EOS1-Ds and CF erase timing

[Osmium]

I'm planning the size of compact flash cards to buy for my upcoming purchase of an EOS-1Ds. I take a lot of stage performance photos. Between acts of whatever performance it is, I usually have a 20 minute interval. During this interval I will have the opportunity to:

a) Upload from flash card to X-Drive or laptop
b) Take previously uploaded card (which could be full) and erase it in camera ready for the next session.

The critical timing, as far as I can see, is the erase time for a full card in the camera. What's everyone's experience? Particularly with 1Gb cards or larger and the EOS-1Ds. I'm thinking about a Pretec 3Gb card... anyone used one of those or have any comments?

[robertwgross]

Roy, rather than erasing a whole CF card, I think you want to reformat the CF card, and that takes only a few seconds for 256MB.

---Bob Gross---

[Osmium]

AHA! Problem solved! Thank you!

[rlcphoto]

Something to think about there is a difference in erase time and Format. Erasing the images will take time but does not re-format the card. It is faster to Format the card then erase the images. Formatting the Card will erase the images much faster.

Word of Caution from a Wedding Photographer! Don't erase your images under any circumstance until the images are burnt to a CD or DVD. When you are working with a one shot event Like a wedding or a Performance of any type I would not advise clearing the card until a secured backup has been made to a CD or DVD. It is a different story with a portrait session that you can call the people and have them come back in and re-shoot the session. But you can't do that with a wedding or a perfomance.

We use Canon 10D's and shoot around 600 to 700 images on 512MB Sandisk Ultra Cards. We may be using the Canon 1Ds baby brothers but the principal is the same. But we never clear the cards until they are on one of our File Server's Hard Drives and two backup copies of the Canon RAW Files have been made.

If you have to go to a laptop I would recommend that an assistant burn at least one backup CD Per Card. The other recommendation is not to put all of your images onto one card. You said about using 3GB Cards. That may be more convenent but a lot more dangerous. If you get a corrupt data error on a card you may only lose a couple of images instead of half a dance company and I would much rather reshoot 5 or 6 images with a little egg on my face then a half of the performers because of a failure on a 3GB Card. This is my personal opinion from someone who has been photographing Digital for 2 years.

I hope this gives you some insight. Good Luck and enjoy your 1Ds's.

[Osmium]

Thank you ricphoto, you make some very good points. It might be better for me to get several smaller cards rather than, say, two very large cards. I have to weigh the "cost" of card swapping in the middle of a performance - with film it's a real bind and you DO miss shots. I'd rather have enough capacity to capture an entire act.

When you say that you capture 600-700 images on 512Mb, I'm assuming that's JPEG small, high compression and not Canon RAW which is implied in the same paragraph? Or have I missed something?

Maybe I should have enough total card capacity to capture an entire performance without having to clear a card... but that could be pushing the budget... certainly something to aim for over time.

[rlcphoto]

Yeah you missed it. I can get about 78 images onto a 512MB Card. We have 10 512MB Cards. I shoot in RAW Format only and then convert to Tif Files for Printing. I only shoot Jpeg for personal use and then normally in Jpeg High Resolution. Also, you would be surprised how fast you can change a card during a performance. A wedding ceremony is not that much different. Also, I photograph our Music School's Gala each year and I have had no problems with changing cards. Keep in mind that you can change a memory card just as fast as you switching a Hasselblad Camera Back. But to change a role of film you would lose to much time. You can change a flash card in about 6 seconds if you are ready to do so. But make sure it is done writing to the card before you do or you will lose the last image shot or worse get a corrept data error.

[Osmium]

Thanks Rodney - lot's of food for thought. I'm now tending to the idea of several 1Gb cards. This gives me around 88 RAW images per card...

[mtscomasp]

I'm a newb to the RAW format (still researching the cameras), but wouldn't you expect more like 33 images per 1 GB card with a 1Ds. It's 11 MP right, so at 24 bits per pixel you'd need 33MB / picture.

So where am I off. I like your calc better :)

[Osmium]

It's an educated guess...

Canon says its image file size is 11.4MB (RAW is a compressed format). It also says that it can store 8 images on a 128MB card. This extrapolates to 64 images on a 1GB card. But then users such as:

http://www.zuga.net/forums/showthread.php?s=d6cda8b97d1ed9e4fdb4ab296ae7dc1a&threadid=16040

Say they can store "around 100 images" on a 1GB card.

Then if I just calculate 1024MB/11.4MB = 89 (approx) and take a punt on 88...

That's somewhere between Canon's 64 and the user's 100. If anyone has a better guesstimate or calculation please let us know.

[martcol]

rlcphoto wrote:
Word of Caution from a Wedding Photographer! Don't erase your images under any circumstance until the images are burnt to a CD or DVD. When you are working with a one shot event Like a wedding or a Performance of any type I would not advise clearing the card until a secured backup has been made to a CD or DVD.

Excellent advice there! How long can it take to change a CF Card? I can do it in seconds. Now, I don't do weddings/concerts (yet) so the issue of losing a few significant moments is never that important to me. However, my confidence in electronic equipment is not high, and would rather have plenty of shots over plenty of cards just in case of failure.

Maybe one way through is to get a second 1Ds... :D

Martin

[Craig]

Small world! I'm also a theatrical photographer here in Los Angeles, Ca. I just purchased the EOD 1DS and I'm doing my first test shoot under stage light tomorrow!

I get 89 images in raw format on a 1 gb card. Formating is very fast. I also purchased the 2 gb card. All cards (total of seven) are the Lexar brand. Very fast write times and formating.

Downloading to my Mac G4 Dual 1 gb Quicksilver takes about seven min. with a Lexar firewire reader.

Buy the Adobe Raw plugin. The Canon software is slow and freaky.

Lastly-I've just made my Visa card company very happy! Let me know if you need any other info.

PS-The camera at 800 iso (asa) is beautiful!!!!!!!

[CyberDyneSystems]

One other option,.. don't copy files to your PC from the flash card,. move them. That way in the same operation that you "dpwnload" through the card reader,. you are emptying the flach card.

Of course you loose the redundancy that way,. but if deleting the pics off the card is an issue this is the fastest way to deal with it. No time needed for erasure or format in camera.

I'm using a 10D to take photos in the theatre where I work,. (again small world) but with the smaller file size I settled on two 512MB cards. I also have a 256MB for emergencies. I guess if I had 1Ds sized files I would have gone for two 1 gig cards.

Another thing,.. get a firewire card reader for those quick downloads between acts!!!!!

[PacAce]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
One other option,.. don't copy files to your PC from the flash card,. move them. That way in the same operation that you "dpwnload" through the card reader,. you are emptying the flach card.

I don't know about you but I wouldn't have the guts to do something like that, especially with one shot pictures! The last thing you want to do is move files from media A to B and then realize that the copy is all messed up and the originals are no where to be found. Of course, if you happen to have a "file recover" program handy, you probably could recover the files but why make life even more complicated than it already is?

[Osmium]

Craig, CyberDyneSystems great to hear from some fellow theatre photographers!

Craig, thanks for confirming the capacity of the card. Taking other opinions into account I'm now tending to 4 or 5 2Gb cards. I looked at the specs for the Lexar 2Gb 40X and and it seems ideal. The 178 or so shots on the card would be just right.

I've looked at 1Ds examples at ISO 1250 and they seem better noise-wise than my current shots on Fuji 1600. I lose a stop with the filter anyway - so ISO 800 would be fine. I'd be really interested to hear how you go tomorrow.

My Photoshop V7 upgrade and Adobe RAW plugin are on order.

Thanks, folks, this is all coming together nicely.

[Osmium]

... and then I started thinking about write speeds CF to camera... and wondering if faster was always better...

So I read the relevant stuff in this forum and others. I asked Canon and got this reply:-


Generally the faster the card the more efficient the camera. here is a web site listing card write speeds. http://robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6010
As you can see there is a 512MB lexar card which is a 40X write speed and transfers data at 1664kb per second. Even though your Lexar card is capable of 6Mb per second it probably won't be the case on the camera. This is because the processor writes data intermittently onto the card or in waves.

[Actually, he mis-quoted the speed. It's 1869Kb per sec]

So my interpretation of all of this is:

A faster card results in faster writes to a point. Then the difference is marginal. From the table 12X gives 1567Kb/sec, 32X gives 1920Kb/sec. In my case, either the 32X or 40X 2Gb Lexar card would do fine.