card failure - 32gb vs 16gb - really a factor when buying?

jasonstone

I really want to save the hassle of multiple cards and go with 2 X 32GB for my D7000 but still get the folks saying yeah but what about a card corrupting...

honestly is that really a decision when it comes to buying the cards? or is it more urban myth? or perhaps just so remotely unlikely (although it could happen) that I shouldn't consider it in my purchasing decision?

really like to get some input here.... as i'm soooo tempted to just get 2 X 32GB cards - I'm pretty good with regular backups anyway to my iPad or to an Epson p-5000 i borrow sometimes...

Thanks all

kdlanejr

Buy Sandisk Extreme or Extreme Pro cards in 32gb and don't give it another thought.

ziggy53

I use very large capacity cards for video, especially long-format video. For photography, if it's for a paying event then I greatly prefer 4GB and 8GB cards. Once a card fails and you loose everything, you tend to be more cautious.

See this thread for inspiration:

[thread=222119]Thread is here.[/thread]

perroneford

On a D7000?

It's got two card slots for a reason. Put a 32GB or 64GB card in each slot, set the second slot for backup, and shoot. Every camera I own is set this way. Well, all the one's with two slots anyway.

I've had a couple of card failures. And I only use Sandisk cards. In both cases, I removed the offending card, finished my shoot, and after making sure everything downloaded properly, tossed the card in the trash.

Yes Sandisk cards are extremely reliable. But I still make backups in-camera.

Art Scott

Right now my largest cards are 16gb...I am of the mind that if one keeps negative thoughts in your mind then it brings on the problem....I know that is a metaphysical way of thibnking but that has been my way for a very very long time....... I have like 14 8gb cards and the 2 16's and I have had no problems oin years but then I have 2 different recovery softwares loaded and ready to go but I don't think about it, ai just shoot and go... I know cards corupt and die...that is the nature of the beast ... ... I just paray that I get all my images off the card and then if it fails it does it when I return it to the camera.....meaning the caera won't recognize it when I next try to use it.....

BTW i shoot Transcend Cards...Love 'em.....

If you can easily afford the 32 gb cards then go for it........I put very little stock in doing as others do....I have had San Disk, Lexar, kennsington, patriot PNY and other cards crap out....including 1 transcend...but in the last 4 yrs not 1 transcend failure and my cards span from 80x to 600x .... the software I have is Lexar's IMage Rescue and Stellar Phoenix's Photo Recovery .... .... I bought Stellar's software cause i had a stack of corrupted DVD's that were only a week old and Image Rescue is onoy good for memory cards......Stellar recovered my corrupted DVD files and I have never burned another DVD for archiving my raw files....

time2smile

I had a 16 fail on my D90, just use 8 in it. In my D7000 only use 32 cards, no problems yet.

jasonstone

and normally I would but..... (there's always a but eh )

I'm travelling for 3 weeks without a laptop, I will have an Epson P-5000 but it's only got 73GB useable space. I'm trying to find a way to shoot on cards, back up to P-5000, for 3 weeks and have it all duplicated - so no formatting of cards and also can't back up in the camera as that means I have to buy 2X as many cards.

So 32GB X 2 in camera (plus 2X16GB i already have) to shoot RAW 14bit uncompressed over 3 weeks.

not sure if I made that clear

perroneford wrote: »

On a D7000?

It's got two card slots for a reason. Put a 32GB or 64GB card in each slot, set the second slot for backup, and shoot. Every camera I own is set this way. Well, all the one's with two slots anyway.

I've had a couple of card failures. And I only use Sandisk cards. In both cases, I removed the offending card, finished my shoot, and after making sure everything downloaded properly, tossed the card in the trash.

Yes Sandisk cards are extremely reliable. But I still make backups in-camera.

time2smile

If you run out of room, then just buy more cards in the US. 32gb cards are around $40 each.

kurtw

If the real question is "do cards fail?" then I can at least answer that. Yes they can.

I had a 16GB card fail on me recently. First it corrupted one photo from an import, and then on the next use it corrupted to the point where the computer wouldn't recognize it and it couldn't be formatted either in the computer or the camera. (Since someone will ask, I'll tell you that it was a Transcend 400x. But it's only fair to note that I had a bad electrical connection in the body, now fixed, which manifested a number of other issues so there's no way to say for sure that it was a defective card).

As for which size to use, it's a decision with tradeoffs and practicalities to consider. That I can't answer for you. Lots of small cards, in addition to being a pain in the ass, are easier to lose/misplace than one card in your camera. And my wild guess would be that most card corruptions/failures happen when handling the cards, e.g. removing and inserting them in the camera or reader. (just to be the devil's advocate)

Whatever size you use, the most important thing is that you should import/copy/backup all images as often as possible because lost images are lost images.

jasonstone

thanks everyone - i've decided i'm going to go BIG - 2 X 32GB
this is because i will be out and about with the family and i'm clumsy at the best of times so my potential to drop/lose/etc. a card is perhaps a little higher than average - so to avoid that I'll go large and just backup each night - which I'm good at doing.

Again thanks for all the pros and cons and I will make sure I shoot the card full before formatting again and trusting that it's all A-OK