How many CF cards and what capacity

<p>Fellow photographers. Here's my conundrum. I'm going on a 2.5 wk national park road trip and I'm not sure how many and what capacity CF cards to bring. What I have: 5D II, 2 x 4GB and an 8GB CF card. The last 2wk vacation I went on, the cards I had was just barely enough. For this trip I'd like to bring more. Right now I'm leaning towards buying 2 x 16GB. But I'm also considering 2 x 8GB and 1 x 16GB. I can argue to death both options in my head, but I'm still stuck. My main concern is having such high capacity cards with "all my eggs in one basket".<br>

For various reasons I'm still not sure if I will have a laptop with me for downloading pictures. For most vacations I probably shoot 75% jpeg and 25% RAW with a little bit of video here and there. Mostly 30 second clips.<br>

Do you fellow photographers have any other suggestions? I realize I'll probably have multiple opinions, but at this point I don't mind. This board always manages to think of something that I haven't thought of that helps make my decisions a bit easier.<br>

Thanks!</p>

<p>This is clearly one of those "how long is a piece of string" discussions, but those are always entertaining. It really depends on how much you shoot, whether you do any in-camera editing, and if you bring the laptop. It's not terribly difficult to do that math on how many shots per card you get - I don't have 5DII so can't help with average file sizes, but you should be able to go through that easily.</p>

<p>When we travel, especially for a trip of that length, we always have a laptop. Cards get downloaded to that every evening, and as we start to run short of cards we can re-use based on the photos being in one place on the computer. That still leaves me feeling like I'm taking a risk, so we don't delete from the cards until we run out of cards completely. And, I carry a Western Digital Passport harddrive (wallet-sized) that I use to back up the laptop before we format the cards. Belt & suspenders, for sure.</p>

<p>We have a 50D and a Rebel Xti; on a recent 10-day trip to Arizona we went through 2X16GB, a 8GB and two 4GB's in about 7 days; then started formatting cards and started over. We ended up back home with about 3500 shots, all in both raw and large jpeg. We had a total of about 56GB; rapidly edited down to under 20 once we got home, but that was the starting point.</p>

<p>There are advocates of 2 schools.<br /> One says do not put all eggs in one bastet, and it leaads to many smaller cards.<br /> Second school says use just one huge card and never remove it from the camera. (if you use an USB cable for file transfers - this makes more sense for the USB 3.0 speedy transfers).</p>

<p>You need to find your own balance, what best fits your style.<br /> There are pros and cons to each of the schools.</p>

<p>With people misplacing and lossing cards, as well as destroying them in external readers, external ports, computers with viruses, and possibly via static electricity and mechanical damage, the second school seems better, as long as you off-load the card immediately after you come back home from your photography expedition, and before you start fidling with it in some card readers and computers, wash them in pants, press them with hot iron, use them in another type of camera or device, ... name your way of card destruction...</p>

<p>Most recent and tragic card destruction was swallowing them, so the authorities will not see the contents.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I carry enough cards for two full days of shooting (I shoot all RAW <em>and</em> small jpgs). However, at the close of each day, I do two things - download the images to a portable hard drive connected to my laptop, as well as to the laptop itself. Then I format the cards from the <em>previous</em> day in the camera they are to be used in. I then make up a quick list of where the various groups of images are from (in parks you can shoot the signage to keep the images in groups...) in a daily travel diary/list. Next day, same routine.<br>

Given that there are no "protection" tabs on the cards I use, I would never trust my images to be on cards for a whole trip, too easy to use one by accident and wipe out a bunch of images...</p>

<p>Get two 32GB cards and stop worrying and stop rationing your usage. If you take your laptop, then make do with one 32GB card.</p>

<p>It all comes down to economy of both your budget and your card wallet. An 8GB card takes up the same physical space as a 16GB card while storing half the images. You mention video, so I'd lean toward at least one larger card based on that.<br>

I keep both 8 and 16's on hand. There are times when I prefer to isolate a certain group of shots to a particular card, in these instances I'll pop in an 8 and take it out when the grouping is done. Otherwise, I'm using 16's. (RAW and LJpeg). I've experienced card failures (turned out to be due to a faulty pin in the camera) and will always suggest multiple smaller cards vs a single (or fewer) large cards, again in terms of economy of scale. One card acts up, you can take it out and store it away to deal with later. If that happens with a single large card, you're pretty much SOL for however long you are away from a computer or you lose images already shot by reformatting it so you can continue shooting. I would suggest a card wallet if you are carrying more than two cards, they keep them organized and easy to locate in your gear bag. Think Tank makes a handy one as do other makers. Tether it to the inside of your gear bag so it doesn't become separated or misplaced. Most of all, don't let storage capacity get in the way of enjoying your vacation! -R</p>

 

It really depends on your shooting style. Growing up with film (and perhaps being basically lazy) I tend to take fewer shots

and shoot RAW. Sport is obviously an exception but I find that actually limiting my shots helps. Unless it is sports or a

specific assignment I find more than 50 shots a day just results in lots of images to delete. Thus I use mainly 8GB cards

(16 for sports events) and take lots of spare cards

<p>I hate dragging a computer around, so when I'm traveling for weeks, I bring every dad burn card I can muster (several dozen 4, 8 and 16GB cards). I shoot RAW on a 5D2. If you're a JPEG banger, you can make due with a mere mitt full. With that said, it's easy to buy a spare CF card in a large city should you find yourself short so not a big deal unless you're in the sticks.</p>

<p>The 'all your eggs in one basket' school of thought isn't really relevant any longer. Not unless you are shooting once in a lifetime, irreplaceable imagery... then you've got two cameras though and built in redundancy... </p>

<p>Of course you'll have to decide just how bad your luck is. You could grab another pile of 8gb cards, and have enough, or a couple 32gb cards, and also have enough. With the purchase of reputable cards, the likelihood that a card full of images spontaneously goes bad (and is irretrevable) is <em>literally</em> less than getting struck by lightning. Not impossible of course, but if your luck is that bad, then I'd not recommend going outside, as a falling meteor, or a crashing airplane is likely to take you out.</p>

<p>OTOH, if your camera gets lost or stolen (or falls in the river) while it has a nearly full 32gb card in it - you HAVE just lost all that... But then it's equally likely the pouch containing your dozen full 8gb cards gets lost or stolen (or falls in the river), and then you've lost all the images... At least the camera's card door can't be left 'unzipped'...</p>

<p>No, personally, I'd recommend grabbing 2 or 3 32gb cards of the fastest, best quality, you can afford. I find that the safest place for a CF card is in the camera (where butterfingers don't touch it very often - especially in the field). - but that's me, the other route is somewhat rational as well.</p>

<p>For about the price of a fast 32 GB CF card, you can get a 500 GB portable reader/storage device. There's also one with 320 GB for less money: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/681428-REG/Digital_Foci_P19_500_PST_251_Photo_Safe_II.html. This may be a better solution for you if you aren't bringing a laptop.</p>

<p>All of which goes to show there is no single answer. </p>

<p>Jay - have you used that GB portable device? I looked at those a while ago, but was not impressed with the transfer speeds. That has improved a bit at least - although to download even 8GB card would take take nearly half an hour.</p>

This is what I prefer, but just another opinion....

 

Take enough cards for the entire trip, which in 2.5 weeks is obviously difficult to estimate.

 

At the end of each day, copy that days files to the laptop and backup on a small portable drive like a

Western Digital Essential.

 

Place the card face-down in a card wallet.

 

Do this for each day, although it would be impractical to save a card with files for each. Maybe use a

card with three days files.

 

Keep Laptop separate from portable drive and keep cards in a shirt pocket. Just makes sense to have a

minimum of two copies of your files and kept separately in case of loss or theft.

 

Two card readers and two cables would also be a good idea.

<p>I've been acquiring 4 and 8 GB CF cards and numbering them for rotation in shooting. Also have a 16 GB for 5DII video and just got a 32 GB as an Amazon "gold box" discount sale item. My last "one card" adventure was on Maui and now I'm sure (as of October 2003) that metal detectors can and do scramble the cards. It also fogged 4 rolls of Fuji 800 transparency film from Haleakala.</p>

<p>This may not be for everyone but I bought a hard drive dock and a 1 TB bare hard drive. The dock has a USB 3.0 port and it took approximately 1 hour to transfer 60GB of photos from my Laptop to the hard drive. That was about 12 days of photos from my vacation. The only drawback might be that it requires AC power to function. I wanted something that would be useful for home also, rather than one of the travel drives. I knew I would be staying in motels along the way though. I have an inverter for my car to get AC power and use that to charge batteries, but you could power your laptop and external drive and transfer while driving.</p>

<p>Arthur, another vote for the 32 GB to 16 GB card range, is the matter of fact that each time a card is inserted into your camera, there is a slight chance that one of it's pins could be damaged, thus ruining your entire photo vacation. It is also easier to keep up with several 32 GB cards, than a bunch of 4's or 8's.<br>

Just remember to clear your cards to your backup device ever so often, and have a great time, enjoy your trip, Rayzor.</p>

<p>David, I haven't used the device, since I generally have my laptop with me. My suggestion was based on the idea that he won't be able to do anything with the files until he gets home to his computer, so he could do the transfers overnight when it doesn't matter if it takes 30 mins or 6 hours, unless he's filling the 16 GB card he has in less than a day.</p>

<p>@Jay - thanks - on that basis it certainly would work.</p>