How Important Is Having Two Memory Card Slots For You?

Krav Maga · Jul 18, 2017

I'm just curious. For me, and I'm not a pro photographer, I think it's very important. Granted, I've never had a card failure, but they do and will fail if given enough time. Over the past 20 years, I've only had one catastrophic hard drive failure (thankfully I was backed up) but I still have redundancy built in to my computer system.

For pros, I'd think it would be an absolute necessity.

Thoughts?

Krav Maga · Jul 18, 2017

T3 said:
mrgs1 said:

Well obviously manufactures must think there's a need they've produced quite a few two slot models.

Click to expand...

It's the trend now. People think they need it. Some people have even decided that they won't buy a camera that doesn't have two slots. So what's a manufacturer to do? They'll just add a slot, and probably pass on the cost to the consumer.

I didn't know it was the trend. I always assumed that in the prosumer and higher level of cameras it was pretty standard. However, with the release of the D7500 and its single slot, perhaps the trend is leaning towards that.

BTW, I can't imagine the cost of an extra card slot making a big enough difference to sway many people on price.

Krav Maga · Jul 18, 2017

Leonard Migliore said:
Krav Maga said:

I'm just curious. For me, and I'm not a pro photographer, I think it's very important. Granted, I've never had a card failure, but they do and will fail if given enough time. Over the past 20 years, I've only had one catastrophic hard drive failure (thankfully I was backed up) but I still have redundancy built in to my computer system.

For pros, I'd think it would be an absolute necessity.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

As an amateur, I find having 2 card slots to be of no use at all. I've never had a card fail and certainly don't shoot enough pictures at one time to need more capacity. If I do suffer a card failure, it's pretty certain that there was nothing vital on that card anyway.

My new camera has 2 slots and I dutifully put cards in both of them but I'm pretty sure the second card will never see an image.

Bobthearch · Jul 18, 2017

Having two slots set up as duplicate, it's good although admittedly mostly for peace of mind. I've had cards go bad but it's rare.

And if I remove a card for some reason (I don't normally) and forget to return it to the camera, it's not the end of the world because there's another usable card still inserted.

hfjacinto · Jul 18, 2017

I'm not a Pro so while having 2 memory card slots is nice, its not a must have for me.

Mackiesback · Jul 18, 2017

My main camera has 2 slots, 1 for CF and 1 for SD. I have little use for two, really, but if one of the formats eventually goes obsolete, at least I will have the other slot to use.

tko · Jul 18, 2017

Krav Maga said:
Another way to look at it: I've never had a house burn down, yet I have insurance. I've never been in a serious car accident, yet I always wear a seat belt.

But suppose that insurance only covers one bedroom and only for water damage? It's not like your "insurance" is protecting all camera faults, only one. The question is, how much overall safety have you gained? If cards were the highest failure rate item, yes, it would be cheap insurance. But if other items fail more often, maybe it doesn't matter.

Speaking for myself, I can take 4000 photos on a month long vacation. My safety comes in backing them up somehow. Doubling the number of cards doesn't really cut it for me.

embie · Jul 18, 2017

Having a Nikon D7200 it's the first camera that has two sd slots.

Only had one (micro) sd card failure in more than 20 years digital shooting and this was as a backup card in my tablet.

Still, now that I have a second sd slot I'm using it with the setting "back-up"and it feels safe.

Also, during travel, and when I have WIFI connection, I transfer my pictures regularly to Nikon My Space as an extra backup in case my camera gets lost or is stolen.

Greetings,

eMBie

adk38 · Jul 18, 2017

Bobthearch said:
Having two slots set up as duplicate, it's good although admittedly mostly for peace of mind. I've had cards go bad but it's rare.

And if I remove a card for some reason (I don't normally) and forget to return it to the camera, it's not the end of the world because there's another usable card still inserted.

Bobthearch · Jul 18, 2017

adk38 said:
Bobthearch said:

Having two slots set up as duplicate, it's good although admittedly mostly for peace of mind. I've had cards go bad but it's rare.

And if I remove a card for some reason (I don't normally) and forget to return it to the camera, it's not the end of the world because there's another usable card still inserted.

Click to expand...

While I never had a card fail I regularly forget to put the card back in the camera after backing up to PC. The second slot has saved my day quite a few times

I came to a more permanent solution to that problem, I never remove the cards from the camera.

HRC2016 · Jul 18, 2017

I've never had a card fail or run out of memory space. Never.

Liu Jianguo · Jul 18, 2017

At a time when even the most modest of smartphones come with built-in super-fast 128GB to 1TB of onboard storage, the fact that cameras even have memory slots, into which often exorbitantly priced CF or XQD cards go, is a damming indictment of their obsolescence.

caterpillar · Jul 18, 2017

Krav Maga said:
I'm just curious. For me, and I'm not a pro photographer, I think it's very important. Granted, I've never had a card failure, but they do and will fail if given enough time. Over the past 20 years, I've only had one catastrophic hard drive failure (thankfully I was backed up) but I still have redundancy built in to my computer system.

For pros, I'd think it would be an absolute necessity.

Thoughts?

new boyz · Jul 18, 2017

Not important. I use it as an SD card holder only. Always in overflow mode.

Gato Amarillo · Jul 18, 2017

Double slots would be nice, but having survived many years of film photography I don't see it as a big thing.

My last two serious problems were both lens failures so subtle I didn't see them until the files were on the computer. In one case the lens began back focusing about midway through the session -- not enough to pick up on the screen, but enough to be obvious to a photographer on the computer. In the second the left side of the frame became softer and softer as the session progressed. In neither case would an extra card have helped. (The backup lenses in the van didn't help much either since I didn't pick up on the problem during the session.) Luckily in both cases I had enough salvageable images to save the job.

If I did weddings or once in a lifetime events where photos are very important to clients (and there is a distinct chance of a lawsuit) dual cards might seem more important, but not for what I do. For really important jobs I revert to the old film technique and shoot with two cameras, being sure to have a good selection of images on each. That, for me, seems like a safer solution than dual slots. Even for a wedding, a second shooter is probably better insurance than dual cards.

Gato

NowHearThis · Jul 18, 2017

I'd use it if I had it. But it's not a necessity. I've been shooting digital since the Canon A70 and I've only had one card fail, it failed in the first 100 pictures. Interestingly enough that company had been out of business for many, many years now. Anyway, I've accidentally washed SD cards, gone swimming with them - both scenarios were accidents by the way. In short, I'll never worry about a memory card failing, they're just too tough.

Khun_K · Jul 18, 2017

Krav Maga said:
I'm just curious. For me, and I'm not a pro photographer, I think it's very important. Granted, I've never had a card failure, but they do and will fail if given enough time. Over the past 20 years, I've only had one catastrophic hard drive failure (thankfully I was backed up) but I still have redundancy built in to my computer system.

For pros, I'd think it would be an absolute necessity.

Thoughts?

IR1234 · Jul 18, 2017

Krav Maga said:
I'm just curious. For me, and I'm not a pro photographer, I think it's very important. Granted, I've never had a card failure, but they do and will fail if given enough time. Over the past 20 years, I've only had one catastrophic hard drive failure (thankfully I was backed up) but I still have redundancy built in to my computer system.

For pros, I'd think it would be an absolute necessity.

Thoughts?

armin304 · Jul 19, 2017

Working in IT service for the last 32 years, I have replaced many failed harddrives and encountered even customers, who had data loss on professional storage systems and no backup.

My personal conclusions out of this are:

Every electronic device will fail.

RAID is no backup.

Storage devices that share the same shelf (body, if you think camera) may fail catastrophically at the same time.

I don't use a RAID for my private means.

I do regular backups to one of many devices, that's only connected to the device it backups, when doing the backup.

As a non professional photographer my pictures are worthless.

The card in the camera only contains images of one day. If I lose these: Bad luck, but no desaster.

I don't need a second card slot in my camera.

mrgs1 · Jul 19, 2017

Liu Jianguo said:
At a time when even the most modest of smartphones come with built-in super-fast 128GB to 1TB of onboard storage, the fact that cameras even have memory slots, into which often exorbitantly priced CF or XQD cards go, is a damming indictment of their obsolescence.

HTC One M10 not modest at £500 has 32 or 64 gb!

Craig Gillette · Jul 19, 2017

How critical is what you are doing? I didn't have two card slots yet succeeded in deleting some pics on a vacation when I was doing some backups. Low card capacity so I was backing up then erasing. Ooops. Don't do that any more. But my daughter had her camera and we didn't lose anything of importance.

Had one card that I swapped between cameras, or more likely, used in a new camera after formatting in a previous camera. Recorded fine but had issues with replay/transfer until downloaded on one of several readers, that one worked and all was fine after reformatting. So for me, no card failures that might have been card failures.

But other things can fail, too. Admittedly back in film days, on two occasions, had lenses simply fall apart. Consumer grade third party but on different occasions. Had one camera film advance mechanism fail at a 50th (?) wedding anniversary. Lots of family, lots of cameras. No biggy.

So, depending on your interests and the criticality of the shooting, redundancy may not be an issue just for cards. Shoot, I remember one sunset at the Minarets Overlook at Mammoth Mountain in California, a family hopped out of their car, several with cameras. None of them had the right plates for the tripod.

How Important Is Having Two Memory Card Slots For You?

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