CF Card - One Large or Many Small (40D + 50D)

Giving that you are shooting photo only, no video using 50D and older body (=/<15mp), what are you using?

Large = 16GB ; 32GB
Small = 2GB; 4GB;

I know this question come up quite often and I read a lot about it using the search function so I don't mean to create another question thread or debate. I know the debate goes on with b/w the 2 options. It is not just these forum, I shot with Pros' who are not even a member here and they also have mix answer when I asked them this question. I see good reasons on either choice though.

I am very confuse and do not know with option to stick with. I have Large card and Small cards both for either option. Anyway, I am hoping to see the vote from the community in this thread, so hope that you will play.

Thanks!
Kevin

I have had two cards fail on me in the last 3 years. Right now I don't use cards greater than 8GB as it is a real drag to tell a client that a card failed losing several hundred images. It is like saying the dog ate my homework. I have lost an almost full 16GB card when doing a sports event which was a real drag.

Smaller cards why. #1 Why put all of your eggs in one basket? If one card is lost, damaged or fails you have only lost a small part of your day's shooting.

I use multiple 4gb cards with 30D & 40D. Non video, 16 and a 32 400x with 7D.

You left out 8 gig cards which I think at this point are the best option. Enough to store a reasonable session, but not so much that it makes them a pain to download and sort from.

Voaky999 wrote in post #12108708
I have had two cards fail on me in the last 3 years. Right now I don't use cards greater than 8GB as it is a real drag to tell a client that a card failed losing several hundred images. It is like saying the dog ate my homework. I have lost an almost full 16GB card when doing a sports event which was a real drag.

Ouch... imagine that was a wedding .

irispatch wrote in post #12108713
Smaller cards why. #1 Why put all of your eggs in one basket? If one card is lost, damaged or fails you have only lost a small part of your day's shooting.

Good point!

pfjbaldwin wrote in post #12108719
I use multiple 4gb cards with 30D & 40D. Non video, 16 and a 32 400x with 7D.

I shoot 40D & 50D and have 4x 4GB, 1x 8GB and just ordered a 32GB but now I am questioning myself

gonzogolf wrote in post #12108737
You left out 8 gig cards which I think at this point are the best option. Enough to store a reasonable session, but not so much that it makes them a pain to download and sort from.

I planned to keep it clear and excluded the medium. My fear is that 8GB is still 400 shots from a event / wedding on the 50D though.

2x 16GB 533X CF's & 2x 16GB SD's in my 1D4

3x 8gb Sandisk 60mbs CF cards for my 7D. I don't like having all my pictures on 1 card. This also allows me to cycle my cards while shooting. I can upload the pictures and with mid size cards upload times aren't too long.

I use a mix of 4 and 8GB cards. I'd rather not have a card fail and lose everything.

16GB is NOT large by any means. 32GB is starting to get there. Now 64GB is large.

Hmm, I don't know. Assuming all the cards have, on average, the same failure rate, using greater # of cards increases the chances for "at least one failure". To me neither of these constitutes acceptable outcome: lose 50% of your work or 100% of your work.

If we assume that:
A = probability of losing data on card 1
B = probability of losing data on card 2
P(A) or P(B) = P(A+B), thus you are effectively increasing the chances of something going wrong by simply using more cards.

To me, a better solution is use something like D3 that has dual card slots and backup often using a portable hard drive.

Basically, IMO, get several high capacity cards, (32GB+) and use them in the dual write mode for redundancy (much like a RAID 1).

mzbarsk wrote in post #12110231
Hmm, I don't know. Assuming all the cards have, on average, the same failure rate, using greater # of cards increases the chances for "at least one failure". To me neither of these constitutes acceptable outcome: lose 50% of your work or 100% of your work.

If we assume that:
A = probability of losing data on card 1
B = probability of losing data on card 2
P(A) or P(B) = P(A+B), thus you are effectively increasing the chances of something going wrong by simply using more cards.

To me, a better solution is use something like D3 that has dual card slots and backup often using a portable hard drive.

Basically, IMO, get several high capacity cards, (32GB+) and use them in the dual write mode for redundancy (much like a RAID 1).

Yes but if one card fails you have only a partial failure of the total.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12110560
Yes but if one card fails you have only a partial failure of the total.

As mzbarsk implied, that's why 1D Series cameras have the capability to write to two cards simultaneously. Both cards (CF & SD) would have to have catastrophic failures to lose all of the files.

I have to have all my cards the same. Once I switch to a bigger capacity, I sell all my others ones and purchase the newer capacity. I have had cards off all types fail on me over the years, especially when I need to take burst shots. I've used them all from crappy A-Data to first in class Sandisk to highly underrated Transcend.

Now I only use 1 type of card an 1 type of capacity as I feel it's the most reliable and has the best price to performance ratio out there:

Lexar Professional SDHC 16GB Class 10

I refuse to pay Sandisk high prices for their cards. They talk a good game, but I've never once had a problem with Lexar and they are about $20 cheaper than the comparable Sandisk card. Plus I'm a sucker for gold packaging.

gonzogolf wrote in post #12110560
Yes but if one card fails you have only a partial failure of the total.

What I mean is: it does not matter if you lose 30%, 50% or 100%. If you lose all of your wedding reception shots it looks just as bad to the client as losing the entire wedding. By using more cards you are effectively increasing the chance that one of them will fail, and that leads to overall failure.

The above, clearly, is not true if you are shooting something else where losing 30% of your work, while unpleasant, is not catastrophic. It really depends on the assignment.

So the only real way to minimize the chances of failure is to use your camera as a "RAID 1", and write to two cards simultaneously, thus making the failure chances P(A) X P(B), i.e. significantly smaller (In this case card size plays no role on the failure outcome and you might as well use 2x64GB cards - 2nd one use for redundancy).