# What size cards do you use and what brand?



## slackercruster (Feb 2, 2012)

Do you go for giant memory cards or smaller ones?

 Have you found certain brands trouble? Or are they pretty fungible items?

Thanks


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## Redbaron (Feb 2, 2012)

Pretty happy with my Sandisk 8GB Extremes ar $15.95 from B&H


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## borisnikon (Feb 2, 2012)

Go for the smaller cards, that way if one fails (unlikely I know) there isn't as much lost. Whereas if you had 32 gb worth of photos and the card failed you would be devastated. I use SanDisk but there are many other options available. I would go for 4 and 8gb cards, I have the Sandisk extreme HD class 10 card, which is faster that I need. 
I have also heard good things about Lexar and Kingston.


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## Trever1t (Feb 2, 2012)

SanDisK and I like 4gb cars but have a couple 8's too.


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## Tee (Feb 2, 2012)

2- 8gig CF cards and 1- 4 gig card. Shooting RAW I get about 1,500 images on the three which is plenty for my needs.


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## Tadzior (Feb 2, 2012)

2x8Gb Kingston and I don't complain about them.


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## woodyracing (Feb 2, 2012)

I've got a handful of SanDisk Extreme 32GBs.  I also use them for recording video on a GoPro so that's why I need the 32GB


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## Big Mike (Feb 2, 2012)

Last one I bought was a 32GB Transcend 600x.


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## KmH (Feb 2, 2012)

I favored 4 GB CF SanDisk Extreme UDMA 40 MB/s for stills. With my 12 MP DSLR's (all used CF, not SD cards) I could get about 225 14-bit Raw Files on each one. I wasn't willing to risk losing more than 225 or so image files by using a bigger card.. . 

I had 4 bodies and each body had 3 cards assigned to it. So I had 12 - 4 GB CF cards. I also had 2 16 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro UDMA 6 90 MB/s CF cards in case I wanted to do some video.

SanDisk Extreme 30MB/s Edition High Performance Card - Flash memory card - 4 GB - Class 10 - SDHC 

SanDisk Extreme CompactFlash 4 GB Memory Card SDCFX-004G 

SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash 16 GB Flash Memory Card SDCFXP-016G


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## Drake (Feb 8, 2012)

2 x 4Gb, one Kingston and one Sandisk. Each one takes 400 RAW shots from my 10MP camera, which i enough for my amateur needs.


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## patrickt (Feb 8, 2012)

My cards are Lexar, Kingston, and SanDisk. Size depends on the file size you get from your camera and the type of shooting you do. I have four 8GB cards that meet almost all my needs but I have one 16GB for a shoot where I'm expecting a high number of shots and don't want to have to think about memory cards.

In six years and a lot of cards, start with Compact Flash, I've had one card fail.


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## MReid (Feb 8, 2012)

Two schools of thought.
1 big card less chance of failure but if one fails you have a problem. Usually photos can be recovered for the most part using recovery software.
Lots of little cards, more chance of one failing but you don't lose everything. Bigger risk of misplacing or losing a card than one failing.

I use one big 16g card. I have taken in the neighborhood of 500,000 digital photos in the last 10 years and never had a card fail....major knock on wood.
I used to subscribe to the lots of 4g cards theory but then I lost one, and then I lost another one. Since I went to using big cards, no problems.

Make sure you format the card in camera prior to every shoot, never move cards from one camera to another without reformatting.
Don't delete and add delete and add on a card.

Be careful loading and unloading the cards so you don't bend the pins.

I almost always delete photos in camera off the card after a shoot, this causes no problem.

Buy the best cards you can afford.


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## DCMoney (Feb 8, 2012)

Sandisk 16GB Extreme 60MB/s X2
Sandisk 4GB Extreme III
Sandisk 1GB Extreme III- haven't used this card in probably 2 years


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## Bossy (Feb 8, 2012)

4-8Gbs of whatever brand is cheapest.


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## KmH (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> 1 big card less chance of failure


Oh? Could you explain how/why a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card?


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## MLeeK (Feb 8, 2012)

I have a gazillion 4G cards. A few 8G and a couple of 16G.
Memory cards do fail, I NEVER NEVER NEVER want to have all of my eggs in the basket that may break, so the 4G's are my staple. I do use the 16's for tournaments where I am shooting a lot of shots of individual matches. Otherwise? I rarely use anything over 4G. 
If a large capacity card full of a wedding fails-or you lose it? you are F'd. BIG TIME. Your indemnity insurance will cover it, but the bad press from losing an entire wedding or critical family portrait shoot will ruin you faster than light.

As for brand-I have a bunch of them. I have a couple of Hoodman's and I WISH I could afford to have a ton of them-they have a published failure rate of 0. However they are expensive.
I have SanDisk, Lexar, Kingston and something cheap as hell my kid picked up when she was out and needed an extra card one day. 
I take care of my cards-kind of. I do reformat using MediaRecover's format/repair and I feel like it has helped me to keep cards working longer. I have a couple of 2G cards I bought probably 7 or 8 years ago? They're Kingston's second in line and they still work perfectly with no capacity loss. 
Now... I have to admit I have ran cards through the washer and dryer a few times. Each time I've re-formatted them with MediaRecover and I couldn't tell you which ones it was that got washed & dried.


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## 480sparky (Feb 8, 2012)

I use 16g class 10s.  I currently have 6 of 'em for my D7000.  16g easily gets me through an entire day with the way I shoot and how I have the camera configured.

I have 9 2g cards for my D60.

I have a four 16g class 4s for back-up.


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## tirediron (Feb 8, 2012)

I use mostly 4Gb cards because that makes backing up simple.  One CF card = 1 DVD.  I have some bigger and smaller ones as well, but 4s are my staple.


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## MReid (Feb 8, 2012)

KmH said:


> MReid said:
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> 
> > 1 big card less chance of failure
> ...



just percentages

if you use 20 cards vs 1 card

better chance of one of the 20 being bad than the 1 card being bad.

I will say for weddings....I use a camera with two cards...and the second card is a backup card....I bought the D3 specifically for this reason. Because the "bunch of cards" thing didn't work for me....never needed the backup card, but there it is.

I also always use two cameras to shoot all my paid shoots, so I would never lose all of anything.

Bottom line to me is:
Are you very organized and not a person who will misplace, lose, or send cards through the wash. Then the multi card system is for you.

If you have a hard time remembering where you left your car keys, then the single card system is for you.


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## Bossy (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> KmH said:
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> > MReid said:
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Pretty sure this is a fallacy. It just doesn't work like that. Someone could have 20 cards which never have failed and you could have 1 that does. 

As the bottom line,  I have multiple cards *because* I misplace them, not because I don't. If I only had one mega card (which I wouldn't anyway since my camera holds 2 cards), I would lose it, and then have nothing to shoot with in the interim. 
I should note I've never lost one before it got into my laptop, only after


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## 480sparky (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> KmH said:
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> > MReid said:
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Totally flawed logic.

There are many reasons why a card fails.  Some of them are due to being handled.  Static discharges, dropping them, twisting them when inserting into a card slot improperly..... all can damage the card & cause failure.  Another reason may be removing the card while it's being written on by the camera.

Having just one card means all improper handling will be inflicted on that one card.... not spread out over several.

Memory cards are not ascensioned beings..... they do not 'know' things like us humans do.  If a card is going to fail, it will fail regardless of how many other cards you own.  A single card cannot say to itself, "Hey, I'm getting doused with bleach and run through the dryer.... but I'd better stay on the straight and narrow because I'm the only game in town here."


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## MReid (Feb 8, 2012)

My mega card never leaves my camera until I get home and take it right from the camera to the card loader.
.....and percentages do work like that.

Like I said before you have to do an honest evaluation of what type of person you are and from there you can determine which method holds the most risk....for you.

Of course this is all just opinion....there is no right or wrong....there is risk either way. Each person has to decide the risk they are most comfortable with.
I wasn't comfortable with either....so I shoot with two cameras and use the D3 with one card as a backup....and I never take a card out of the camera unless it is going straight to the card reader.


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## 480sparky (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> .............and percentages do work like that.........




So a person who only owns one vehicle is less likely to be in a car crash?


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## MReid (Feb 8, 2012)

now that is flawed logic


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## Bossy (Feb 8, 2012)

Technically if you're going to go for the percentage thing, it would be like, 1 card has a 100% chance of failing, while if you have 10 cards, there's a 10% chance of failure. But either way it doesn't work like that.


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## 480sparky (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> now that is flawed logic



No it's not.

If I drive 20,000 miles a year in one car, I have the exact same chance of being in an accident than if I drive 5,000 miles a year in each of my 4 vehicles.


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## MReid (Feb 8, 2012)

you guys are funny

ok 

you have 100 cf cards.....you pull one out and set it to the side.
this leaves 99 on one side and 1 on the other side

You have $1000 dollars to bet. 
Do you place your bet one of the 99 cards going bad before the one card....
....or do you place your bet one the 1 card going bad before one of the 99 does.

That is all I am saying.....your logic may work differently.


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## 480sparky (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> ..........you have 100 cf cards.....you pull one out and set it to the side.
> this leaves 99 on one side and 1 on the other side
> 
> You have $1000 dollars to bet.
> ...



Doesn't work.

Each one of the 99 cards will be handled far far less than that one single card.  You're comparing apples to Japan.


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## KmH (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> KmH said:
> 
> 
> > MReid said:
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What all that says is - No. You can't explain how/why, or even if, a big card has less chance of failing than a smaller capacity card.

You would need card failure data from the card manufacturers to substantiate your claim that big cards fail less often than smaller cards, and you don't have that information.



> Plan for the worst. Hope for the best.


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## MReid (Feb 8, 2012)

seriously??????

If you have 1 small card next to 1 large card....there is (all things being equal) no reason why one would fail before the other.


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## Bossy (Feb 8, 2012)

...
Exactly. So if you have 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 card, regardless of size, there is no reason 1 wouldn't break just because you keep the other 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 at home. You can't just group what you don't use or don't even own in a group seperate from the one that you do use and use it as a percentage and reason why your 1 has less a chance of busting.


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## MLeeK (Feb 8, 2012)

Your logic is warped and if you believe it, then that's fine for you I guess. 
Each card-no matter how many you have-has the same chance of going ka-put. The chances are simply better that EVERY card won't go Ka-Put at the same time. 
If you are putting everything in ONE card I hope to hell it's Hoodman.


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## brush (Feb 8, 2012)

I once bought a 32 gig no name card for super cheap from microcenter because it seemed like a great deal & would be so nice to not have to switch out cards during a shoot. First gig, thankfully a favor for a friend & not something paid, I got 3 hours into a 4 burlesque show and the thing fried. I was taking video, shooting in burst mode, working that bad boy out! It couldn't handle all the data, or it was defective, who knows, but it died. I've learned my lesson & carry a bunch of Sandisk 4gig class 10's. No more off brands & no more storing all my eggs in 1 basket.

Now all this talk about odds of 1 card failing vs 1 of 100 failing & blah blah blah...if you set 1 no name 32 gig class 10 card in column A and 99 4 gig class 10 sandisks in column B and ask me to bet on which column I trust...I'm putting my money on the sandisks. If I need class 10 speed, I'm not going to trust a 32 gig card not to choke on all that data I'm throwing at it, and I'm sure as hell not trusting it to the lowest bidder generic ever again. That was a mistake.

And while we're on the odds thing, I'm not going to be betting $100 that something in the sandisk stack doesn't go bad, I'm betting $1 that each thing in the sandisk stack doesn't go bad. If you give me 2 to 1 odds, and I bet a hundred bucks that the single card isn't bad, I might win 200 bucks or I might have to walk away with nothing. Or if I split my bet up on all the cards in the other stack, I might win 2 bucks 99 times for 198 bucks, or I might only win 2 bucks 98 times and walk away with 196 bucks. Something you seem to be forgetting about statistics, if the odds of 1 card failing are 1/100, then when you have 2 cards your odds are 2/200...aka, exactly the same.

Any way you slice it, experience has taught me to steer clear of big cards.


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## table1349 (Feb 8, 2012)

MReid said:


> Two schools of thought.
> 1 big card less chance of failure but if one fails you have a problem. Usually photos can be recovered for the most part using recovery software.
> Lots of little cards, more chance of one failing but you don't lose everything. Bigger risk of misplacing or losing a card than one failing.
> 
> ...



Excellent recipe for epic failure you have here.  But then others have already explained that to you.  I am going to make a guess that you never took a Statistics class.  

You make a very dangerous assumption.  First you assume that the photos can be recovered from a failed card.  Not always true and not always economical to pay to try and have them recovered.  

Making a recommendation of one big card based on your inability to keep track of cards is also suspect.   In the film days I carried more than one roll of film, and now more than one card.  You see those old farm wives while they may not have had a whole lot of book learning, were pretty smart.  Ever hear the saying, "Never put all your eggs in one basket."  Farm life may be boring in the evening, but sitting around the fire making up sayings just isn't something they do for fun.  Comes from practical experience.  

I have been shooting for nigh on to 40 years now.  Never lost a card in my life. Never lost a roll of film either.  They aren't that hard to keep track of.   A whole bunch of 4 gig cards, 10 to be exact, a Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket and every card labeled and I can shoot all day, never loose a card and know exactly what card or cards will have what portion of what I shoot.  Hell I change cards at halftime at a game whether I need to or not.  Same thing for any other kind of event I shoot.  First time you loose an entire lifetime of memories for someone instead of just a portion, you will understand the concept of "Never put all your eggs in one basket."



To the OP.  My choice of cards are Sandisk Extreme IV, 4 gig CF cards.  Never had an issue with one.  I prefer the IV's for download speed.


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## printsnpaints (Feb 19, 2012)

It's good to have several smaller capacity cards so that you don't stake everything on one card. The size of the memory you will need depends on the resolution and the number of pictures that you will take. You can probably take more than a thousand low resolution images but only several hundred high quality ones.


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