How's my memory?

Yes, I know...an ironic question coming from a neuroscientist who works on Alzheimer's disease. [:P]


In this case, of course, I'm referring to flash memory. I'll be going to China in a month or two, for a little over two weeks. I'm taking my 5DII andPowerShot S95, and at this point I've got 40 GB of CF cards (16GB + three 8GB) for the 5DII, and 12 GB of SDHC cards (8GB + 4 GB) for the S95. That works out to ~1500 RAW images of 5DII storage and ~1000 RAW images of S95 storage. I have no plans to shoot video as I'll also have a camcorder.


I am taking my laptop with me, and although I don't have a huge amount of storage space remaining on the internal drive, I've got a 96GB ExpressCard SSD for storage. If needed, I could bring along a 500 GB external HDD as well.


The main purpose of the trip isn't photography, so I won't be out shooting all day. But I won't have time to review and cull images during the trip, either - if I've got any free time in the evenings/nights, I'll be using it for night scene shooting! I'd appreciate input from people with travel experience (or other situations where storage might have been a limiting factor) - should I get more CF cards?


Thanks in advance!


--John

It depends. If you take the external HD and do not mind downloading to the lap top frequently, then backing up to the externals (both of them) every night you would probably be ok.


This summer at yellowstone I was there 10 days. Before I left I added a 32gb card, I had 72 GB of CF cards with me. I Came back with all cards full, and alot backed up to the exteranl 1.5tb External and lap top. With 72GB I didn

John, if you can bring another CF card, that would cover it. The difference between Rick's situation and yours is that he was in Yellowstone with the intent of shooting all day.


You won't be, so you won't need nearly the card space as he did.


I did a 10 day trip into Yellowstone, Glacier, Tetons and Banff, and shot 5000 on a 5D (smaller sensor), but I was shooting all day long, too.


If you're only out and about, you probably will be okay. The laptop would be all I would haul around for downloading, unless you want an additional backup with the external drive.


Definitely don't erase anything on the cards til you get back.


Alan

It

It sounds like you have this under control. I happen to have a Western Digital external portable Hard Drive 1TB ($99) from Costco that utilizes USB power, so therfore there is no external power supply to carry around. It's very light any easy to pack and it won't require it's own power supply converter.It only spins at 5400 rpm, so it transfers a little slower than the 7200 rpm version with the external power supply.


Two backups would be the way to go. Another suggestion would be to upload your photos to Flickr as a third backup if you have unlimited internet access, however it will be in Jpeg


Rich


edit: Don't pack all of the back-ups in the same suitcase on the way home, in case it gets lost or stolen.

It all depends on how much photography you will be doing.


I had travel to Europe for three weeks and consumed my memory by end for week 2. Just far more interesting things to take photo of than I first anticipated. In Japan took more memory and still ran out - luckily I was able to pick up more locally for a fair price.


Depending on you budget and how much you typically take photos I would try to bring a few extra memory cards. They are small and easy to transport. Last trip I bought two brand new ones and tried to keep then un-opened so I could easily return them if I did not use them - that worked well as I used them right away when I could not find one of my back up ones (it was still in the card reader back at home - doh!).


I found if I do not have time to process the photos I did not have time to transfer them off the card and onto a hard drive (not to even mention trying to make backups). This also saved me from bringing my laptop along for the trip/vacation. BTW: I only had one memory card fail once, but it still read 97% of the images on it.

Personally, I

Thanks, everyone!


Rick and Alan, good points about having enough cards so I don't need to transfer images for a few days. Daniel, I agree about the backups - images would be deleted from a CF card only being on both the SSD and the HDD.


Rich, the HDD is FireWire bus-powered - thanks for the packing tip, yes the SSD/CF would be in a pocket while the HDD would be in luggage.


Jimr, good idea to check past habits. On a recent short family vacation, I shot about 250 images over a 2-day period; I expect I'll shoot more in China, though. I hope to be able to transfer images off the cards (I assume I'll need to unless I double or triple my CF card capacity). Editing a few hundred images can take quite a while (days!) but transferring them around is pretty fast with UDMA cards, ExpressCard readers and SSD, and FW800.


Jon, I'm now leaning toward at least one more 16 GB card (I use only Sandisk at this point), perhaps two, over larger/slower cards (and bringing the HDD - it's small and light). Have a great trip to Taiwan!


--John

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

I use only Sandisk at this point

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Ah- I beg your pardon. [:)]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jon Ruyle

The inexpensive 64 gb 400x transcend

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Sorry to get off-topic here but, Jon, I've been reading up on all CF choices....No problems with this card?


Damian

[quote user="DLS"]


[quote user="Jon Ruyle"]The inexpensive 64 gb 400x transcend [/quote]


Sorry to get off-topic here but, Jon, I

Good question, Damian - I remember some discussions on the a while back, but not if there were firm conclusions (my takeaway was that there can be bad cards from any manufacturer, but Sandisk and Lexar were the more reliable).


On a related (if no less tangential) issue, I'm not a big fan of large cards - a 64 GB card will hold >2500 RAW images from a 5DII (and more from cameras with fewer pixels). In the event that a card should fail, or get lost, or get chewed on by a dog, or whatever, that's a lot to lose - something grandma said about eggs and baskets comes to mind...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

Good question, Damian - I remember some discussions on the a while back, but not if there were firm conclusions (my takeaway was that there can be bad cards from any manufacturer, but Sandisk and Lexar were the more reliable).

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Thoughts on Hoodman RAW? Not long ago I read where they were claiming Zero failures.


Edit: Hoodman's website claims Zero Failures still

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HDNitehawk

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DLS

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jon Ruyle

The inexpensive 64 gb 400x transcend

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Sorry to get off-topic here but, Jon, I've been reading up on all CF choices....No problems with this card?


Damian

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Out of 31 reviews on B&H 2 people gave a negative feedback that their transcend 64GB copies failed. That wouldn't give me much comfort if I was counting on this device to hold almost half the pictures I took on such a trip.

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Make that 2 in 32 :) No problems so far with mine- I've had it one or two months. Probably those whose cards fail are more likely to write a review. I've been using transcend cards for about 5 years now and never had a single issue, so I stick with 'em. The one card I did have an issue with was not a transcend. But that was a while back.


I bought mine on amazon, and there are no reports of failures of the 64 gb card there (though 2 report failures with the 32). For the 32gb 60mb/s sandisk extreme (chosen at random out of many sandisks on Amazon), there is one reported failure out of 15 reviews.

A lot of great comments here...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HDNitehawk

If you had 8 8GB cards and one failed it might hurt a lot less.

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HD, I tend toward this line of thought as well...


I've used SanDisk for 4 years with no issues (4GB and 8GB sizes so far)....but I understand Lexar is another reputable manufacturer.


After all, didn't our mothers teach us to never put all of our eggs into one basket? [:)]

My wife and I went on an Alaska cruise as our honeymoon. Admittedly, we went loaded for bear (four cameras, six lenses), and photography was a major part of our trip. That said, our disk usage exceeded my estimates, and began to approach the limits of what I had on hand.


We have six 8GB cards, four 4GB, and six 2GB cards. I

I have several CF cards, a couple that are very large: 4x 8GB, 2x 16GB, and 2x 32GB. With any of my cards, I download the pictures off of them whenever I have a chance. However, then I leave the pictures on the cards as well so once downloaded I have two copies of my photos, which I'm glad to see seems to be standard practice for most here. If I know I'm not going to have time to transfer photos, I'll switch cards even before they're full, just in case. Part of the reason I got the bigger cards is that it let me use bracketing a lot more and not have to worry about filling up the card too fast.


I primarily use the 16GB and 32GB cards. The 8GB cards are spread between a few bags so there's always a card in the bag, just in case I'm in a hurry and do something silly like forget to put a card back in the camera.


Whenever traveling, I keep the backups and CF cards separate (usually with one of them on me in a pocket). That way I will have a copy if the other gets stolen. Luckily this hasn't happened to me, but I'm always cautious.


I think it might not hurt to pick up another 16GB card or a couple more 8GB cards. I think with either the 96GB SSD or 500GB drive for daily backups you'd be fine.


I'd ask how you were going to transport your gear, but I remember your "Prevent STDs" thread, so I think you've got a good handle on it. [;)]

Here's something to think about: if you run short of memory while in China, just buy another card.


After all, that's where they make 'em!

For what it