32 GB CF card...

Will my 1Ds MK II read it and use it as 32 GB ? So, far, the highest one I used

was 8 GB. Do I need a firmwire upgrade ? Is one available ?

 

Planning to buy a couple. Any suggestions ? A Data built quality is terrible

from my experience . Never used PNY/Transcend etc. I normally use Sandisk and

Lexar ( 8 GB )

 

Any user of a 32 GB CF on 1Ds MK II ? Suggestions please!

 

thanks

 

Swapan

I have no experience of these very large cards but my advice (for what it is worth) is use several smaller cards. Not only is it cheaper but in the event of a card problem your losses will be less.

The main issue is to have a strict routine for handling lots of cards so you do not overwrite shots you have just taken.

I'd have to agree with Jeff. I'd rather lose 1 1Gb card and all it's photos then 1 32Gb card and all it's photos. Can you image shooting a whole wedding on 1 card and have it going corrupt at the end of the shoot?

Actually, 8 GB cards are perfect for your camera. Unless you have a special need (like unattended time lapse photography), I would stick with them.

I'm not ready to go for 32GB cards yet, but there are downsides to the smaller cards as

well. The odds that you'll lose a card increase as you add more cards. I'd be willing to bet

that it is far more likely that you'll lose _some_ cards/photos if you carry around a ton of 2

GB cards than if you carry one or two large cards.

 

It is important to reformat cards in camera between use and to be very careful about

offloading and backing up card data.

 

32 GB seems like a bit too much at this point. I don't know how it works out on your

camera, but on my 5D I can store well over 400 RAW images on a 8GB card. If your files

are a bit larger, 32 GB would still likely hold something like 1500-1600 files or more.

 

Dan

I use the Sandisk Extreme III 16 GB and haven't yet run into a capacity limitation. Also, the only time I've lost data on a CF card is when I was using a Hitachi Microdrive. I've had the Ultra II in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities, also, without problems. Having said that, I'm not aware of whether or not a 32 GB card would work in your scenario.

I just bought a 32GB Transcend and use it on my 5D. So far so good....Now I know we all tend to be skeptical about large cards but in all honesty how many of us have had a failure? I still have my first 340Mb Microdrive and it works fine. We all felt the same way buying our first 1 or 2 gb cards, how many failures have there been with those? What are the chances? A 32GB card can be used for different things, with a small card reader it can also be used for backing up those 4-8 gb cards that we didn't trust at first either....

Donald,

 

Regardless of the chance of it happening, and I agree it is slim, if you have a once in a lifetime opportunity and all of your pictures are on that card, then if something happens you are going to be very sorry. Whether you are a professional shooting a wedding, or an amateur going on your African Safari, I would be very nervous about losing ALL of my pictures.

For what it's worth, even with the Microdrive, the times I've had failures, it's been a handful of images, not the entire card. Jonny, do you know anyone that has lost an entire non-Microdrive compact flash card?

I think we do possibly tend to be overcautious - I only use 4 Gig cards, am fastidious

about reformatting in camera and I back up like there's no tomorrow. Even though I have

never had any digital data losses I will continue to assume that one is imminent as my

living depends on my images.

 

Now where I DID have losses was with film! I have lost images through film falling off clips

in dip/dunk processors and sitting for 1/2 hour in the first dev, through assistants turning

darkroom lights on during loading, dirty rollers in roller transport processors scratching

films, from third world airport's ancient x-ray machines fogging 100 ISO film, from

assistants opening film magazines and dark slides without being cautious, and fogging

exposed film, etc. etc. Over a 25 year film career there were all too many "data losses".

Luckily never anything terminal as I was always extremely careful (paranoid?) about

covering myself in shooting and processing practices.

 

The reality is that as much as we distrust, and are nervous of, our digital recording media,

with just a few sensible precautions, we've never had it so good!

M Barbu,

 

for the record I have never had a loss with a CF card nor have I talked to anyone that has. Maybe as suggested we are all paranoid. I find myself making triple backups (2 hard drive copies and a physical media copy) and who knows whether it is all necessary. As an aside, my 120GB hard drive that I luckily wasn't using frequently failed, so at least for that type of media I am glad that I have been cautious.

Now:

Don't use one 32GB card, use two 16GB cards

 

Some time ago:

Don't use one 16GB card, use two 8GB cards

 

More time ago:

Don't use one 8GB card, use two 4GB cards

 

...........

 

 

Don't use any card, use film

Sorry to burst the bubble, but I've lost images on a CF card.

 

1Gb Lexar, about 12 shots in, when the camera locked up writing to the card. After waiting

a l-o-n-g time for it to finish writing, I turned the camera off, removed the card and

replaced it with another and everything carried on as normal.

 

Plugged the Lexar into a computer, via a card reader. The computer couldn't find any data.

Put the card back in the 40D, which told me no images. Back to the computer, ran a

Sandisk recovery program (don't have a Lexar one). Nothing there.

 

Gave up and reformatted the card and now use it my point & shoot S70 where, to date, it

hasn't missed a beat.

 

Total loss, about 12 shots - fortunately I'd only just swapped a full card out and replaced

it with the Lexar.

Another point, related purely to value for money...

 

They last a long time, but CF cards have a finite life, and a 32 gb card probably won't last any longer than say, an 8 gb card.

 

For the sake of argument: if you generally only take about 8mb (or even 16mb of shots in a session, your 32gb card is going to be subject to as much "wear and tear" as the smaller cards - you're going to use it in effectively the exact same way - without getting *any* of the benefit of the additional storage, but accruing all of the additional costs.

 

So why bother with a 32gb card?

That assumes the card is formatted, or the images are deleted, each session. For the sake of argument, because you can. You can always use a 32 GB card like an 8 GB one, but never the other way around.

More people drop smaller cards during changing than have larger cards fail. For most people, there is far more risk of dropping and losing a card than having a failure.

 

If you go back far enough here, you will find people saying to use four 512MB cards instead of 2GB cards. That sure looks like a joke now, doesn't it?

i have all 4gb sandisk extreme 3 cards just because my jobs used to revolved around the

dvd at 4gb. i have heard many many great stories about cards surviving impeccable odds

and only one or so i think of them failing. i had one of my extreme 3s sit outside in the

landscaping through a north idaho winter and summer and it worked fined when a

landscaper called me 6 months later.

 

4gb gets a full basketball of images with my 1dmk2 @ 8MP @ 8fps. awesome. or 150+ on

my P25/22MP. if doing a timelapse, then the camera is on Sjpg and i can get thousands

on any canon camera.

Guys,

 

Thanks for your valuable inputs.

 

The reason I wanted to go up is the fact that I shoot multiple thousands during my annual vacation in India (home-for 6 weeks annually ). I do not carry a Laptop as I already get 2 bags for my gear!

 

June 0f 2007- in India I ran out of a total of 56 GB (40 of them were in 5-8GB cards, rest 2 or 4s). I was lucky enough to be at home when it happened and I could transfer some to a desktop and later copy on Dvd. I could have been in touble if it happened 3 days ago when I was shooing at a God forbidden place in the inner Himalayas!

 

I think I will buy a couple of 16 GBs

 

BTW, I have lost data at least twice on Lexar 2 GB cards- one of them WAS a lifetime chance- I could not recover those. Even Lexar could not do it. Sais it was an electrical failure and nothing could be done!

 

So, it happenes and even once is one time too much !

 

Thanks again guys!

Despite the risks, I tend to err on the larger side of cards, currently I'm using 8GB cards and may consider going larger at some point.

 

I have also lost data on cards. One thing I've learned: if you believe that the data on the cards is important, then hold onto the card after it becomes corrupted as you may find a better recovery tool. For me, this happenned several years after I had a card totally crap out on me, I managed to find a rather good recovery tool, magicrescue (linux/unix util folks) which was able to pull back most of the jpegs from the card despite it being having been completely unreadable/unrecoverable from windows.