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having nightmares of card failure


robbie_caswell

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I shoot mostly RAW and use two 8GB and a 4GB card (with a smattering of 1GB

available).

 

Lately I have been having dreadful thoughts of card failure.

 

What options other than a laptop do you guys use?

 

1GB gets me about 30 RAW images per card, so that would increase chances of

overwriting or loss.

 

Are there any are viable options like a the 40GB Media Gear. Rotating my 8GB

cards to download throughout the day while keeping the images on the card and

overwriting onto the Media gear hard drive? Seems risky.

 

My next purchase was going to be another D200, but am seriously considering a

slow move over to Canon with a MarkIIn and the dual slot card option (among

other things).

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Using 4 and 8 gb would make me nervous too. Too much to lose if a card goes out. I shoot RAW compressed and try to use 1, mostly 2 GB cards as the best compromise. I have an Epson P4000 for downloads. Takes a little less than 15 minutes for a loaded 2 GB card. Decent battery life too. Since the 4000 has been replaced, they're selling at a lower price now with a rebate (still I think).

 

And if you're going to migrate to C****, get the 5D for weddings. Cheaper and better high ISO performance from what I understand.

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Canon 5D doesn't have dual card slots to write a file simultaneously to 2 cards at once ...

 

I have to use 8 gig cards in my 39 meg MF digital, and I'll move to a 12 gig or 16 gig once the

price settles down. It's all relative to the file size you are writing.

 

Swapping cards has been the only problematic thing I've experienced to date.

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I Just lost some data from a 2gig card in my D80, I think the problem was one of possible physical dammage due to taking out the cards an putting them into a card reader. The card was taken back to a shop where they run a recovery program to get most of the immages back. Time permiting now i connect the usb cable to the camera and download that way this eliminates the possible dammage from removal ect.

Neil Ewins

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Robbie,

 

I've just bought a 1D...N and intend to use it for RAW on the CF and jPegs M2 on the the

SD with 4 Gb and 2Gb respectively. I don't have much experience on this yet and others

can advise otherwise.

 

2 slots was an important factor for me, but lots of folks don't seem to need it . A friend of

mine lost data from a Lawyer's wedding; then he lost his house and his business and he's

still in jail. :-)

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Breathe deep Robbie.

 

I use half a dozen 8gig cards and backup to a flashtrax on site as needed. I just don't let them get too full (<90% capacity) unless I get carried away at the reception.

 

I wish Canon would make a body that had dual slots and came in the 5D size. I hate those bricks (a la Marc).

 

Having said that, the Mk2 is a great camera. More than you need for wedding work in terms of the type/funtionality of cam., but less than needed for resolution...IMO.

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Robbie - 30 raw images a card? You must have huge files. my 20D get 125-130 images to a one gig card. sometimes 135 to a card if I fill it right up, which I try to not do.

 

the only thing you can do is be safe - shoot w/ two bodies, record to two cards. also make sure that your contract has it.

 

however, you might want to consider that the consensus seems to say that digital shooting is pretty safe - for every 'corrupted memory card' post you see here, there are probably 2000 people who have no problems...

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Robbie, I use 2GB cards and regularly swap. Paranoid perhaps, but it minimises potential for losses as if a card goes horribly wrong I won't lose all the formals or all the ceremony etc as some of the shots will be on other cards too. It's not onerous at all - rotate the cards every 40 or 50 shots, delete nothing on the day (save all that for when you've got them backed up at home) and you've covered all your bases.
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Since these cards are solid state, I wonder what can go wrong ... other than bad

manufacturing ... which would show up right away when testing a new card. This is not a

comment, but instead a question ... anyone know?

 

I understand that loading and unloading can bend pins or something ... in camera or a reader

... but that isn't the card's fault. In fact, the potential loading/unloading problem seems to

argue for bigger cards, not smaller ones.

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Talking to a local retailer, he says that bent pins on CF cards are almost always on

bottom-end cameras with ham-fisted once a year shooters. On better gear, the slots

ensure a straight approach.

 

When the pins break it can result in a camera repair.

 

Could also be that Mr Hamfist is allowing his eldest son to download cards at the high

street lab.

 

The retailer recommended that I consider using the more durable SD cards as the main

drive and do jPeg backups to the CF drive for fewer card changes. That seems to make

sense, but runs against common practice.

 

None of this comes from my experience. :-)

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"Since these cards are solid state, I wonder what can go wrong ... other than bad manufacturing ... which would show up right away when testing a new card. This is not a comment, but instead a question ... anyone know?"

 

I read a study that was done that basically said that if a CF is to go bad, it will 99% of the time go bad the first 5-6 times you use it/format it. Then they don't fail, except for a tiny percentage even after thousands of formats/uses. Also, buying high quality cards makes a difference from what I remember - it's not all marketing and write speeds. Also get a program like Photorescue in case.

 

 

Bogdan

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With most things electronic if they are going to go bad it's in the first few hours, that's why many computers are "burned in" for 24 hours before they are shipped. If they make it through the first 24 odds are they will operate for a normal life cycle.

 

I believe most memory card failure is operator induced, I seen people jam them into the camera or card reader like they are shoving a bullet clip in to a handgun, which by the way, is bad for the clip also.

 

I worked in the electronics field for a while and learned that static electricity is very damaging to electronics. The way people handle their cards invites damage by touching the contacts with their fingers.

 

And while I'm at it, how many memory cards does someone have to use to feel safe? I think some people are over reacting and spreading themselvs too thin. Don't forget the more cards you use, the more chance for a mishap to occure.

Remember the old days when we used file and sent the entire weddings worht of film in one box to the lab, then later on down the road we'd send the negatives for the album to the lab in one package. We stood a much larger chance of loosing negatives to lost mail than to damaged memory cards.

 

I think we have to fine a comfortable number of cards to use without getting paranoid about the whole thing.

 

Just like in aviation, some people think a twin engine plane is safer than a single engine, but a twin gives you twice as much chance of an engine failure.

 

Just my opinions, take them for what they're worth.

 

Jim Marby

 

pictureperfectstudio.biz

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There are some good suggestions on this post. Follow them and you should be OK.

 

This type of stress isn't really a new thing, though. With film, we had far more sinister foes lurking in the shadows; everything from light leaks, heat and moisture, to the assistant letting that 220 film you just shot unroll across the ground, exposing the whole thing. Heck, with film, most of us trusted the mail office with delivering our precious rolls of wedding film back and forth between the pro labs. Talk about worries!

 

Personally, I've worried a lot less since switching from film to digital. (Of course, since that statement is begging for Murphy's Law to play out, I better add a *knock on wood*.)

 

Jen

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I'll go with frequently swaped single card cameras. Any on site download besides useing a wireless transmitter seems dangerous to me. Being not used to the firepower of top notch gear I'd stick with moderate card sizes around 70fr as long as bigger isn't cheaper.

 

How are you going to ruin the card if it is once outside your camera? - Does the washing machine erase the stored images? - I haven't tried it. - The SD card I dropped into my coffee was empty, means recently formated, but I just had my image recovery program successfully running over it, which means it found images taken before that bath!

 

What can erase / destroy pictures on the card? Static electricity can be a issue, but seems avoidable if you manage to put the card into something isolated. If you are extremely charged you might destroy the images anyhow as soon as you touch the card on location, so saveing there makes no sense for this case. Back at home you could wear some wristband to ground you properly. Bent contacts seem to be a problem that money can solve. Buying cards with USB plugs might make that issue even easier.

 

What else? - Losing the card? - Get a proper belt pocket. Last things coming to my mind would be you being run over by a road roller or nuclear warfare.

 

I can't imagine anything increasing the risk of card failure during your way home, after taking it out and successfully pocketing it on location.

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Unless you are robbed on the way to the car or on the way home. Memory cards are still attractive to thieves. I read about one photographer on the fredmiranda forums that had his wife sew a pocket inside his tux pants leg. At the end of an event, he put all the cards in that pocket in case he was robbed on the way to the car.
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Jennie: The pro-lab I use has said that they have never lost a roll of film in the mail, and

they've been in business at least 20 years. As for letting an assistant unload your film,

that's on you. You should be shooting with 220 backs or unloading film yourself unless

you have an assistant that you have the utmost of confidence in. Also, have you ever

heard of a changing bag? I had some slight fogging on one wedding, due to bright sun

and carelessness in unloading in that bright sun, but all of the shots were fixable and I

seriously doubt anyone can even tell that they had to be retouched. I sleep much better at

night knowing that the film is all safely down in the darkroom or at the lab than trusting it

to a fragile memory card.

 

Now, having said that, I was reading the "wedding mishaps" thread here before my first

solo shoot, and I had serious fears about the one story where someone set their flash

synch for flashbulbs and shot all their pictures, effectively without flash because of it. Or

howabout that one thread here where the guy's DSLR had a flaw where 1 out of 8 lines

weren't recorded by the sensor or weren't written onto the card, which didn't show up on

his LCD, but DID show up on the computer monitor at the end of the day.

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I had a card fail once, but I only use 1G and 2G cards, it was the 1G that failed, and after several attempts, ended up getting all but 10 images back. I wouldn't use anything higher that a 2G for this reason. I too use a D200 and shoot in RAW, but I get more that 40 images with 1G???? I'm a little stumped by your info? I want to say just more that 80- but I don't have my camera right here to check. I also use a portable hard drive to transfer images to throughout the wedding, but never to overwrite the cards. I don't delete/format my cards until I need to use them again for another wedding, after they've been transferred to my PC and backed up on discs. The portable harddrive is just an extra back up in case a card gets lost (hasn't happened, but better safe than sorry). My advice would be to get lower gig cards, back those up once they're full, but make sure you have enough so you don't have to use any card twice during an event. But that's just me.
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