Total File Size - All Your Images and Keep or Delete

[RLPhoto]

I currently have 1,750GB of RAW files from Film Scans, 10D, Rebel XSI, 5Dc, 7D, & 5D3 cameras. Lightroom handles it fantastically and I can easily view progress from camera to camera.

[cliffwang]

I carry 80GB cards with me to those.

80GB memory cards? Never seen that. CF? SD?

I guess 32GB x2 + 16GB x1

[cliffwang]

I believe I keep only about 20% of my images.  I have about 100 to 200 GB photos, and some of them are from my old camera jpg files.  That's already too many files for me.  Thus, deleting images is very important for me.  Here is how I usually do nowadays.

1. Take photos.
2. Move them to my computer and decide which files I will keep.
3. Move the files I want to keep to my storage server
4. Do easy process for the files I need to share or keep for myself from lightroom
5. Output those files in JPG file format and store in a JPG subfolder
6. Synchronize the storage server with backup drive

[tpatana]

I carry 80GB cards with me to those.

80GB memory cards? Never seen that. CF? SD?

I guess 32GB x2 + 16GB x1

Yup, didn't mean one card 80GB, but total combined.

[agierke]

I carry 80GB cards with me to those.

80GB memory cards? Never seen that. CF? SD?

i currently have 108 GB CF cards in my bag at all times. if i have to shoot 2 weddings in a weekend i come very close to using every card i have. if i shoot multiple jobs throughout the week, a card used gets rotated out of the bag until i know that it is dowloaded and backed up (not always able to keep up with downloading immediately after a job)

[FatDaddyJones]

I hear ya. I just got a new 64gb lexar cf card, and with shooting lots of video  plus a few raw shots to boot, it doesn't take long to fill up. I have a few 16 gb cards but I just get tired of swapping them out so often when I'm in the middle of shooting.

[cayenne]

Of course now I notice the card reader comment.  I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer.  I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will.  I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).

Interesting, I'd also been coached by some more experienced photogs I've been talking with and picking their brains, that they said they never hook their cameras directly with USB to the computers to transfer pics...that they only did it when necessary for firmware upgrades.

Not sure how much of that was superstition....but, I figured a card reader is easy to use, often faster, I have a multiple card intake on mine, so I can plug in a CF and SD card at the same time and start copying off from both....and get back to shooting while those are copying off.

The card reader seems to transfer a bit faster than directly from the camera so far for me....anyone else experience that?

Cayenne

[FatDaddyJones]

Of course now I notice the card reader comment.  I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer.  I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will.  I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).

Interesting, I'd also been coached by some more experienced photogs I've been talking with and picking their brains, that they said they never hook their cameras directly with USB to the computers to transfer pics...that they only did it when necessary for firmware upgrades.

Not sure how much of that was superstition....but, I figured a card reader is easy to use, often faster, I have a multiple card intake on mine, so I can plug in a CF and SD card at the same time and start copying off from both....and get back to shooting while those are copying off.

The card reader seems to transfer a bit faster than directly from the camera so far for me....anyone else experience that?

Cayenne

I'm sure what each of us do or don't do is according to our own good or bad experiences with things in the past. Most are probably over-generalizations. Even though I don't use card readers because I lost four cards full of photos in card readers, I'm sure that not everyone has had the same experience. Otherwise, you wouldn't see card readers being sold everywhere. The same goes for the USB transfer from the people you've talked to. I've never had a problem transferring my pics via USB. The point is, pick what works best for you.

Some card readers can utilize the speed of higher speed cards, but there is always a bottleneck at the slowest common denominator - whether it's the camera, USB, card, card reader, HDD, etc.

[PeterJ]

Of course now I notice the card reader comment.  I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer.  I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will.  I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).

Interesting, I'd also been coached by some more experienced photogs I've been talking with and picking their brains, that they said they never hook their cameras directly with USB to the computers to transfer pics...that they only did it when necessary for firmware upgrades.

Not sure how much of that was superstition....but, I figured a card reader is easy to use, often faster, I have a multiple card intake on mine, so I can plug in a CF and SD card at the same time and start copying off from both....and get back to shooting while those are copying off.

The card reader seems to transfer a bit faster than directly from the camera so far for me....anyone else experience that?

I've always assumed pros do it that way for the reasons you mention, plus buying multiple card readers is pretty economical if you want to download a few CF cards at the same time. And they are often swapping multiple cards anyway for redundancy / capacity reasons.

Being an amateur I'm not too concerned with speed so use the USB path. Most of the time I'm only using a single card and my reasoning is the USB port is probably more robust and cheaper / easier to repair than a CF card slot if it does fail. Plus while I have a 5D3 now previously my cameras were single slot, so a broken USB port would give me the 'Plan B' of using a reader until it was repaired.