Comments on: One Large Memory Card Or Multiple Small Cards?

By: christian

christian — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:26:39 +0000

I use a 4 GB card for when I’m just on the road with no particular photoshoot in mind. Whenever I go on business shoots however (weddings, graduations, birthdays), I bring a 16 GB since usually my offered services includes video coverage that I prefer to shoot hi-def.

By: blaize

blaize — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:42:22 +0000

I have 6 2 gig cards for a couple of reasons….

1.) With my 50D as each will hold about 90 shots in a RAW format. Not too small…but not infinitely large either.
2.) It was cheaper to buy multiple smaller cards than one larger card when I purchased them.
3.) I lose cards…I’m not as sad when I because I don’t lose a full day of shooting nor do I lose a large investment.
4.) If the cards go bad, I still have some… this happened once on a trip. I was glad I had 5 others to use.

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 14 May 2010 03:59:12 +0000

I shoot with three 8GB cards (Lexar UDMA) in my D300. Since I run two D300′s I always have one in each camera, with one standing by “just in case”. Never needed it yet for an oops….but it does the job when I shoot in RAW.

By: Frank Davis

Frank Davis — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:55:27 +0000

I always carry about 10 or 12 8gb cards with me for my Nikon D-40. For all my other cameras I carry about 10 or 12 4gb cards.

By: Steven Bagley

Steven Bagley — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:56:27 +0000

I like to use cards no smaller than 4gb now. That gives me 236 photos per card. I use 6 x 4gb Kingston Elite Pro 133x cards and 2 x 8gb Kingston Elite Pro 133x. I have never had a card go corrupt. Card failures are much rarer than most gear junkies like to think about. I make sure to format each card as soon as I insert it in the camera (even if it has already been erased). I shot a pageant with another photographer recently who hammered me with the all your eggs in one basket theory. She only used 1gb cards and I was helping as a second shooter for her so she insisted that I do the same. We went through 10 of those 1gb cards that night. Many shots were missed because of running out of space. The next day while she was editing, she called me wanting to know if I had forgotten to give her a card or two because she was missing some key shots. She eventually found the files as they had already been imported. All in all, I’d rather shoot 4 or 8gb cards and have the space that I need. I’ve had plenty of camera failures, but never a card failure.

By: Andrea Pagani

Andrea Pagani — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:13:18 +0000

me & my girlfriend use a lot of different memory cards!
1×512 mb (Ridata 52x)
2×1 gb (1 riata 52x & 1 Sandisk Ultra II)
(these jusf for my old digital rebel – the first one!!!)
2×2 gb (Sandisk Ultra II)
1×4 gb (Sandisk Extreme III)
2×8 gb (Transcend)
2×16 gb (kingston)

a lot of cards, but I don’t like to trash them just because “they are too small”

By: Joe D Silva

Joe D Silva — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:43:22 +0000

I’ve got a 16GB Lexar 16 GB Professional 300x UDMA CF card a 32GB san disk CF card … with my 5D Mark II , I can easily end up with over 600 snaps over a day. Taking RAW pics, especially lots of AEB for HDR, the 16 GB (which is my faster card) can some times get filled up. That’s when 32 GB serves as a backup (Which is also my do all goofing-around shots card ).

I generally don’t take my card out if it’s not full, and transfer directly from camera via USB… but now that I have a week long travel plan coming up, may be it’s time to get one of those portable gizmos folks have been talking about .

Then there’s a 2 TB hard drive I dump stuff too … may be I should get a backup for that too… you guys are scaring the hell out of me … I never thought memories could fade

Now all of that spending is gonna put the economy back on turf

By: Alex McCreary

Alex McCreary — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 05:15:46 +0000

I shoot rodeos with an A700 and carry four 8Gb 300x, two 4Gb 300x and three 4Gb 133x Lexar CF cards. More for if my computer goes down due to dust or other damage than anything else. I also carry an extra camera for just in case.

By: miticosul

miticosul — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:00:47 +0000

Deffinetly smaller ones. I already lost one card …

By: Arcticrose

Arcticrose — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 02:39:56 +0000

Usually I use only one 2GB card, but when I am shooting RAW I like to have multiple cards since the byte size of the image is so large. Often I don’t fill the entire card, but it is always nice to have an extra on hand just in case.