Nikon D800E memory card and set-up advice needed

Pegasus_Thrust

Pegasus_Thrust

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I am quite sure that this has been asked before so apologies in advance.

I love my D800E and feel I am starting to get the best out of it's definition but as I am doing that I am facing issues with regards to file type and size therein.

Does anyone have any advice or would they care to share with me what set-up & cards they would use for something such as a wedding shooting around on average 1500 exposures?

I understand the rationale of having smaller cards so that if one goes wrong etc. so not too many shots are lost, or in the same way recording the same image to both something in the SD and CF slots..... but the downside of this would be me changing the cards a lot.

I currently am using a CF sandisk extreme 32gb and a 32 sandisk ultra SD and I am conscious that I would likely run out of space shooting that amount in RAW...... If I am honest I don't like to think about the memory aspect when I working.

The ideas I am currently having:

Forking out for 2 massive sized cards (expensive)
Forking out for a massive SD card to record the RAW onto whilst having the backup version being jpeg onto the CF card or vice versa (but this might confuse me as one card will fill up quicker)
Make do with jpeg for some/all of the shoot

Any suggestions or input would be most appreciated

Thanks everyone
 
someone is paying you to do a wedding or are you a guest?
 
Paying me. My previous and now back-up/second body is a D3 so the memory aspect is a different ball game- just trying to get feedback on anyone else that has had to adapt to the bigger file sizes.
 
Pegasus_Thrust said:
I love my D800E and feel I am starting to get the best out of it's definition but as I am doing that I am facing issues with regards to file type and size therein.
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Use lossless compressed RAWs. Without it, the RAWs are nearly 80MB... with it, they're 45. There's no loss in quality, so why wouldn't you?


Pegasus_Thrust said:
Does anyone have any advice or would they care to share with me what set-up & cards they would use for something such as a wedding shooting around on average 1500 exposures?
Click to expand...

If you're shooting RAW, then do get that many, you'll need around 3 or 4 32GB cards.

Pegasus_Thrust said:
I understand the rationale of having smaller cards so that if one goes wrong etc.
Click to expand...

Nope.. With a D800 I'd set card A to back up Card B, then use whacking great big cards, so in effect, for 1500 shots, I'd be looking at 3 or 4 CF cards, and 3 or 4 SD cards.




Pegasus_Thrust said:
Forking out for 2 massive sized cards (expensive)
Click to expand...

Best solution if you shoot RAW

Pegasus_Thrust said:
Forking out for a massive SD card to record the RAW onto whilst having the backup version being jpeg onto the CF card or vice versa (but this might confuse me as one card will fill up quicker)
Click to expand...

That's one solution, but if the main card does fail, you've lost your RAWs. You've got JPEG as a back up, so it's not a total loss. If on a budget, this is a way out of the dilemma.

Pegasus_Thrust said:
Make do with jpeg for some/all of the shoot
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You could... it's only a wedding after all.


Personally... I'd just get a couple of 64GB CF cards, and a couple of 64GB SD cards. If you are prepared to whack out over two grand on a professional camera, then just stump up the cash and do the right thing. If buying the D800 has used up all your financial resources, to the point where you can't buy storage media for it, then maybe you bought the wrong camera?
 
Thanks chaps, I always knew there was going to be a purchase involved- it was/is the case of what to purchase and how to set it up.
 
if you shoot compressed, lossless 14 bit RAW you'll get between 6-650 photos on a 35gb card. 2 lots of 32gb cards normally does me for the day
 
Cheers boyfalldown, so when you say 2 lots you mean essentially double what I already have?.....and is that set to record to A and back up to B?
 
Pegasus_Thrust said:
.... but the downside of this would be me changing the cards a lot.

I currently am using a CF sandisk extreme 32gb and a 32 sandisk ultra SD and I am conscious that I would likely run out of space shooting that amount in RAW...... If I am honest I don't like to think about the memory aspect when I working....
Click to expand...

Believe me using 32GB cards and maybe changing 2-3 times over the course of a day is not changing cards a lot. Back in the day shooting with a Canon 10D or 1D MKII and 1GB cards (which cost £199 each) we were changing every 40-50 frames quite often going through 10-15 cards per wedding. That was a lot. But it was also much less than shooting 120 film on a Bronica SQA and not only having just 12 frames to a back but having to load film into backs at the same time as you rarely had more than 2-3 backs and usually went through 10-20 rolls of film per wedding.

You really do have it easy.

Either match your cards exactly and switch them at the same time, or my recommendation would be to use 32GB CF cards and 64GB SD cards so you change them slightly out of sequence with 2 CF cards to each SD - back the images up across the cards which means you can use high GB cards and change them less frequently. Store new and then replace with used CF cards in one wallet on your person, and used SD cards in another and use the standard method of turning them face in to indicate they are used. Think Tanks Pixel perfect pouches are ideal for this and come in both CF and SD flavours.

All you need to do is make sure at key moments in the day you are not tight on space as you would do anyway - immediately prior to the ceremony, speeches, first dance where changing cards would either draw attention to yourself or potentially miss moments.

Job done.
 
Thanks meonshore. I suppose I am being a bit of a princess re: the changing of the cards, I think I just have adapt and thanks for the wallet idea.

I have heavily considered going with a larger SD card as this will reduce costs a little- if going down that route what set-up would you go with.... overflow or back-up?

.....and in your consideration what class/make/model of card would you go for?
 
sorry, but youre a "pro" photographer and your asking things like that? admittedly its not as bad as the guy a few months back asking what lens to use at a wedding, but still! come on.
 
Pegasus_Thrust said:
Thanks meonshore. I suppose I am being a bit of a princess re: the changing of the cards, I think I just have adapt and thanks for the wallet idea.

I have heavily considered going with a larger SD card as this will reduce costs a little- if going down that route what set-up would you go with.... overflow or back-up?

.....and in your consideration what class/make/model of card would you go for?
Click to expand...

Personally I always use back-up rather than overflow. The only time I would use overflow is if I was unable to switch cards due to dust/water/casing restrictions and knew that I couldn't cover the shoot on my largest cards, and couldn't financially justify two larger ones (say 128/256GB card) to be able to backup. Of course in that situation you'd more than likely want backup because of the hi-risk and less repeatable nature.....

As for your specific question around SD cards for my D800E setup I went for 64GB Sandisk Extreme 45MB/s SDXC. At the time (October 2012) it gave me the best price/performance. Obviously prices and cards may well have changed somewhat - but I don't shoot weddings any more and that model of card is sufficient for my commercial and portrait work.
 
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essexash said:
sorry, but youre a "pro" photographer and your asking things like that? admittedly its not as bad as the guy a few months back asking what lens to use at a wedding, but still! come on.
Click to expand...

I am not asking because I am utterly clueless, I am only asking to see if someone else has been in this predicament before and if they had found a workable solution to adapt- to save me time and money with trial and error.
If you can/could've assisted then that advice would have been very much appreciated, slightly condescending posts such as the above are needless and tantamount to offensive.


You could however redeem yourself if you could advise on an appropriate lens for a wedding? ;-)
 
meonshore said:
Personally I always use back-up rather than overflow. The only time I would use overflow is if I was unable to switch cards due to dust/water/casing restrictions and knew that I couldn't cover the shoot on my one largest card, and couldn't financially justify two larger ones (say 128/256GB card) to be able to backup. Of course in that situation you'd more than likely want backup because of the hi-risk and less repeatable nature.....

As for your specific question around SD cards for my D800E setup I went for 64GB Sandisk Extreme 45MB/s SDXC. At the time (October 2013) it gave me the best price/performance. Obviously prices and cards may well have changed somewhat - but I don't shoot weddings any more and that model of card is sufficient for my commercial and portrait work.
Click to expand...


Thanks again meonshore for your input. I have been looking at those cards just and reckon I will go for 2 x 64gb (or maybe a 128gb) extreme SD for RAW and keep the 32gb extreme CF in place for jpeg. You have been a great help in highlighting I am at least looking in the right place.
 
Pegasus_Thrust said:
Thanks again meonshore for your input. I have been looking at those cards just and reckon I will go for 2 x 64gb (or maybe a 128gb) extreme SD for RAW and keep the 32gb extreme CF in place for jpeg. You have been a great help in highlighting I am at least looking in the right place.
Click to expand...

That is of course entirely your call but my recommendation is to shoot the same filetype to both cards (and in my case that would be 14-bit compressed RAW). If you ever need to go to your backup card to replace a corrupt file or two then it disrupts your workflow to have to insert a single JPEG into it and try to match them up. Far better to just drop in the missing NEF and off you go. Having a consistent, repeatable, workflow for my weddings was critically important for me in terms of quality and speed.

The only reason I would use RAW + JPEG is if I was shooting a press/sports job and needed to submit JPEGs very very quickly but wanted to keep RAW files for high quality production at a later date. But now-a-days I'm even shooting RAW only on those and just using Photomechanic to quickly cull and process out resized JPEGs from the locked files I want to send.
 
Pegasus_Thrust said:
Thanks again meonshore for your input. I have been looking at those cards just and reckon I will go for 2 x 64gb (or maybe a 128gb) extreme SD for RAW and keep the 32gb extreme CF in place for jpeg. You have been a great help in highlighting I am at least looking in the right place.
Click to expand...

I would also buy some smaller one say 8-16 gb you cant have enough cards :)
 
Cheers Simonblue, I've already got a ruck of those from the smaller file days so they'll always be with me.
 
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