazon, or at a push fulfilled by Amazon.
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I agreed. I bought a Kingston card very early on (it was a 256Mb card costing £100+) anyway it failed after 2 years and I sent it back to Kingston who said it was a cheap copy. Basically the scammers buy cheap or reject cards and then have high quality labels made and just stick them on. Kingston sent me a letter saying it was a fake but strangely they sent me a real card too !

I only use Lexar Pro and Sandisk now from reputable sources.
 
aligibbs said:
Lee- I use about 40gb in a single wedding
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:nuts: :gag:

Holy sh... cow! I have been into this hobby for years and I don't think I've accumulated 40GB of photos yet...
 
As long as you have a couple of copies of your photos, maybe on two seperate hard drives, then I don't see any problem with formatting and resusing cards.
 
trencheel303 said:
:nuts: :gag:

Holy sh... cow! I have been into this hobby for years and I don't think I've accumulated 40GB of photos yet...
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Well, a 4gb card only holds about 130 pictures from my 5dm2, and taking 1300 pictures at a wedding isn't that high really (if it's all day from 10am-10pm)
 
I copy my card to my computer after every trip out using the location and date as a File name. I then immediately backup to an external harddisk. When this is complete, I then backup to a second external harddisk.
Call me over cautious but the cost of external disks is low and I always keep one off site as well ( in the car ) so that if someone breaks in and steals the computer and other disk, Chances are they won't take the car as well so I will still have my pictures. Also, the chance of 3 hard disks failing at the same time are almost negligible.
Then format the card in the camera.
 
Musicman said:
Just don't leave your keys in the hall and the car parked outside :)
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Key lives in my trouser pocket 24/7. The wifes car is a Renault so they are more likely to take pity on her and give it a full service !!:lol: Lump of junk.:thumbsdown: The Electrics are awful !!:suspect:
 
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