How much does a dual-card slot matter?

[SandyP]

It's actually the photographers duty to budget and hire a 2nd/backup shooter. Most really good ones have one or two people they prefer to work with. I have two people that I will ask when I'm shooting, I know someone that asks ME to 2nd shoot for them all year for all their stuff. Part of the business plan, if not, I'd seriously doubt how seriously you take this!

 

[Marsu42]

Part of the business plan, if not, I'd seriously doubt how seriously you take this!

I'm taking this very seriously, that's all the question fuss is about. But afaik at the start of a business plan it's not "spend €10000 for equipment, hire two paid people and then get €250 for a full day wedding to divide up". There has to be some sane investment-cost-income relation, or *else* I wouldn't be serious about it and broke in no time.

As you know the core camera equipment is only one part, the other is misc gear for lighting, cases, tripods, decent clothes ... and then I'll have to do advertising and so on and be able to bridge the first time when clients won't queue up to hire me.

Like it or not, I'm not at your level (yet), and also have to be competitive via the price. And paying less than the for the seasoned photog next door also means some tradeoffs for clients - but some will like this if it's about the budget decision "me, no pro photog at all or uncle joe with his p&s".

 

[wockawocka]

I always shoot with two cards and haven't noticed a write speed issue.

What is of absolute paramount importance to me is the ability to write to two cards at once though.
I would pay probably 50% more for a camera with dual card slots. It's that important to me.

 

[Marsu42]

What is of absolute paramount importance to me is the ability to write to two cards at once though. I would pay probably 50% more for a camera with dual card slots. It's that important to me.

Why's that? Because of the added reliability and protection against a faulty card, user errors (i.e. you deleting stuff by accident), or because you give the second card to clients right away?

 

[wockawocka]

What is of absolute paramount importance to me is the ability to write to two cards at once though. I would pay probably 50% more for a camera with dual card slots. It's that important to me.

Why's that? Because of the added reliability and protection against a faulty card, user errors (i.e. you deleting stuff by accident), or because you give the second card to clients right away?

In case one card fails. That's the only reason.

For me the business I'm in there's generally no retakes. Whilst card failure is rare it does happen. I'd rather not have it happen to me. Two cards reduces the chances of this happening to almost zero.

If I lose one wedding that's $1500. The law of averages mean I will get a card failure at one point in the future I'd rather put that money into a camera with dual slots.

It may seem a bit paranoid but it's one of those overlooked and preventable things that will bite you on the ass.
I run 2 x 128gb cards as well. So it's even more important to me. With seperate cards there is more chance of losing a card than card failure itself.

 

[Halfrack]

There are only 2 cameras that have SD and MFA - the 1dmk4 and the 5dmk3. The only thing I wish was that you could set it up to write every other to the specific cards.

If you're shooting something and want to send folks home with something, it's much cheaper to do it via SD. Toss in EyeFi doesn't do CF, and there's a reason to have both is solid.

 

[SandyP]

Yes, being able to write to a 2nd card is extremely safe and extremely useful. It's something that we have been missing on a 5D series camera for.. well.... since the 5D existed.

And truthfully, being a wedding photographer... it takes years to get established in any meaningful way. If you're lucky, only a year or two. But you should really be taking a year or two to 2nd shoot weddings to really get your style developed and sharpen your skills. This will also let you slowly upgrade your lenses and gear to a better point. It will also let you figure out, over time, what you truly need to do your job. Everyone is different.

I bought my 5D2 the first month or two after it came out, along with a 70-200 and a 27-40, it was a huge mistake, because I ended up selling both zooms and replacing them with primes. If I would have taken my own advice..... I would have done the right thing the first time around and just stuck it out.

 

[RLPhoto]

Grasping to straws if there is any reason for me to get a 5d3 instead of a 5d2 I'd like to get you opinions about the importance of the dual-card slot. Only the 5d3 has it, Nikon puts it even in consumer models like the d7000 which was very appreciated in reviews. The question is: What's it good for?

• Speed: on the 5d3, that can't be the reason because the sd slot is crippled and much slower than udma7 cf. Does it make a difference if writing hires jpeg to sd and raw to cf in comparison to writing both to cf like on the 5d2?

• Reliability: brides are said to be somewhat grumpy when your no-name budget cf card breaks without jpeg backup on a second card, if you are a high profile shooter this could even ruin your business. The question is: how large is the likehood of cf/sd cards breaking without being recoverable, and are there differences between brands?

I've always shot Raw+Small Basic JPG so I can have a small backup files if the RAW was corrupted for some reason and to have a quick thumbnail for reference.

I'd probably use the SD slot for my Small JPG's and the CF for Large RAW's. It should buffer quickly because the Small JPG's are only a few hundred KB's.

As for finding a reason to upgrade to the MK3, If your MK2 is doing you justice, Wait until the MK4 is released. ;D

 

[awinphoto]

Now if you're talking better AF and 100% viewfinder

Can you give me a quick hint why a 100% viewfinder is so important? Because for out-of camera shot presentations? Personally, I often crop my pictures in post anyway and a less than 100% vf gives some margin for framing errors.

Knowing where your image is going to be cropped is vital in the professional world... Lets say you're shooting for a magazine cover... you are framing not only your subject, but allowing extra room for copy and title tags, maybe even a mailer box and whatever the magazine requires... I also shot for a pro sports photog and knowing the space you have around the subject is vital in knowing how much room he has to add his crop or add his optional software frames/etc to upsell the client... Of course you can always shoot wider than normal and crop later, but then you lose wasted data and having the biggest file possible is the best case situation in all applications. When shooting for real estate and architecture shots, i've been in tight rooms where we were using 16mm lenses (equivalent on FF) and a big honking bed in the room... With a 96% coverage, the bed would sometimes crop down to the bottom of the frame, and you had to shoot, check, and adjust to see if the extra 4% bought you space you needed or not... Sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't, and in those situations, fisheye wasn't going to give us the look we wanted, so sometimes it really is that crucial and while some cropping may be inevitable given what you are shooting and how you shoot it, having the best possible product to use and knowing right away if you got the shot framed 100% or not can be the difference of resetting up your shot or not on large production shots.

 

[bdunbar79]

You have to have dual card slots OR a backup photographer. I have been out just shooting whatever when I was bored and my CF card failed for no reason. However, I just switched the SDHC card in slot 2 and continued on. At a wedding this would not be good at all, if it happened without a backup card slot or a 2nd shooter. You could of course replace the card quickly, which I think if you had a 5D Mark II and were the only shooter, you'd have to be ready to do. Put the extra cards in your pocket.

 

[Pixel_crab]

Or let's put it more simply:

If you do not have enough space, a card failure... What would be the widest card to be found in stores?

SD cards.

It is a common consumer good, which you can find in virtually any large shop or mall. A CF card is quite specific.
You may go to a music shop and find a SD card, but you're not sure to find a CF, ditto for a supermarket or any non-camera-specific area.
Many people use SD card in point & shoot or other cameras.

If you travel a lot and need to be operationnal easily therefore a dual SD/ CF card is the right option.

 

[Marsu42]

And truthfully, being a wedding photographer... it takes years to get established in any meaningful way. If you're lucky, only a year or two. But you should really be taking a year or two to 2nd shoot weddings to really get your style developed and sharpen your skills.

Thanks for the warning, I do realize that and am calculating at least 1.5 years before I can see how much potential there is for me in the wedding biz and if I could generate my income from this. Still, everybody has to start somewhere...

As for being 2nd shooter, this is hardly my choice but more the matter of potential 1st shooters: There will be many applicants, and as far as I read it people aren't very excited about educating their future competition in the first place. So it might just be I'll have to try this on my own, might take a friend as a backup shooter along for the first contracts.

Concerning "style": I appreciate the idea and am rather particular about my pictures, but as far as I understand it for your average lower-paid wedding "style" hasn't got anything to do with it, but rather taking shots of happy people and the critical moments. That might be different if you want to try to get away earning $1000+ from a shot...

You have to have dual card slots OR a backup photographer. I have been out just shooting whatever when I was bored and my CF card failed for no reason.

Hargnnnnn... I'd really hate to pay $3500 for a camera body, but still "better safe than sorry". Were you able to recover the files from the failed cf card?

 

[briansquibb]

And truthfully, being a wedding photographer... it takes years to get established in any meaningful way. If you're lucky, only a year or two. But you should really be taking a year or two to 2nd shoot weddings to really get your style developed and sharpen your skills.

Thanks for the warning, I do realize that and am calculating at least 1.5 years before I can see how much potential there is for me in the wedding biz and if I could generate my income from this. Still, everybody has to start somewhere...

As for being 2nd shooter, this is hardly my choice but more the matter of potential 1st shooters: There will be many applicants, and as far as I read it people aren't very excited about educating their future competition in the first place. So it might just be I'll have to try this on my own, might take a friend as a backup shooter along for the first contracts.

Concerning "style": I appreciate the idea and am rather particular about my pictures, but as far as I understand it for your average lower-paid wedding "style" hasn't got anything to do with it, but rather taking shots of happy people and the critical moments. That might be different if you want to try to get away earning $1000+ from a shot...

You could adopt a PJ style which is the way I do it for most of the reception photos. I always get a 'formal' pose with the B&G and the top groups where I know the lighting will be good, the focus will the perfect . Once these are in the bag I then change cards ....

It is so easy to get carried away with the artistic image when the clients just want the content perfect.

 

[Marsu42]

You could adopt a PJ style which is the way I do it for most of the reception photos. I always get a 'formal' pose with the B&G and the top groups where I know the lighting will be good, the focus will the perfect . Once these are in the bag I then change cards ....

It is so easy to get carried away with the artistic image when the clients just want the content perfect.

I've been advised to do the same to be on the safe side concerning "important" shots - but changing the cards is an additional safety factor for sure.

Concerning "artistic": I recon there have to be at least one or two of this kind to be posted on the website, so the photog can make everybody else believe that all shots are like this

 

[bdunbar79]

And truthfully, being a wedding photographer... it takes years to get established in any meaningful way. If you're lucky, only a year or two. But you should really be taking a year or two to 2nd shoot weddings to really get your style developed and sharpen your skills.

Thanks for the warning, I do realize that and am calculating at least 1.5 years before I can see how much potential there is for me in the wedding biz and if I could generate my income from this. Still, everybody has to start somewhere...

As for being 2nd shooter, this is hardly my choice but more the matter of potential 1st shooters: There will be many applicants, and as far as I read it people aren't very excited about educating their future competition in the first place. So it might just be I'll have to try this on my own, might take a friend as a backup shooter along for the first contracts.

Concerning "style": I appreciate the idea and am rather particular about my pictures, but as far as I understand it for your average lower-paid wedding "style" hasn't got anything to do with it, but rather taking shots of happy people and the critical moments. That might be different if you want to try to get away earning $1000+ from a shot...

You have to have dual card slots OR a backup photographer. I have been out just shooting whatever when I was bored and my CF card failed for no reason.

Hargnnnnn... I'd really hate to pay $3500 for a camera body, but still "better safe than sorry". Were you able to recover the files from the failed cf card?

It will tell you if it fails. If it fails, then switch cards quickly. That's what I did with my 5D Mark II. It will give you an error. When the error pops up, switch cards.

 

[Marsu42]

It will tell you if it fails. If it fails, then switch cards quickly. That's what I did with my 5D Mark II. It will give you an error. When the error pops up, switch cards.

So all previous shots on the failed card were ok except the one when the error occurred? I imagined if the cf fails, then it's really gone and wouldn't be recognized anymore (just happened to an usb stick of mine).

 

[bdunbar79]

No, my card reader at home was able to recover the files for some reason. It just wouldn't continue on writing to the card. The part of the card that recorded images is ok, it's the capacity beyond that that will not work. You could format a bad card and still shoot, say 56 photos, and then it fails again. At least that's what all of my failed cards did. Then I got smart and buy all SanDisk Pro 32GB CF cards, UDMA 7, 90 Mb/s and haven't had much trouble since.

 

[Philco]

From a wedding photography perspective, having never had the second card slot option on my previous 5D's and 5DII's, I see more value in affording two bodies going into your career than I do in spending the same money on the 5DIII alone. Now that I've gotten used to the 5DIII, I definitely prefer it for the way it handles and the color it produces, but I literally had to sell two 5DII's to get one. That being said, I've always shot with a body on each shoulder and I've never missed a shot due to card errors anyway. In a sudden 'oh-crap' moment I could always swap a card from the other body much faster than swapping lenses. Paying attention to how many shots are on your card leading up to important moments is part of the job anyway.

Someone mentioned shooting the whole day on a pair of 128GB cards, which I think is smart in terms of redundancy,
but there can also be drawbacks to not spreading the day out over several cards, if for instance your body is stolen at the end of the night ( It happened to one of my colleagues at a high-end venue...1DmkIII) then all of your pictures are gone. Odds are low, so I guess it all comes down to what we perceive to be the bigger risks.

 

[briansquibb]

Paying attention to how many shots are on your card leading up to important moments is part of the job anyway.

I change cards on both at fixed, planning points through the day - like after the ceremony, after the cake cutting.

I get away with 16gb cards that way - high speed aren't really needed most of the time, it isn't as if you are sitting on the shutter much.

 

[Marsu42]

I get away with 16gb cards that way - high speed aren't really needed most of the time, it isn't as if you are sitting on the shutter much.

Good advice, I'll try that, too - for an amateur, a larger card might be more convenient, but with fixed points to change smaller card's I'd feel a lot safer.

From a wedding photography perspective, having never had the second card slot option on my previous 5D's and 5DII's, I see more value in affording two bodies going into your career than I do in spending the same money on the 5DIII alone.

I've got my 60d camera and am going to buy some 5d - does that count as "two bodies" for you, tough not both are ff? I've gotten really used to the 60d and Magic Lantern, and as a second body with a faster lens even the crop sensor should do ok, or at least that's what I hope.

But shooting with two single-card bodies (60d+5d2) doesn't help for data redundancy if I shoot with the 5d2 most of the time and this card crashes. I've a Sandisc 32gb in my 60d, have shot 80k shots & video and it hasn't failed me yet - but still I'm getting a little paranoid reading other photog's experiences, and Murphy's Law dictates that it'll at the worst possible moment.