SD Cards

[Poppy42]

Don't know if this has been covered before.  I'm a retired professional photographer.  SD cards can fail resulting in the loss of your pictures.  There are programs that you can purchase that will help get most, but not all of your pics back.  Just because your SD card can hold thousands of pics, don't do it.  When I travel, I take at least one SD card per camera per day.  The worst case scenario is that I'll lose some pics. 

[Loonbeam]

We've covered this a lot.  Most people either do as you suggest (I used to until I went XQD which are WAY more expensive (but also less failure prone) or carry some form of backup.

 

On vacation, I shoot raw to the XQD and jpg to the secondary SD and swap out the SDs daily, XQDs every couple of days.  That way I always have something.

 

[pierces]

3 hours ago, Poppy42 said:

Don't know if this has been covered before.  I'm a retired professional photographer.  SD cards can fail resulting in the loss of your pictures.  There are programs that you can purchase that will help get most, but not all of your pics back.  Just because your SD card can hold thousands of pics, don't do it.  When I travel, I take at least one SD card per camera per day.  The worst case scenario is that I'll lose some pics. 

 

Like loonbeam said, this has been covered a lot, but since it is an important factoid, it doesn't hurt to ping people and remind them once in a while. Though I have never had an SD card fail, I still back up at the end of every day (via UTG card reader to my Kindle Fire these days) and always take a backup set or six. 

 

A few minutes at the end of the day are nothing compared to paying for another cruise to capture lost images again and if they were once-in-a-lifetime shots, good luck getting Dr. Who's attention for a ride in the TARDIS back to re-take them.

 

Dave

 

 

[Crew News]

I once thought that I had lost everything on a SD card but used EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover everything.

 

Now I copy every card to laptop, portable SSD, and portable hard disk every cruise evening before bedtime.  Once all the backups are completed and I cull the copied photographs, I reformat the card for the next days use.

[ski ww]

Yesterday when I tried to take my SD card out of the camera it was jammed & would not come out, I took it to the local camera store & they removed it. The little tiny plastic strip between the copper contact points on the card had come loose & jammed. I got home cut the rest of them off and was able to down load the pictures. I was worried that maybe some had stayed in the camera but I tried a fresh card & it worked fine.That's the second time that happened to me. 

[Poppy42]

We travel with an 11.6" laptop (2 lbs) and download every night.  When we get home, I download to my desktop and back-up to an external HD.  I also use Carbonite as an off-site back-up - backs-up every night automatically. 

[pierces]

9 hours ago, ski ww said:

Yesterday when I tried to take my SD card out of the camera it was jammed & would not come out, I took it to the local camera store & they removed it. The little tiny plastic strip between the copper contact points on the card had come loose & jammed. I got home cut the rest of them off and was able to down load the pictures. I was worried that maybe some had stayed in the camera but I tried a fresh card & it worked fine.That's the second time that happened to me. 

 

ski ww: Not insinuating you bought cheap memory but your experience illustrates my point.

 

Another aspect of memory that can't be mentioned too often is the need to know your source. Never, ever buy cheap memory on eBay and be extremely cautious about buying expensive memory there. At one time it was estimated that 75% of name brand memory on eBay  (mostly SanDisk) was counterfeit. 

 

Saving $50 on memory cards to use in a low-four-figure camera for a mid- to high-four-figure trip is the definition of false economy.

 

I used to do business with a race car parts manufacturer that made excellent but expensive parts. They had a great tag line: "But the best and cry once!"

 

Good, fast, name brand memory from a trusted source is cheap peace of mind in the long run.

 

 Dave

Edited November 23, 2018 by pierces

[ski ww]

I thought I was buying name brand, it's a SanDisk Ultra II, 4GB  from Staples. Main thing is I recovered all my pictures.

[Loonbeam]

Actually if that happens more than once, may be an issue with the contacts in the camera being misaligned and damaging the card.   I know I read something about that happening a few years ago, but I cannot find the article....

 

 

[peety3]

I've had the plastic strip come loose on several SanDisk cards. I snip them, and if I snip three, I toss the card. It happens, and it's a risk with that form factor. CF risks bent pins, so there's almost always a risk of some form.

 

We stick to 16GB or 32GB cards, download/triplicate/verify before formatting, and life is good. We've had a couple cards flake out; once the data is recovered, the card goes in the trash.

[isosika]

Years ago when Netbook computers were popular I bought a nice Samsung.  We take it with us on every trip, land or sea.  In addition, I have two 1TB portable hard disk drives that come along, as well.

 

Each night the photos from my wife's camera and mine are copied to the computer, then to each of the portable drives.

 

For our cameras we each have two 64GB and one 32GB cards.  

 

Never lost a picture yet, knock on wood.