High Capacity CF Cards

[Mark D Segal]

Michael, thanks for bringing these new products to our attention.

I have several questions:

(1) A normal expectation would be that the manufacturers have done extensive testing of their products to be able to establish probable failure rates well before they unleash them on the market. Do we know anything about whether this company has done this and what the results are? In the case of Sandisk, for example, they've been around for so long and the product so well known that this question has less urgency (perhaps, but see below). But for new entrants perhaps it is of more than passing interest.

(2) There are different kinds of failure - ranging from say corrupted data in one file to total failure of the card. Again, is there any way to unearth information particularly from new entrants about how their products compare with the more established brands in the North American market?

(3) Is it really good strategy to use such high capacity cards in a field situation where one may not have the time to do frequent back-ups during a shoot? Suppose you use a 32 GB card and by the time you've loaded it with 25GB of unrepeatable non-backed-up photos it fails totally and completely? With a 4GB card, by definition the consequencies of risk are lower because you can't lose as much. I think with these ultra-high capacity cards, one may perhaps need to be more mindfdul of failure risk and more prepared to back-up the card in-situ well before the end of a day's shoot.

So in a nutshell - yes, the technology is advancing in terms of speed and capacity, but little is said about what the providers themselves know of their product reliability, and perhaps a greater emphasis on managing risk needs to be considered.

[Rob C]

Michael, thanks for bringing these new products to our attention.

I have several questions:

(1) A normal expectation would be that the manufacturers have done extensive testing of their products to be able to establish probable failure rates well before they unleash them on the market. Do we know anything about whether this company has done this and what the results are? In the case of Sandisk, for example, they've been around for so long and the product so well known that this question has less urgency (perhaps, but see below). But for new entrants perhaps it is of more than passing interest.

(2) There are different kinds of failure - ranging from say corrupted data in one file to total failure of the card. Again, is there any way to unearth information particularly from new entrants about how their products compare with the more established brands in the North American market?

(3) Is it really good strategy to use such high capacity cards in a field situation where one may not have the time to do frequent back-ups during a shoot? Suppose you use a 32 GB card and by the time you've loaded it with 25GB of unrepeatable non-backed-up photos it fails totally and completely? With a 4GB card, by definition the consequencies of risk are lower because you can't lose as much. I think with these ultra-high capacity cards, one may perhaps need to be more mindfdul of failure risk and more prepared to back-up the card in-situ well before the end of a day's shoot.

So in a nutshell - yes, the technology is advancing in terms of speed and capacity, but little is said about what the providers themselves know of their product reliability, and perhaps a greater emphasis on managing risk needs to be considered.

All good questions, Mark, and part of the reason for carrying two cameras and not as spares, but as security changes.

Failure isn't peculiar to digital - I always worked with either two Nikons or 'blads in film days for that very reason. There is a droll tale told about Bailey, Donovan and Swannel having a conversation one day about how many things could go wrong on a shoot. I believe they reached a total somewhere in the three hundreds. For myself, it happened in Cyprus in May of '78 on a Teacher's Whisky calendar shoot when two rolls of Kodachrome turned out completely black - it was on a shingle beach at Aphrodite's Birthplace, where even the small drag from tiny waves at the foot of the rock was enough to make getting out of the sea a problem (never mind trying the trick from a huge shell - which we were not doing, regardless of Boticelli's suggestion). When we got there, my wife demanded to be let out of the car so she could walk down the small slope to the beach. Now, neither of us was particularly superstitious - other than refusing to walk under ladders for basic safety reasons - but something about the place was overpoweringly unpleasant. Yet, the client who was there experienced problems with neither his feelings nor his own camera and film...

You just never know with photography - you could be offending anyone.

Rob C

[Jim Pascoe]

(3) Is it really good strategy to use such high capacity cards in a field situation where one may not have the time to do frequent back-ups during a shoot? Suppose you use a 32 GB card and by the time you've loaded it with 25GB of unrepeatable non-backed-up photos it fails totally and completely? With a 4GB card, by definition the consequencies of risk are lower because you can't lose as much. I think with these ultra-high capacity cards, one may perhaps need to be more mindfdul of failure risk and more prepared to back-up the card in-situ well before the end of a day's shoot.

So in a nutshell - yes, the technology is advancing in terms of speed and capacity, but little is said about what the providers themselves know of their product reliability, and perhaps a greater emphasis on managing risk needs to be considered.

Regarding point 3, This has always been a talking point.  When 1GB cards started to become common place, photographers were saying perhaps it would be better to use four 256mb cards to safeguard pictures.  Then when 4GB became the norm, perhaps we should use four 1GB cards.  I use a 16GB card for weddings, which is normally enough capacity without needing to change.  The card stays nice and safe in the camera, which I am unlikely to loose, unlike a few CF cards in my bag.  Then I do have the luxury of a 1ds, which has two card slots, and duplicate the files in fine jpeg to an 8GB SD card.  A 1GB card in my camera holds less that 40 pictures.  Each photographer will have their own attitude towards the convenience/risk ratio.  Once more people start to shoot video with these cameras 32GB cards will I am sure seem quite small capacity in a couple of years anyway.

I should add that I am not blind to the risk of card failure, though I have never suffered one, hence the comfort factor of having a camera with two card slots for weddings.

Jim

[michael]

The solution is simple. Backup early, and backup often.

A device like a Hyperdrive is good insurance. I also like something like a small solid state drive which can be put in ones pocket to guard against loss or theft of ones laptop or external drives when working on location.

Michael

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Michael,

I like my hyperdrives, but have some bad experience.

First hyperdrive (an old model I had) suddenly quit working, didn't recognize file format. I had a new camera at that time but the problem occured all of sudden on a vacation trip.

The next one broke down after a year.

So I like them but I have a bit of negative experience regarding reliability.

Best regards
Erik

The solution is simple. Backup early, and backup often.

A device like a Hyperdrive is good insurance. I also like something like a small solid state drive which can be put in ones pocket to guard against loss or theft of ones laptop or external drives when working on location.

Michael

[Mark D Segal]

Michael's point is obviously correct. One just has to remember and be able to do it. Erik, yes, the first Hyperdrive models were unreliable. I sent mine back. But the new Colorspace models are really very good.

[Rob C]

Michael's point is obviously correct. One just has to remember and be able to do it. Erik, yes, the first Hyperdrive models were unreliable. I sent mine back. But the new Colorspace models are really very good.

I have no idea what a Hyperdrive is - apart from space-fiction - so could somebody explain, please?

Rob C

[KeithR]

I have no idea what a Hyperdrive is - apart from space-fiction - so could somebody explain, please?

Rob C

This might explain it.
http://www.hypershop.com/

[Mark D Segal]

It's a small, high-capacity, high-speed device that allows you to insert a CF card and download the images to its internal hard-drive without the use of a computer. Very handy. Use it in the field (if and when you can), then you can download the stored images to your computer - acts just like any external USB drive. You can buy it with different drive capacities. You can read about it here: Hyperdrive Colorspace

[Rob C]

Thanks for the rapid responses, guys!

I realise now that you were talking about something that Epson also makes for storage of files from cameras - seems like a good idea, especially if you also own a few extra cards, because then you can have both belts and braces!

Thanks again for clearing this up for me.

Rob C

[Mark D Segal]

Yes Rob, and Epson isn't the only other one of those gadgets - if you go to B&H website you'll see there a number of them. I think what distinguishes the Colorspace is the speed - it's REAL fast. Epson's is wonderful for the beautiful viewing screen - but I don't need that - I leave the viewing till later when I have a real computer display - I treat these devices simply as rapid storage, which is primarily what they are for.

[David Sutton]

Rob, I have an older Hyperdrive (without a screen) and it has turned into a “must have” device when travelling. I put in the cards at day's end or whenever, being battery driven it doesn't matter, and it copies over the files. Then I put the card into the laptop, use LR to import and also to save to an extra usb powered hard drive. The laptop goes in the backpack, the usb drive in my pocket and the Hyperdrive in the suitcase. I'm going to get those photos home or perish in the attempt! The Hyperdrive also charges up my AA flash batteries overnight.
David

[EduPerez]

I do not like hyperdrives... Those devices use a hard disk drive (HDD) to store the files, and HDDs are easy to break. Small units, made for portable computers, are more durable than their desktop counterparts; but even those are easier to break than a memory card. Memory cards are more expensive, I know, but unless someone needs lots of space, I would recommend buying more cards.

[Rob C]

I do not like hyperdrives... Those devices use a hard disk drive (HDD) to store the files, and HDDs are easy to break. Small units, made for portable computers, are more durable than their desktop counterparts; but even those are easier to break than a memory card. Memory cards are more expensive, I know, but unless someone needs lots of space, I would recommend buying more cards.

I have a friend who works here as a waiter and who is a very enthusiastic photographer. Last winter, the season with neither tourists nor work, he spent time in Morocco and came home with lots of images which he eventually put onto a hard drive which, naturally, happened to fall and break. He tells me he has just spent €360 in an attempt to try to recover the 4000 pictures on it and still awaits news from the service as to whether he has had luck or not with the recovery, although the €360 has definitely gone!

Perhaps buying a stock of memory cards is safer - certainly lighter and less easily broken!

However, that doesn't provide a good space for permanent saving...

I still have my transparency cabinet in the office and it is a delight to use.

Rob C  (Resident Luddite)

[Mark D Segal]

Mr. Resident Luddite   , my "transparency cabinet" goes back over 50 years. Periodically, including just now it so happens, I do concentrated scanning work, and every time I put one of those transparencies into a scanner (good ones), I rejoice that the film era has been superceded - for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that over time those images deteriorate, no matter how well you store them. So yes, a drive failure is a big bang, while film is death by a thousand strokes. At least the drives can be be backed-up. The only salvation for the film legacy is digitizing it all using ICE or iSRD to clean them up as best they can be, and then backing-up the digital files.

EduPerez, you are most likely correct that the failure risk of a drive with moving parts would be higher than that of CF cards - would be nice to see data. Anything can fail, and those small cards need to be put away securely because they can get lost (happened to me once), especially in a field environment where the photographer is concentrating on many things at the same time. As Michael mentioned, if one has the chance to back-up a card "early and often" - which the Hyperdrive is really super for doing - it is good insurance. But I also have enough card capacity to handle at least a day's work.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

When I'm going on a trip, I take two Hyperdrives ("Space") and a bunch of memory cards (though never the "newest and biggest"). I back up each day's shoot to each of the Hyperdrives separately every night, and keep the images on the cards as well.

Once, an older-type Hyperdrive failed while I was on a trip. I still ended up with dual backups and didn't lose a single image.

Once I lost a memory card (they're small and easy to misplace). Ditto.

My multiple redundant backups take up less space and weight than a single laptop, which I leave at home.

@Mark: I have been scanning from my own "transparency cabinet" just recently, and managed to catch a few Kodachromes from 1940! A bit of fading, but I got the essence just in time. I, too, rejoice that the film era has been superceded: Getting the colors anywhere near right out of the (excellent) scanner is complete witchcraft.

Eric

[Mark D Segal]

@Mark: I have been scanning from my own "transparency cabinet" just recently, and managed to catch a few Kodachromes from 1940! A bit of fading, but I got the essence just in time. I, too, rejoice that the film era has been superceded: Getting the colors anywhere near right out of the (excellent) scanner is complete witchcraft.

Eric

Eric, this is OT - deserves a thread all on its own - but with good scanning software and technique I find the colour can be largely restored quite satisfactorily even from stuff I shot fifty years ago. But you're right - it's probably a matter of how far gone they are before it becomes really challenging. The 1940s is another 10+ years behind the 1950s!

[PierreVandevenne]

service as to whether he has had luck or not with the recovery, although the €360 has definitely gone!

Honest data recovery companies usually work on a no fix, no fee basis.

[John Camp]

When I travel, I always have to take a laptop, even when I don't take a camera -- so I've always got that. And I find that 4-gig cards are like extra long rolls of film, and I'm never shooting so fast that I don't have time to slip in another card. You can get 4-gig Delkin cards from B&H for $20, and while they're not the fastest, you can get enough of them that you can shoot until it's mostly full, stick it in your pocket, load another one, and then, at night, back the cards to the laptop and file the cards away, giving you two copies. My D3 will put about 200 RAWs on a 4-gig card, so $200 would get me enough cards for 2,000 shots. The D3 is a dual-slot camera, but I haven't gotten into that...but I keep thinking, if I had one slot doing RAWs and the other doing high-res jpgs, I could probably leave one 32-gig jpg card in the second slot for the whole trip, back up the RAW card to the laptop, and if everything went to hell, I'd at least have the jpgs.

JC

[BernardLanguillier]

My D3 will put about 200 RAWs on a 4-gig card, so $200 would get me enough cards for 2,000 shots. The D3 is a dual-slot camera, but I haven't gotten into that...but I keep thinking, if I had one slot doing RAWs and the other doing high-res jpgs, I could probably leave one 32-gig jpg card in the second slot for the whole trip, back up the RAW card to the laptop, and if everything went to hell, I'd at least have the jpgs.

There are always 2x32GB cards in backup mode in the 2 slots of my d3x, both storing the original raw files.

My personal choice is to select slightly slower cards and to buy 2 of them instead of one of the faster type. Data safety and peace of mind is more important for me than speed, but I guess that we all differ here.

Cheers,
Bernard