More SD Cards or Get a Netbook

[Lunchbox]

I already bought six Sandisk 16GB cards. They are about $61 each. If I need to buy 4 more, that's actually enough to buy a cheap netbook for backup purpose. Should I get more cards? or should I get a netbook..

your thought?

[krewcial]

You pay way too much ! You should be able to find 16 GB cards Class 6 for $35 or less a piece. I buy Transcend cards, they're as reliable as Sandisk's and a lot cheaper.

[Lunchbox]

No.. I can't take any chances. Even from my own photographer, two of his Trenscend card fail at first use. If it's vacation photo/video, no big deal. But those are for paid wedding jobs. I can't afford to lose any footage. Need something more reliable.

[kaydawgy]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002WE...1910660&sr=8-1 pick up a couple of these. Their class 10, great price and they havent failed me yet. I shot all day last week with 2 of these and it held up just as good as my Sandisk extreme class 10. The problem with getting a notebook unless you have an assistant that can bring it along everywhere you go, is that its time consuming to transfer and potentially miss some must-have footage.

[Bif]

Krewcial and Kaydawgy:

Please read Lunchbox's post. One of his photographers has had 2 Transcend card failures on first use. This pretty much follows what I have seen on extensive reading of card failures on all the forums I read. Transcend works for quite a few folks and all Transcend users FANATICALLY defend them...Except for the ones that have had problems on an important project.

I'm not a "brand snob", I'm all for saving money where it's reasonable and doesn't entail risk. I see FAR FEWER reports of SanDisk media failure than I do any other single brand. Transcend does seem to be statistically more reliable than Patriot or A-Data or Dane-Elec but they ARE NOT AS RELIABLE as SanDisk.

When Lunchbox OR ANY OTHER PRO user says they cannot take a chance, please do not disrespect them by suggesting they "pay too much" for their media, or in any way indicate their decision does not reflect the best interests of their professionalism.

I'm a retired studio wedding, portrait, and commercial photographer. NEVER would I have taken a chance on anything but the most reliable gear, materials, or professional lab services in any of my work. When pro's first started using digital photography in their work they almost exclusively relied on SanDisk media and for good reason.

Lunchbox has made a professional decision.

[kaydawgy]

Yes i read his post. It seems that the majority of people have purchased the cheaper Transcend class 6 cards. Which is why i spent a lil more and got the class 10 cards. Wasnt trying to disrespect his decision but rather help him with some ideas of ways to cut back some costs jumping into HDSLR work cuz we all know, this fun little hobby can get expensive as "fu__" I was just wanting to let him know that if he was skeptical about Transcend, know that i have compared the 2 brands as I have both and have found that Transcend class "10" works very well. Have spoke to several people and they have agreed this as well. But in actuality, it really all depends on what Taky feels comfortable with, not so much what everybody else thinks.

[zachmonky]

Yes i read his post. It seems that the majority of people have purchased the cheaper Transcend class 6 cards. Which is why i spent a lil more and got the class 10 cards. Wasnt trying to disrespect his decision but rather help him with some ideas of ways to cut back some costs jumping into HDSLR work cuz we all know, this fun little hobby can get expensive as "fu__" I was just wanting to let him know that if he was skeptical about Transcend, know that i have compared the 2 brands as I have both and have found that Transcend class "10" works very well. Have spoke to several people and they have agreed this as well. But in actuality, it really all depends on what Taky feels comfortable with, not so much what everybody else thinks.

I might try this, my class 6 16gb Transcend stops movie recording in hot situations almost instantly.

[AndreCallot]

Even if the Sandisk cards fail less, they still fail too much. SD cards are just not an archival format. I think the netbook idea is a good one. Also, you can use the netbook as an external monitor.

One of the advantages of immediately getting your footage off the SD cards is you know *immediately* if there's a problem with the media. The only thing worse than losing footage due to media failure is finding out that the card failed after you're already home and can't reshoot.

It would certainly be nice if there were a brand of SD card that was reliable enough that you didn't have to worry about media failure, but that doesn't exist yet. Since the whole card fails at once, you can minimize your risk by using 4GB cards instead of 16GB cards. It sucks to have to constantly switch out your cards, but there's a 4GB limit on file size for video anyway, so it's not such a huge additional hassle.

[Lunchbox]

Thanks for all the info.... I am not offended in anyway. Always encourage discussion. I'm aware of Trenscend class 10 is cheaper than Sandisk class 6. But still, my bottom line is I can't take that chance. I am okay using trenscend or A-data for my personal use. I have an A-data class 6. During my test, the "buffering" icon shows up regularly on my T2i. But I never seen once with Sandisk.

I will have an assistant, that's why using a netbook would be an option for me. Even with a notebook found out there is problem with the memory card, it's already too late. There is no second take in weddings.

That time my photographers have fail transcend card. He lost photos from the wedding. But good that there is a second shooter and he shot with 2 to 3 cameras (all on his shoulder). So it wasn't too big of a problem. But as video, if I lost 45 minutes of videos on a SD card, it's quite devastating.

[Dr. Benway]

Each to his own and risk is on the shoulders of the individual. I use Chinese knock-offs of Sandisk Extreme CF cards (4gb and 8gb) but only for stills; they are still going strong. Would you consider using the netbook as a means of writing to a 64gb flashdrive?

[Lunchbox]

I'm considering using netbook with a harddrive not SSD to copy the content from SD card so I can reuse them. It was used to be some portable harddrive with memory card slot. Those things cost $300. It's enough to buy a netbook.

[Bif]

Yes i read his post. It seems that the majority of people have purchased the cheaper Transcend class 6 cards. Which is why i spent a lil more and got the class 10 cards.

I'm not considering just T2i and not even looking at Class (6) vs Class (10). I follow professional commercial, portrait, and wedding forums at all the sites I can find, including those hosted by professional color labs that service studios. In addition I stay in touch with a lot of my former competitors/colleagues. Using not just SDHC but also CF cards and almost none of them would be caught trusting their jobs to Transcend, they've been using SanDisk exclusively ever since converting from Vericolor film to digital or from tape to flash media.

Wasnt trying to disrespect his decision but rather help him with some ideas of ways to cut back some costs jumping into HDSLR work cuz we all know, this fun little hobby can get expensive as

It's not a "fun little hobby" for him. He does some big dollar weddings out there on the West coast among other things.

I was just wanting to let him know that if he was skeptical about Transcend, know that i have compared the 2 brands as I have both and have found that Transcend class "10" works very well.

You and I could both compare our results between the two brands and as long as we find that one works just as well as the other it means NOTHING because we are statistically TOTALLY INSIGNIFICANT. Now if one or the other fails that might mean something to us as individuals.

Have spoke to several people and they have agreed this as well. But in actuality, it really all depends on what Taky feels comfortable with, not so much what everybody else thinks.

We can always find some who agree with us, that by itself means little except that we have "company". I don't criticize your choice of card brand, you don't feel the chips are down when you pick up a camera and that's your concern. Having managed to get through half a lifetime of wedding work without having a customer come after my scalp I won't take a chance on anything my former colleagues won't use (and I don't hardly do anything for others anymore). We used to be vulnerable to lawsuit if we had a malfunction at a wedding and didn't have complete backup outfit handy - Some even had judgements against them because their "backup" gear wasn't identical quality as the primary, for me it meant a pair of Hasselblad 500CMs, 8 magazines, 2 strobes at every wedding.

I don't mean to be contrary and argumentive here, but I've seen cases where someone was on the spot bad for failure to deliver what was contracted in the way of imagery.

[Lunchbox]

.. He does some big dollar weddings out there on the West coast among other things.

I totally disagree with you on this

[Bif]

I might try this, my class 6 16gb Transcend stops movie recording in hot situations almost instantly.

That right there ought to telling us something! While maybe technically not a card failure, where would this leave Taky at an outdoor wedding on a hot day?

I still have and use 2 8GB Class (6) cards and sometimes do a fair amount of shooting in 100 degree temps in the hot Texas sun. Never had the camera shut down on my and have only seen the warning icon once.

[Bif]

I totally disagree with you on this

Oops...

...I guess I made the wrong assumption there. I stand corrected.

I got the impression you were "fielding" 2-3 cameras and operators at some weddings. Should have tied my typing fingers together...

[BarteS]

Are you referring to photo or video? If it's about photos, why don't you get yourself an imagetank (or two if you wish to play very safe)? Possibly the new ones are also able to store videos, or the devices are very dumb (in this a good thing) and just care about getting a file from card to harddrive.

[Janke]

I only have Transcend SDHC cards. Bought via mail from our Åland islands, they're tax-free, 16 GB cards costing 28.80 euros, at today's exchange rate that's around $36.

Of the fourteen Transcend cards I have, none has failed, HOWEVER, I do get the "buffer meter" occasionally, and the camera has stopped recoding once, but those cards were not freshly formatted, i.e. they had a lot of erased file space.

With a freshly formatted card, no buffer meter has ever come up. This is an important consideration!

BTW, hard disks can fail, too...

[kaydawgy]

Okay well, nevermind anything I said then. Sandisk = Good! Transcend = Bad! As for the "fun little hobby" line, I was merely speaking in my behalf I guess. Not implying that people aren't making a profession outta this. There are people who do this full time and make a damn good living out of it. I am a medical lab technician at a hospital laboratory and have worked there for the last 5 years. That is my profession. Photo and video work would be "my hobby." Even though I have made an additional income from such a hobby, i wouldn't in anyway considerate this as my second job. So for those of you who do this professionally, RITE ONE! I'm jealous. Everytime I look into a microscope, I keep wishing it were the viewfinder of my camera

[krewcial]

Krewcial and Kaydawgy:

Please read Lunchbox's post. One of his photographers has had 2 Transcend card failures on first use. This pretty much follows what I have seen on extensive reading of card failures on all the forums I read. Transcend works for quite a few folks and all Transcend users FANATICALLY defend them...Except for the ones that have had problems on an important project.

He posted about the failing Transcend cards AFTER I posted.
My experience and plenty of other people's is that Transcend cards work fine : http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdc...dhc-cards.html

Of course, every card can fail, some brands more likely/often than others.
I started out with Sandisks, which work a treat, but I also got myself 2 16GB Transcends that work great. Why ? Cos they cost way less than Sandisks, which is a consideration when investing in SD cards for over 70 GB capacity.

I also do professional work by the way, so I can't afford to loose footage either.

If a card fails on the first use, that's just a bad batch and can be returned to the shop. Also, as Janke pointed out : correctly formatting the card IN the camera does make a difference.

[Lunchbox]

...I got the impression you were "fielding" 2-3 cameras and operators at some weddings. Should have tied my typing fingers together...

Yes I will be shooting with an assistant with two T2i most of the time. Then I have a third one on Merlin and slider. =)

[Lunchbox]

I format the A-Data and the buffering icon still show once in a while. But yet, I still haven't seen it with the Sandisk. It just gives me a peace of mind. I did order four Trenscend 16gb and two 32gb from amazon before. Then after talking to my photographer, and remember how miserable I would be if those card failed, I cancelled all the order and go with SD card.

I think I might just get 3 more Sandisk for now.

[jet]

Guess i must be missing something Janke but why have you so many cards, i thought the whole idea of tapeless was loading the video from the card to a drive where the files are stored and made into whatever one wants ie discs tapes whatever, i only have 2 16gb sandisc cards and erase after loading and checking footage.

[krewcial]

Guess i must be missing something Janke but why have you so many cards, i thought the whole idea of tapeless was loading the video from the card to a drive where the files are stored and made into whatever one wants ie discs tapes whatever, i only have 2 16gb sandisc cards and erase after loading and checking footage.

If you're shooting a wedding you probably won't have time to transfer footage to a drive or laptop.

Remember that 32 GB is less than 1.5 hours recording time so you do the math.

And when you shoot with multiple camera's, you need at least a couple of cards per camera.

[Janke]

Jet: if you're shooting 12 to 16 hours of footage for a documentary, out in the boondocks, and don't always have the time to transfer your stuff right away, it's good to have a lot of card space. I also have several batteries for the T2i/550D...

I will erase the cards and re-use them for the next project only after my client (the TV network) has received and approved the DigiBeta tape... And before you ask, yes, I have the footage on two external hard disks, also. Can't afford to lose it, card or disk failures are possible...

(PS: I'm used to shooting on 35mm film stock - SDHC card are dirt cheap compared to that, 400 ft of film, i.e. 4 minutes, costs as much as ALL my cards together...)

[krewcial]

Jet: if you're shooting 12 to 16 hours of footage for a documentary, out in the boondocks, and don't always have the time to transfer your stuff right away, it's good to have a lot of card space. I also have several batteries for the T2i/550D...

Cosign : I currently have 6 batteries + a battery grip with 6 Sanyo eneloops, just in case ...