Does Size Matter?

Thanks Guys, for all your help.
Currently I have a SanDisk Ultra 32GB 30MB/s, a PNY Pro-Elite 16GB 35MB/s, and a SanDisk Ultra 8GB 30MB/s.
The 8GB currently resides in my Olympus TG1, and the 32GB is in my T5i, with the 16GB in reserve.
I am going to see how this works out for me for now. When I get it buttoned down I will invest in a
few cards with higher write speeds.

As far as shooting in RAW and jpeg for now I will stick with both, as backup storage is currently not a problem.
I have a few TB lying around just for pics.

I shoot both RAW & JPG....jpgs are nice for fast transfer to my ipad & emailing while on the go. I did that a lot on my last multi-day trip when I had no computer along with me....I did simple edits of small jpgs using Snapseed app on my iPad, then emailed to friends.

You never know when you'll get a terrific, top notch shot....that's when you'll be glad you've got a RAW copy that will give you the highest resolution.

I have large capacity cards (32,64,128gb) so I never have to worry about running out if space. However I ran into one disadvantage to that: as I took more pix over several days I had to scroll through a longer and longer list when tranferring to my iPad.

Shooting professionally, my rule back in the film days was, "Never mix clients on a roll." The theory was that if the worst happens, it's better to have to explain it to only one client rather than two. So I always started work for a new client with a fresh roll.

I carried that over into digital work: I never mix clients on a card. But I have no problem having an entire single job on a single card.

I initially preferred the larger cards so I can do a whole day's worth of shooting on one card. But I now follow the advice of a lot of my photographer friends and use more smaller cards, 8GB, in case it goes bad I do not lose everything. I am not crazy about swapping out cards mid day and I am worried about somehow losing them but so far so good!

Carpe Lux wrote in post #17363478
I shoot both RAW & JPG....jpgs are nice for fast transfer to my ipad & emailing while on the go.

You never know when you'll get a terrific, top notch shot....that's when you'll be glad you've got a RAW copy that will give you the highest resolution.
.

Agree. Currently, I use a 32gb CF card for RAW, and, a 8gb SD for JPG. You need to decide what you need, and then go one step larger.

I think 32GB or 64GB is a sweet spot, especially if you do video. If you only take photos, even with RAW+JPG, several 16GB cards will do. Just make it a happen to upload your footage to your computer, even if you don't fill up the card, so that don't lose an entire 64GB worth of pictures from 6 months of memories, all to be lost to some corruption.

nqjudo wrote in post #17354262
I think it depends largely on where and how you shoot. I'm mostly a travel photographer so I tend to use small cards. 16 and often 8 gigs. [...] It is funny that a poster above mentions a washing machine because once I did put an SD card through a wash and dry cycle and both the card and the data were fine.

Same thing happened to me too. My cards still work perfect lol

I have 2 32gb cf cards for my 1D4 but I' just purchased an Eos-M2 and I'm trying to decide if I want to do the same for it and but 2 32 GB or just get 164gb card both are approximately the same cost.

Thanks

I started Digital with no knowledge of card speed and a bare understanding of capacity. My first cards (CF) were in Kbs and had the blazing speed of 33X
As I upgraded camera bodies over the past decade I've come to the conclusion that WRITE speed is key, followed by READ speed and then capacity.
It really behooves a person to check those Read/Write specs because the way they are presented is often misleading.
That said, I've kept my older cards as back-up but my working cards are Lexar Pro 64GB 1066X.
I'm using a Canon 1D X and I find that 64GB will give me well over 2000 RAW shots.
The 1066X speed equates to guaranteed minimum write speed of 65MB/sec and up to 160MB/sec if your camera is able to do it.
With the 1D X I can fire long bursts at 14fps without stalling or significant slowing.
Using a UDMA 7 enabled reader allows card-to-computer transfer at the top end of the speed.

The "all your eggs in one basket" approach has merit, as does using multiple cards. I've seen more cards "fail" outside the camera (Damaged, Corrupted, Lost or Stolen) and there's more chance of pin damage as card changes increase.

So, "YES", size matters to the extent of your personal needs, but I think one can easily go overboard.

I have three 32GB and three 16GB cards and rotate each time I shoot. I also tend to not delete photos from the cards after importing until I need the space. I've never had a full-size SD card go bad, but had two micro-SD cards go bad (probably from the same batch as I tend to buy in multiples when on sale).

If I'm traveling with a bag I always have at least one and usually two spare cards in the bag. I also keep a 32GB Micro-SD with an adapter in my wallet. More than once I've grabbed the camera only on the way out the door and forgot to check, and wound-up having to use the spare in my wallet.