What's the latest on Storage?

[mr-mike]

Unfortunately, my Nikon addiction has gotten ahead of my knowledge

base. What is the state-of-the art for digital storage for a Nikon

D2H? The body is coming n a couple days, and I know next to nothing

about storage, since I just decided to shelve the F100 and old

Coolpix 990, which aggravated me no end with its slowness. My needs

are for the storage capacity to hold as many shots as possible at

highest resolution and not keep me waiting while it writes. I take a

lot of outdoor sports action pix -- horse jumping, etc. There's no

time to screw around with gadgetry. What's the top choice if price is

no object? What's the best value for backup? I miss my old F with the

250 exposure back. Now THAT was fun to tote around, and the spaghetti

in the darkroom when it jammed was pure joy!

[hkbmac]

Take a look at the Lexar Media 4GB 40X Professional Compact Flash Card. That's where I'd go if money were no object.

[don_cooper]

Rob Galbraith hasn't included the D2H in his card database yet but using the data for the D1H should give you an idea of the card speeds available. http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6018

[ellis_vener_photography]

the general good advice is to choose a capture card that doesn't hold more images

than you'd care to lose if the card suddenly goes bad. As for backing up the cards on

site, Belkin is now selling an adapter that lets you download a flash card to more

recent versions of the Apple iPod.

 

for longer term storage you want both large Hard drives (160Gb or more) and these

should be backed up to high quality CD-R OR DVD-R disks.

 

And I remember the Nikon F with the 250 backs. I carried two of these rigs plus two F

bodies the F-36 motor drives (all borrowed) when I shot the Bob Dylan & The Band

show at Hofheinz Pavillion in Houstin in 1973 or 1974, I was just 16 or 17 and

wasshooting for my high school paper. Based on the massive amount of gear I was

slinging Bill Graham's company hired me to shoot the second show. My pay? Getting

to eat dinner with The Band and rhe crew! Did you know that Dylan speaks fluent

Spanish?

[mr-mike]

Thanks for the replies so far. Any thoughts on microdrives? I won't be able to backup to an iPod, as I have sworn an oath never to buy another Apple product, ever.

 

I had a similar experience to yours w/Dylan. I was given a press pass to a NY Knicks game in 1969 by a friend of my Dad's. I took my Nikon and borrowed 1 other with an F36 motor drive. Shot a bunch, and wound up selling a couple of the pix. Used the money to buy my own F36 MD, then a 250 back. Next thing you know, I was under the basket for 2 Knicks' championships and in the penalty box for a bunch of Rangers games. It paid for my hobby as a teenager.

As to Dylan, I'm not surprised, based on the way he sings in Spanish, particularly in the song Durango (great opening line: "hot chili peppers in the blistering sun"). I shot him on the Rolling Thunder tour in the 70's. the last time I took a photo professionally, though I'd have traded the couple hundred bucks for a dinner in a second!

[ellis_vener_photography]

Mike, that is the problem with swearing oaths as regarding commercial products.

[ellis_vener_photography]

I still think that flash cards are still more generally more reliable than micro-drives --

no moving parts.

[wayne_seanard]

I have only microdrives and had very good luck with them. I use them in the Fugi S2s and I have five Ibm 1gb drives and a couple of Dane 1gb flashcards. All of them work well. I bought 2 of the Magicstor 2.2gb microdrives and my cameras did'nt like them. They would initialize part of the time and then when the camera went to sleep and you woke it up they would'nt. I've read on the web that the Nikon D-100 had the same problems so I would stay away from them. I think in my opinion for the slight difference in cost I would go with the flashcards like Lexar if I had to start over.

[mr-mike]

Great replies, and a lot of useful info. I think I am going to go with a couple of Lexar CF's, maybe 2 2GB cards for plenty of storage and redundancy. (Any idea how many RAW inages will fit on a 1 or 2GB card??)

Any strong feelings about readers? I found a link to this kangaru reader which seems to accomplish a lot in a little package. http://www.kangurusolutions.com/mediaxchange.html Anyone know if it's any good? Is there any reason I should care if my computers only have USB 2.0 ports, and no firewire? Isn't 2.0 just as fast?

Thanks to all!

[wayne_seanard]

A 1gb microdrive in the Finepix S2 Pro will hold 80 photos in RAW CCD mode. As far as Firewire I have to have it on my laptop because thats all my S2 will use for the camera shooting software. If you have to have it you can get a card for PCs or laptops for around $30.00 on the web and $50 in computer stores. It depends on your conection needs. Ones as good as the other as far as functionality. I have a Lexar 6 in 1 card reader and it works fine for downloading and erasing cards. It connects via USB 2.0.