If you are a pro, do you use two card slots for backup? Locked

I don't want to start the debate if the EOS R is a pro body or not.  I'm fine declaring that it is not.  But one of the nits against it is it has only one card slot and "no pro would ever use it" is stated emphatically very often.  So, I'm curious.

I'm an avid amateur that might make a few dollars here and there on my photography and I have a nice job to pay for my toys.  The few professional photographers I've known tended to be on an extremely tight budget and had consumer grade bodies that were a few years old.  I've also got this hint from some YouTube videos.

I'm curious if you use a body with dual card slots and you have it set up to copy each image to both cards.

I think if I was really worried, I would cycle through a lot of small cards and, if I could afford it, have a pocket PC that could backup the cards as they got full to safer storage rather than trusting the camera to do the backup.  The camera doing the backup still has a single point of failure and a firmware glitch in the camera seems more likely than today's cards having the glitch.  To rephrase, it seems like both copies the camera is making are going to get damaged more often than just one copy.

As a pro, I use 2 cards when the camera has the facility, but don't get too hung up on it.

I always use the biggest cards I can, though, as the greatest risk is when changing cards - I try to make sure I only ever have to do it under controlled conditions, when I can back it up immediately; I'm also seriously worried about physically losing cards.

Rock and Rollei wrote:

As a pro, I use 2 cards when the camera has the facility, but don't get too hung up on it.

I always use the biggest cards I can, though, as the greatest risk is when changing cards - I try to make sure I only ever have to do it under controlled conditions, when I can back it up immediately; I'm also seriously worried about physically losing cards.

This.

As another full time working pro (100% of my income is photography), the fact that a camera has two card slots is like, I dunno, not in the top 5 of things I look for in a camera. It just isn't. Fact is, when I was shooting back in the film days, there were far more problems with image loss. Remember those days? Anyone? Anyone? No?

Also, this debate as to whether the R is a "pro camera" is ridiculous. The majority of us who are working pros (not the occasional print seller) have enough $ense to understand that a camera is a tool. We choose our tools based upon our needs, be it functionality or price.  Just because some keyboard pounder or vlogger (who doesn't understand the business of photography) has deemed a camera unworthy, does not make it so. Stick a Rebel, an AE-1, a Graflex or a Brownie in our hands, and our results would still be the same - we will make money in this profession because we get the formula to being a professional photographer, which 90% business and 10% photography.

360iViews wrote:

in this profession because we get the formula to being a professional photographer, which 90% business and 10% photography.

Great reply.  And I suck at business...

LensSodomist wrote:

...to your smartphone via Blue Tooth.

and it works well...

360iViews wrote:

Rock and Rollei wrote:

As a pro, I use 2 cards when the camera has the facility, but don't get too hung up on it.

I always use the biggest cards I can, though, as the greatest risk is when changing cards - I try to make sure I only ever have to do it under controlled conditions, when I can back it up immediately; I'm also seriously worried about physically losing cards.

This.

As another full time working pro (100% of my income is photography), the fact that a camera has two card slots is like, I dunno, not in the top 5 of things I look for in a camera. It just isn't. Fact is, when I was shooting back in the film days, there were far more problems with image loss. Remember those days? Anyone? Anyone? No?

Also, this debate as to whether the R is a "pro camera" is ridiculous. The majority of us who are working pros (not the occasional print seller) have enough $ense to understand that a camera is a tool. We choose our tools based upon our needs, be it functionality or price. Just because some keyboard pounder or vlogger (who doesn't understand the business of photography) has deemed a camera unworthy, does not make it so. Stick a Rebel, an AE-1, a Graflex or a Brownie in our hands, and our results would still be the same - we will make money in this profession because we get the formula to being a professional photographer, which 90% business and 10% photography.

Absolutely agree. I have 40 years of commercial photography - film and digital -and  I have had more issues with gear failures  other than cards than with cards. Call me ancient ( its probably true and  don't care) but where it matters I use two cameras, not one and alternate them by shot all Job. Two 6ds (which cost the same as a 5dIV) are safer than the 2 card 5d - or a single D750.

Gosh i hope i don't have to go back to making money with a brownie....

I'm a still life photographer in the main but do events (embassy meet and greet, corporate meetings, prom, and the like) with an M10. It has one card. I carry one for wide angle and one for the narrow angle. Obviously I don't have redundancy protections. But that's how I've worked since 2012 when I shot a D800 for sports and weddings. 
I'm posting here because the EOS R is really on my radar. I finally got to try it out the other day. Great body.

LensSodomist wrote:

A true pro tool will have redundancy when writing files. You seem to pass off the need for file redundancy, and you insult those who think it is required.

The best pros do not have to have this explained. Your written photos better damned well be written twice at the time of acquisition or your business and the client could suffer.

I'm a pro too.

So you are setting the bar for all pro's.

are you king off he pro's LOL 

highlights wrote:

LensSodomist wrote:

...to your smartphone via Blue Tooth.

and it works well...

Yes  it works very well, but if you don,t bother with that.

You can complain about a missing second cardslot.

And people like to complain these days….

If you have 2 card slots, use 'em!  I don't have 2 card slots on every camera, but definitely use both on the cameras that do have 2.

Yake wrote:

If you have 2 card slots, use 'em! I don't have 2 card slots on every camera, but definitely use both on the cameras that do have 2.

I started shooting professionally with digital bodies beginning with the D30 (YIKES!) and my clients and I survived that and several succeeding bodies with only 1 card slot.  Before that, I lost many a roll of film to numerous causes (mostly mine).  I've had more camera or lens failures on jobs than I ever had with cards.

Would I like twin slots in the R?  Absolutely but it's not the end of the world.

fotomotovfr wrote:

Yake wrote:

If you have 2 card slots, use 'em! I don't have 2 card slots on every camera, but definitely use both on the cameras that do have 2.

I started shooting professionally with digital bodies beginning with the D30 (YIKES!) and my clients and I survived that and several succeeding bodies with only 1 card slot. Before that, I lost many a roll of film to numerous causes (mostly mine). I've had more camera or lens failures on jobs than I ever had with cards.

Would I like twin slots in the R? Absolutely but it's not the end of the world.

Still have a D30 & D60 sitting in the closet!

If you're shooting fast i.e. PR or a wedding, switching bodies is not redundancy. I always shoot with 2 bodies in a fast-paced scenario, usually one has an 85 mounted, and the other a 24-70. 2 bodies give you aesthetic variety.  You won't care about not having in-camera redundancy until you have a corruption.

I concur. I have been a pro photographer, and have earned my living from being so for the last 40 years or so, shooting first film and then digital. I was a pioneer in using digital cameras for commercial work as soon as they become good enough, as well as a pioneer in digital imaging from film before that, going so far in pre-digital camera times as to buy film in many formats by the caseload, running my own automated and dedicated E-6 processing line in my studio and using multiple drum scanners to scan my work and retouch the resulting digital files for my clients.

Now, let me tell you about all the card failures I've had shooting digital hand held cameras and digital backs for medium and large format cameras over a 20 year period. In about 1997, when using primarily non-solid state IBM Microdrive compact flash cards, I had one of those cards that I used on a job yield several corrupted frames, all but a couple of which I was able to restore with software. One time. In over 20 years shooting digital cameras. Maybe two lost frames.

I'm not saying that a catastrophic loss isn't possible; it is. But, if you follow good procedures, it becomes extremely unlikely. Here's what I mean. First, buy the best and most reliable (read "expensive" here) card that you can. Then, every time I start a shoot I bring many cards with me - enough so that if one card isn't working properly, several others can take its place. Each time, just before the shoot starts, I test the card I slip into the camera, to make sure it can record and display and transfer files properly. I also do this with at least one other identical card that I carry with me. And then, after the shoot, after I've become confident that I have the files from a just completed job safely transferred to one or more reliable hard drives, I do a full re-format of the card on either my PC or camera, careful to maintain the proper formatting protocol for the card that the camera demands.

If you do this, the chances of suffering an unrecoverable card failure are very near zero.

This is just all part of doing a job successfully. It's all part of thinking ahead and being prepared. Nothing more, nothing less.

David Franklin wrote:

I concur. I have been a pro photographer, and have earned my living from being so for the last 40 years or so, shooting first film and then digital. I was a pioneer in using digital cameras for commercial work as soon as they become good enough, as well as a pioneer in digital imaging from film before that, going so far in pre-digital camera times as to buy film in many formats by the caseload, running my own automated and dedicated E-6 processing line in my studio and using multiple drum scanners to scan my work and retouch the resulting digital files for my clients.

Now, let me tell you about all the card failures I've had shooting digital hand held cameras and digital backs for medium and large format cameras over a 20 year period. In about 1997, when using primarily non-solid state IBM Microdrive compact flash cards, I had one of those cards that I used on a job yield several corrupted frames, all but a couple of which I was able to restore with software. One time. In over 20 years shooting digital cameras. Maybe two lost frames.

I'm not saying that a catastrophic loss isn't possible; it is. But, if you follow good procedures, it becomes extremely unlikely. Here's what I mean. First, buy the best and most reliable (read "expensive" here) card that you can. Then, every time I start a shoot I bring many cards with me - enough so that if one card isn't working properly, several others can take its place. Each time, just before the shoot starts, I test the card I slip into the camera, to make sure it can record and display and transfer files properly. I also do this with at least one other identical card that I carry with me. And then, after the shoot, after I've become confident that I have the files from a just completed job safely transferred to one or more reliable hard drives, I do a full re-format of the card on either my PC or camera, careful to maintain the proper formatting protocol for the card that the camera demands.

If you do this, the chances of suffering an unrecoverable card failure are very near zero.

This is just all part of doing a job successfully. It's all part of thinking ahead and being prepared. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm not sure, but I heard years ago that formatting on a PC is a big no no, always to be avoided.  But even formatting in camera, I've had a few unrecoverable cards over the years.  I think they were just poorly made.

LensSodomist wrote:

Rawpaul wrote:

LensSodomist wrote:

A true pro tool will have redundancy when writing files. You seem to pass off the need for file redundancy, and you insult those who think it is required.

The best pros do not have to have this explained. Your written photos better damned well be written twice at the time of acquisition or your business and the client could suffer.

I'm a pro too.

So you are setting the bar for all pro's.

are you king off he pro's LOL

It's called having an informed opinion. It's allowed. Try it sometime.

Sure it's allowed , but don't think you speak for everybody.

Don't take this to serious man