Multiple small capacity SD cards vs Large capacity

[MFiftysomething]

I would go large SDXC in camera, wifi back up to tablet daily and then tablet edit and upto cloud every time you get some wifi- most of the world has wifi now!

My worst experience SD card reader into USB OTG to Android phone -no idea what happened but I lost photos!

 

[MizBrown]

Depends on where you are. One guy claimed that he stole cameras from tourists (he was an American in Nicaragua) and sold them back their files. I take out one camera and one or two lenses when I go out shooting. The camera can be stolen. Have the SD cards elsewhere and all you've lost are the day's photos.

Tourists can be targeted because they're unlikely to show up for court dates. If this is a trip to a place with a very low theft rate (Japan, Switzerland), not to worry, but if it's to somewhere with kids who'd just love a camera like yours and could never in a hundred years imagine being able to buy one, be more careful. Two of us were trying to explain to a newbie that the most dangerous thieves in Nicaragua are five year olds and he thought we were joking.

 

[MoreGooderPhotos]

How do you transfer files? Through Camera WiFi?

I assume you are referring to transferring files to the WD My Passport Wireless. I've only had it a few hours, but have successfully transferred files from an SD card. I just plug the SD card into the slot on the side of the machine. I have it set to auto-import. The first thing I did was install the WD My Cloud Android app. It was just a matter of following instructions after launching the app. Simple!

Later tonight I'll try and access the WD My Passport Wireless with my PC with the included USB cable and make sure that it copied the jpegs AND the raws.

 

[fzrTom]

If you take too many cards you risk to lose them.

 

[philip pj]

Let's also assume that you will have no way whatsoever to back up you photos, so once a card is full it is no longer available for use during the trip.

Let's not assume that. Backups are a very sound idea, so I advise both keeping the cards as they emerge from the camera, AND a backup copy taken upon filling the card.

On capacity, I get edgy once past a certain number of exposures, so I use 32Gb cards. They are tiny and easy to store, easy to carry spare cards. The thought of losing the lot in say, a 3000 image haul - no thank you.

Computing equipment - it's still a cottage industry, isn't it?

 

[MoreGooderPhotos]

Let's also assume that you will have no way whatsoever to back up you photos, so once a card is full it is no longer available for use during the trip.

Let's not assume that. Backups are a very sound idea, so I advise both keeping the cards as they emerge from the camera, AND a backup copy taken upon filling the card.

On capacity, I get edgy once past a certain number of exposures, so I use 32Gb cards. They are tiny and easy to store, easy to carry spare cards. The thought of losing the lot in say, a 3000 image haul - no thank you.

Computing equipment - it's still a cottage industry, isn't it?

I think you may have missed my reply earlier in the thread. The no-backup situation, for me at least, has been resolved via a WD My Passport Wireless backup system. Pretty slick! I happend upon it while out today at an electronics store. Meanwhile, someone posted that they use one too. A coincidence, perhaps, but it looks as though Western Digital had photogs in mind when they designed it.

 

[Limburger]

At least two cards.

 

[JonBH]

Lakes are overflowing and lush in my area.

 

[Boykinally]

Let's also assume that you will have no way whatsoever to back up you photos, so once a card is full it is no longer available for use during the trip.

Let's not assume that. Backups are a very sound idea, so I advise both keeping the cards as they emerge from the camera, AND a backup copy taken upon filling the card.

On capacity, I get edgy once past a certain number of exposures, so I use 32Gb cards. They are tiny and easy to store, easy to carry spare cards. The thought of losing the lot in say, a 3000 image haul - no thank you.

Computing equipment - it's still a cottage industry, isn't it?

I think you may have missed my reply earlier in the thread. The no-backup situation, for me at least, has been resolved via a WD My Passport Wireless backup system. Pretty slick! I happend upon it while out today at an electronics store. Meanwhile, someone posted that they use one too. A coincidence, perhaps, but it looks as though Western Digital had photogs in mind when they designed it.

I like the idea of this but lots of mixed reviews on the WD My Passport. Let us know what you think about it once you've tried it out.

 

[pr099]

8x32gb or better 16x16gb for me.

 

[dkeller]

Without a computer connected, how do you know if they've uploaded successfully? I've always used several cards and download the days shots to my computer HD at the end of the day and backup to a portable HD before reformatting the card so I have it in two places. I don't see how the wireless gives any extra security, but I'm probably missing something.

 

[User3377949136]

One issue is how much memory you are using during a given day, session? My company manufactures SD, mSD, USB and external memory for IOS and Android devices. I could grab cards to 128 / 256 GB. I go for multiple 64's.

as others have noted, the return rate on failed cards is incredibly low. They really don't fail in any statistical relevance, like .001%. Still, I use multiple cards @ 64 gb and remove and rotate their usage at the end of shoot, ride, hike, ski etc. Knowing the failure rate, you should be 99.99% that one card will work for you and not loose anything due to card issues. Then again I use 64's and rotate them based upon the newest download to a hard drive.

 

[sootyvrs]

Without a computer connected, how do you know if they've uploaded successfully? I've always used several cards and download the days shots to my computer HD at the end of the day and backup to a portable HD before reformatting the card so I have it in two places. I don't see how the wireless gives any extra security, but I'm probably missing something.

Nothing is ever 100% guaranteed but the fact that you have 2 points of failure is still 100% better than single point of failure...

The bottom line is you have to ask yourself the question of is the hassle worth it over the risks? Only you can answer that question.

PS You can connect via smartphone to the device wirelessly to see if the files are uploaded

 

[donaldsc]

Here is another option if you are totally paranoid. Take multiple small cards and use one per day. This simplifies file management. Every day, back up the card to your tablet storing the contents of each camera card in a different folder. Then back up the tablet to 2 different flash drives also on a daily basis. I use larger flash drives so that all of my pictures are on each flash drive or if you are really absolutely totally paranoid, you could use multiple small flash drives that are the same size as your camera cards.

This puts your files in 4 places - camera card, tablet, flash drive #1 and flash drive #2. A bit extreme maybe but unless 100% of your stuff is stolen or you are hit by lightning or a meteorite or maybe even a truck, there is no way that your photos can disappear.

I find that I can do the daily backup in 1/2 hour max so it does not take very much time as long as you are doing it every day.

 

[Franglais91]

In camera I have dual 32GB cards writing RAW to both cards. This is enough for a day's shooting

In the evening at the hotel I empty the cards onto a 10 inch PC-Tablet (Microsoft Surface running Windows 10). I check out what I've done in Lightroom then back the system up onto a 1TB external drive. If I think I'm going to run out of space on the Surface I shift the files onto a 500GB external hard drive and back them up again.

For the return trip everything goes in my luggage except the backup drive which I keep in my pocket (in case my suitcase gets lost).

 

[dkeller]

Thanks. That was the answer I was looking for.

Can you download from the camera to the smart drive via wi-fi as well? Just asking, as I would think plugging the card into it would be safer.

 

[sootyvrs]

Thanks. That was the answer I was looking for.

Can you download from the camera to the smart drive via wi-fi as well? Just asking, as I would think plugging the card into it would be safer.

I'm not sure if you can transfer the files from the camera directly to the WD Wiresless drive but it's easy enough just to put your SD card into the slot and you will see the light flash to show there is activity going on.

I usually do the backup back at the hotel (use it on my travels only) which gives you plenty of time to connect the smartphone to check things have copied OK

 

[CaliforniaDave]

I think the most likely failure modes involve removing and inserting the card, so I opt for strategies that minimize that. Zero insertions and removals is a good number.

In principle, I agree with you on this, but in practice, I remove the card to read into a computer. I shoot both stills and HD/UHD video, and have many GB's to transfer. The USB 2 connections on cameras are too slow, as is wi-fi transfer. The solution would be for cameras to start using USB 3.0, or better yet, USB-C (3.1) connectors. Recently I have started using 128 GB UHS-II U3 cards in some of my cameras, even though the camera does not have UHS-II internally (UHS-II is backward compatible with UHS-I). However, if I put the card into a UHS-II to USB 3.0 reader, I can get transfer rates in the range of 150 MB/s, which blows away USB 2 speeds.

If I were using CF cards, I think I would use USB direct connected to the camera, as the CF pins are too easy to bend.

 

[JimKasson]

I think the most likely failure modes involve removing and inserting the card, so I opt for strategies that minimize that. Zero insertions and removals is a good number.

In principle, I agree with you on this, but in practice, I remove the card to read into a computer. I shoot both stills and HD/UHD video, and have many GB's to transfer. The USB 2 connections on cameras are too slow, as is wi-fi transfer. The solution would be for cameras to start using USB 3.0, or better yet, USB-C (3.1) connectors. Recently I have started using 128 GB UHS-II U3 cards in some of my cameras, even though the camera does not have UHS-II internally (UHS-II is backward compatible with UHS-I). However, if I put the card into a UHS-II to USB 3.0 reader, I can get transfer rates in the range of 150 MB/s, which blows away USB 2 speeds.

If I were using CF cards, I think I would use USB direct connected to the camera, as the CF pins are too easy to bend.

I remove the SD card to transfer the files to a computer, too. The camera is just too slow at that. If I do that, I take copies of all the files off the card, and put the card somewhere where it won't be used again for a few weeks.

However, I think there's a substantially smaller chance of an oopsy when you're at home or in your studio and nothing else is going on than when you're in the field.

Jim

--
http://blog.kasson.com

 

[golfhov]

I see you already purchased a backup drive so this topic may be less relevant for you.

You can see from the comments that there are differing opinions and methods available.

The only one I did not see is Play memories mentioned. This is not a "professional" method since you will be limited to smaller JPEG files. For a casual user this can be great though. This is what I use for backup. After so many(think 20) shots the camera will connect to my phone and backup small JPEGs. I use this when traveling for two reasons. I have a backup(granted lower quality) in the event something terrible happens to my camera, card, or theft. I also can skim through the Jpegs at my convenience and quiclky share over WIFI. I can also do a bit of chimping later.

Just one more way to skin the cat