How much storage for 1 day's shoot

[Mark0159]

Hi, this question is for those that manly shoot motor sports.

Last weekend I went out and shot some jetsprints and during the day I ended up running out of space on my 2gb cards. (I am using a 10D) Since I would have been going home at the end of the event I didn't take any thing to copy the data off the cards.

This was the first time in one day that I have fulled both cards. The question is for the pros is how many shots do you take in one day, and how much storage do you have?

I will be going to the NZ camps on the 20/2 and I wonder if I should get another cf card or 2.

[CyberDyneSystems]

If you have a pair of cards to swap in and out,. and a portable storage device like an "X-Drive" the question becomes moot as it is unlikely that you will exceed the 30GB or so capacity of the X-Drive.

If putting your files to single hard drive is scary to you.. then I suggest a Pair of X-drives.. and copy to both while shooting with the other card.

[defordphoto]

When I shoot the sprints I shoot the entire event and end up shooting 1200-1800 large-fine JPEGs (Don't shoot sports RAW). I now run 6 1gig cards and also have a laptop at the track. Don't use the X-Drive anymore...

That's for one camera. My wife shoots too, so we typically get 2500-3500 shots per day, and that's running quals and eliminations all in the same day for say 20 boats.

You guys probably run two days with 30-40 boats? Which division are you shooting? WSJ? NZJSA?

[Mike Panic]

i have several friends who shoot motorpsorts on the semi-pro or pro status - they are all on www.iphotoforum.com - in any event, they dont even leave the house w/out 6gb of storage and / or a portable storage device.

my question to you is why are you shooting RAW? the only reason to shoot raw (for me at least) is if i am unsure of how to set my white balance in a tricky lighting condition. ive seen prints as large as 30x50 from 6mp digital camera's shooting jpg mode (i work at a camera shop and we do wide format printing) and they look amazing.

i personally use an image tank g2 40gb storage device, it takes about 6 min to fully transfer a 1gb card to its internal hdd... which is then usb2.0 to my puter when i get home

[Mark0159]

Thanks for the response, I have got an x-drive but I don't like using it much. When I go away I like to use my laptop, that way I can see what I have done and change my shooting style the next day.

I was thinking of getting an extra cf card, but being new at this I wont to make sure that my shooting habits are not going to cause problems.

We only have one day with about 30 boats. On Sunday I shoot the NZJSA, if you would like to see the resutls go

http://www.jetsprint.co.nz/racing/resultsdetail.php?RoundID=63

A number of non photography people that I have talked to, when I say I shot 1015 photos, they are supprised that I shoot so many. I see that I will have to get another card or 2 :)

[vwpilot]

I'll shoot rougly 1000 or so images a day when I shoot an ALMS weekend. I have about 6 gigs worth of storage but shoot jpeg fine mainly. With my 1D I would get about 400 shots on a 1 gig card so I was always in real good shape.

However, I never go out without my laptop and when I get a break during the day I always download the images to the laptop and burn them to a CD (I never erase a card till its on CD).

Now shooting a MkII I plan on another few gigs of memory to be safe.

[Vegas Poboy]

On Fight night I run through 4GB of cards & getting ready to increase it by 2GB's more. Dell laptop with 30GB free space & I agree with RFM I shoot only in large Jpeg. By the end of the year I just might carry a total of 10 GBs. That should carry me thru most events.

[KennyG]

I shoot around 1,500 images in RAW a day at a motorsport event and use a FlashTrax to download the cards. I run two cameras and have never run out of space - yet.

Before the JPG police jump in, I shoot RAW because most of what I do goes for magazine print, and not only that, I prefer to.

[Longwatcher]

While I don't do sports, when I have been on location for model shoots I have taken about an average of 4-6 GB with my 10D, I put it on a 30GB Delkin Picture Pad. My record to date was over 13GB over a three day shooting period. For a recent airshow I did about 3GB total. Would have done more, but kept hitting the buffer limits at the wrong time.

With my new toy, I will probably double that at least.

[Mark0159]

Thanks everyone for your input. I know that if I was shooting film I be worried, but this is one of the reasons why I love digital so much. If I had the storage I can shoot all day.

well I can see that a large amount of storage is important. I am going to get 2 more 1gb cards, rather than a single 2gb card. Which will give me 4gb for a shooting day.