The back-up paradox.....

Does anyone else find it ironic how people here at POTN will often rail on and on about having backup equipment for virtually everything when it comes to weddings and yet they will shoot with a camera that's only capable of writing to a single card and thus failing to backup the most important thing of all.
Just an observation

jra wrote in post #14268961
Does anyone else find it ironic how people here at POTN will often rail on and on about having backup equipment for virtually everything when it comes to weddings and yet they will shoot with a camera that's only capable of writing to a single card and thus failing to backup the most important thing of all.
Just an observation

This is why I want the 5d3.

jra wrote in post #14268961
Does anyone else find it ironic how people here at POTN will often rail on and on about having backup equipment for virtually everything when it comes to weddings and yet they will shoot with a camera that's only capable of writing to a single card and thus failing to backup the most important thing of all.
Just an observation

Yeah, I suppose. I usually use 2 bodies for the most important parts of the wedding, so that used to be my "backup" plan. Thankfully nothing ever happened and I now am shooting with 2 5D3 cameras, so problem solved!

jra wrote in post #14268961
Does anyone else find it ironic how people here at POTN will often rail on and on about having backup equipment for virtually everything when it comes to weddings and yet they will shoot with a camera that's only capable of writing to a single card and thus failing to backup the most important thing of all.
Just an observation

That is why many people like to divide shoots into multiple memory cards. It is also why image recovery software is omnipresent. Both are insurance forms when the camera doesn't have two card slots.

Most cameras only write to one card; you just work around it. The chances of a body failing or fracturing, however, are much higher than that of a card failing during a wedding.

The balance of probabilties comes in to play. You do your best but where do you stop. There is no reason why a duel card camera wouldn't fail. As for multiple cards I believe that rushing around on nylon carpet and producing static is far more likely to cause a card issue. I now only use 16 Gb cards and reduce the amount of "touching" I have to do.

When I had a dual card slot camera, I used to shoot RAW on one card, and Large JPEG on the other. This way, if something happened to the card with the RAW file, I still have the Large JPEG files. Since I use 16GB cards for the JPEGS, I never have to change them.

That's what I am doing with my 5D3s moving forwards. I ordered 2 16GB SD cards.

There's no guarantees of course. You just have to do what you can to safeguard against disasters.

nicksan wrote in post #14269277
Yeah, I suppose. I usually use 2 bodies for the most important parts of the wedding, so that used to be my "backup" plan. Thankfully nothing ever happened and I now am shooting with 2 5D3 cameras, so problem solved!

I shoot with 3 for all the really important bits. So it wouldn't be a disaster. Just moved replaced a couple of the cameras with 5D MKIII's so am dual card as well as multiple camera now.

If one card can fail, two can fail as well. What's next, three card slots with a built-in high speed modem for instant upload of all data to a remote server (or two remote servers, perhaps, in case one goes belly up)?
Having a 2nd card slot in one's camera is a little like wearing your seatbelt on the plane: if either one falls to the ground, you're screwed anyway

Two slots can fail as easily as one. When thing go south,they go south fast *LOL*

I do not see the irony between having a backup camera and two media slots.

Are you saying that if you have a camera with two media slots that you do not need a back up camera?

The more redundancy the better. As I mentioned before, I shoot RAW on one card, and Large JPEGs on the other.

Redundant cards in a camera are simply not a concern. You have a far greater chance of losing an image based upon the brand of card you use than your interior electronics failing.

In fact, many photogs take a silly step of using huge cards to prevent changing them. Never use a card that holds so many images that you can't afford to lose them. For example, if Kodak had made a 500-shot roll of film, would you have used it? Of course not! The thought of trusting 500 shots to one roll, one postman, one lab technitian would've been INSANE.

Never use a card that exceeds 1:1 storage on removeable media, either. If you use DVDs to burn your card images, never use a card over 4GB. If you must use larger cards, use Blu-Ray to store your backups, one disk per card (the easy way).

Regardless of your backup IT plan, never trust all your photos to ONE card, ONE backup method. The first thing I did when shooting weddings was burn all the images on my cards directly to a DVD using a card-to-disk burner, never trusting the computer to move the files. Only when all cards were burned to removeable media as backup did I then copy them to the computer for editing. The DVDs were stored in a fireproof box.

Panoz wrote in post #14274518
Redundant cards in a camera are simply not a concern. You have a far greater chance of losing an image based upon the brand of card you use than your interior electronics failing.

Depends on how you are using the dual slots, but I would tend to agree that brand can be important.

Panoz wrote in post #14274518
In fact, many photogs take a silly step of using huge cards to prevent changing them. Never use a card that holds so many images that you can't afford to lose them. For example, if Kodak had made a 500-shot roll of film, would you have used it? Of course not! The thought of trusting 500 shots to one roll, one postman, one lab technitian would've been INSANE.

Silly? I use 16GB cards. They hold 500-600 shots each. You seem to be contradicting yourself. If I use the "right brand", then I shouldn't worry about the card failing right? I haven't used 4GB cards in years. Sorry, but switching cards every 100 to 120 shots is just not efficient and asking for bad things to happen because you'll be juggling around LOTS of cards.

Panoz wrote in post #14274518
Never use a card that exceeds 1:1 storage on removeable media, either. If you use DVDs to burn your card images, never use a card over 4GB. If you must use larger cards, use Blu-Ray to store your backups, one disk per card (the easy way).

Now this is silly. Hahaha. Seriously? You actually trust DVDs? I use external hard drives to back up my data. When I come back from a paid shoot, I make 3 backups, then check to make sure they were properly copied. Only then do I format my cards. I rotate my external hard drives keeping one of them off-site.

Also, you don't have to keep the RAW files forever. After a preset amount of time passes, then you can convert everything to Large JPEG then archive them just in case the files are needed. Just one way of saving space.

Panoz wrote in post #14274518
Regardless of your backup IT plan, never trust all your photos to ONE card, ONE backup method.

This I'll agree with. The more redundancies the better. Absolutely.

Panoz wrote in post #14274518
The first thing I did when shooting weddings was burn all the images on my cards directly to a DVD using a card-to-disk burner, never trusting the computer to move the files. Only when all cards were burned to removeable media as backup did I then copy them to the computer for editing. The DVDs were stored in a fireproof box.

I don't have the same level of paranoia that you do. There are certain things you can do to check that the files made it on your PC successfully.

^^ Nice 5DIII review there in your sig.

that was a HUGE reason why i picked up a 1d Mark IV. I'd love to couple it with the 5d3 but the 2 will have to do this year. My next defense is just purchasing good quality memory cards, formatting every time, and saying a little prayer. we also have it in the contract that we aren't liable if something like that happens. Also helps to shoot two cameras, and have a 2nd shooter cover the main stuff as well.