Enough memory?

[btfl7]

My husband and I will be shooting our first real wedding on July 28th. I was wondering if those of you out there thought that we have enough memory -- we have 2-4GB 40x cards (which I figured can be used for shots of the cake, decorations, and things in the reception hall before the ceremony), a 4GB 120x card and 4-2GB SanDisk Extreme IV cards. Will we be needing our "helper" to put the photos on the laptop for us to make sure we have enough space (I'm hoping to take A LOT of photos since it's our first wedding?) I'm kinda scared to rely on someone else to load photos on our laptop, because I would hate for him to not load the pictures to the computer on accident and then delete all the photos :(. Thanks for any help you can give.
Chrissie

[kahlibra]

Hi Chrissie,

I reckon that will be plenty depending on what format you use. I shoot RAW only and get by with 2 x 4Gb Ridata cards using a 10 megapixel camera. That gives me capacity for around 850 shots, which I find to be more than enough. Though now the prices have come down on the Sandisk cards I'm tempted to buy another :)

Jon

[tlc]

i would trade in those 4gb cards for 2gb cards - if a 4gb card corrupts, that's a whole lotta stuff lost.

[kawter2]

what camera, and are you shooting raw?

[stjhie]

Gosh. you have 20 gb worth of space. saying that you are using a 350d/xt, in raw, you could get about 2500 photos. That's surely more than enough. I would recommend that you back up the card to the computer and store the card away so taht you have 2 copy of the image since you have so much space. Cheerz.

[btfl7]

Sorry, I wasn't thinking...

We will be using 2 xti's shooting in jpeg most likely.

[turaund1]

u seem to have more than enough memory for your wedding. good luck. and i take it both you and your husband are shooting the wedding. I would have my second camera (which ever one of you are) shoot some abstract or candids maybe in monochrome some to add something to the pictures you get. and remember quality is always better than qaunity. another quick tip for you wedding have the second camera shoot the same moment for a different angle, some times those make the best images (dont do it all the time lol)

[Banbert]

Me and my mate have about 40gb of cards between us now, which probably sounds like way too much but I would say thats just enough for the way we shoot now on the basis of.

We shoot raw+small jpgs so that we can do a slideshow quickly, we have 4 cameras between us, I like to swap cards when I want rather that when the cards are getting full and I like to spread the day across quite a few cards, also although we buy quality cards (kingston and sandisk only) yah need spares if one starts playing up.

[Gatorboy]

With 2 GB cards pretty inexpensive (Transcend from New Egg $24), just buy yourself 4 or 5 of them and not have to worry about copying them to a laptop on wedding day -- but you seem to have more than enough already with your 20GB.

[jesusdelallata]

You have plenty of memory. Just with the four 2gb cards you will get over 2,000 jpgs. I haven't shot too many weddings, but the ones I have I've shot in RAW for the formals and bride and groom portraits. For the ceremony, reception, getting ready shots, I've shot in JPEG without a problem. In the future, I'll probably shoot both formats at the same time for the entire event.

[btfl7]

Thanks so much for the help -- we got the 4GB cards with the cameras -- I wouldn't have gotten 4GB cards, but since they were what came with it I'm dealing. I just figured since we have them we might as well use them and spread out the photos in case one of the cards happens to fail. I was thinking of buying more than 4 of the 2GB, but that will be in the future I guess. For the wedding, I'm planning on staying with the bride beforehand then getting her trip down the aisle from the rear -- then I'll run upstairs to the balcony and get some nice shots from up there while my husband stays down front and captures all the action "up close". I figure this would give the couple two angles of the wedding. We'll be going to the rehearsal so that we can figure out how to get around the church and the best way to be "stealthy" and not sore thumbs during the service. Again, thanks for the help.
Chrissie

[xmacvicar]

I have 10GB's worth of cards, and I still found it very limiting. I brought my Macbook with me and on downtime, I uploaded them all to the computer and deleted the CF cards clean. Some photographers would probably gasp at the idea of this, but honestly, I find my macbook more reliable than any CF Card, so I have no problems dumping them and burning once I get home!