Canon 10D and microdrives

[bob_carpenter1]

I'm wondering how much faster flash cards are over microdrives. If

using the Canon 10D for weddings would a microdrive be able to write

fast enough during candids or from a photojournalistic approach. I've

seen some interesting articles about the 4gig microdrive floating

around and I'm wondering if this would be a feasible idea or should I

stick with the non moving parts flash cards

[jason neymeyer]

I used a borrowed 10D with my 1-Gig microdrive for a wedding recently and it did o.k., not a fast a shooting film, but fast enough. Besides, do you really want ALL the wedding photos on one memory card? Better to spread your risks across multiple cards if you ask me.

 

My next memory card purchase will probably be the non moving parts type, less moving parts=less to break.

[mike_morgan1]

Jason, out of curiosity, who processes the images on your CF cards? You? Do you do albums? Do the flesh tones and other tones in common subjects look the same for your prints, or do you notice that the wall in one photo is pinkesh and the same wall in another is bluish?

 

Bob, how often do you shoot 9 shots in a row? The 10D has a huge buffer. My guess is the slowest flash card would be fine for weddings. I'd concur that it would be better (for safety and cost) to buy two 512 Mbyte cards instead of a single 1G card, though.

[steve_barnett2]

I have a 1gb Microdrive and a 1gb 40x Lexar CF card and compared side by side the difference is noticable with the 40x card processing much faster. But you probably wouldn't notice that difference when 'under fire' at the wedding. You can get a 1gb Microdrive for the same price as a good/fast 512mb CF card, and while I would split the wedding into two cards, get two 1gb Microdrives.

[stormfront]

<p><a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6111">Rob Galbraith has a useful chart</a> showing read and write times with a variety of cards in a 10D.</p>

 

<p>The top performer, Sandisk CF, hits 1402K/sec write while the nearest MicroDrive hits 1236K/sec. Seems a minimal difference to me for most applications.</p>

 

<p>The thing that swung CF cards for me though was durability. Also I bought a few cards of smaller capacity rather than one of large capacity.</p>

[jason neymeyer]

Mike,

 

I do the processing myself, now that Photoshop CS can take decode the RAW files, I've uninstalled the Canon Raw image converter.

 

As far as color accuracy, the key is to not use Auto White Balance. If all the shots (indoors for instance) are shot with the same white balance, then it's easy to set up batch operations to correct color balance for all those shots without (much, if any) user input. I'll go have a cup of coffee or do other work while these batch operations are going on.

 

You can set up these actions once to correct color, embed a color profile, resize for proofs, and save as 8-bitt tiffs for printing to some folder, and then apply all those settings automatically to all the images. After looking at all the images and making sure they're acceptable for proofs, I'll burn them to a CD and take them to a local pro lab and have proofs printed on their Noritsu.

 

When the bride chooses her prints, then I'll spend the time on each of those in Photoshop to get the best possible print at whatever size she wants.

 

I'm still shooting Medium format for the formals, but I don't know for how much longer. Now that I'm streamlining my workflow, removing the time and expense it takes to process and scan film is looking more and more cost effective. A 1D-Mark II or Leaf Valeo 6 are starting to look very appealing to me.

[mike_morgan1]

Interesting that you say do not use AWB. Interesting because I agree, and a photo.net patron recently ridiculed me for not using AWB or CWB (which are both problematic with flash).

[mike_morgan1]

Jason, have you ever tried Herff Jones for your MF formals? Also, how do albums turn out when you have MF formals and digital mixed? E.g., does it look like they were taken by the same photographer?

[jason neymeyer]

I haven't given them a try. I have a local lab, <A HREF="http://www.digitalimaging.com/">www.digitalimaging.com</A> here in Seattle that does a pretty good job and is set up well for portrait and wedding photographers.

<P>

As to whether or not they look the same, I would say not. At least at the proof stage, and that is also one of the reasons I'm considering a digital back for my Hassy, or one of the Canon 1D series cameras.

<P>

Stylistically, the formals are so much different from the candids, that most customers would never even notice that the color balance isn't exactly the same between the MF formals and digital candids. The proof book will normally have a combination of MF Formals, digital Candids, and B&W Candids. So there is enough variety that the visual story, and not perfect color balance, becomes paramount.

<P>

At the album stage, all the MF is scanned (very time consuming) and color corrected by me. So at the finished product, all the colors are balanced.