What's your preference for multiple card writing in camera?

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

Right now I'm using a pair of 128s and I'm writing RAW to both with the 2nd slot as my back up. I have a 4 hour event next weekend and I've thought about writing RAW to card 1 and JPEG to card 2, just to make sure I have enough room. I really don't think I'll fill a 128 in four hours, but the 256gb version of the cards I like was out of stock so 128 it was.

How do you set your cards up?

 

[David Berry]

Every image (always RAW) is saved to both.

 

[ACEkin]

I tried double cards once or twice, but I could not understand why it wrote to one card or the other and decided to use only one.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

I tried double cards once or twice, but I could not understand why it wrote to one card or the other and decided to use only one.

The settings menu, normally where the option to format cards are located, allows you to choose how the camera writes to the cards. There are a plethora of combinations available. In the R6M2 I set it to write to “multiple”. That writes the images to both cards in the same format.

 

[RedCobra]

RAW to both. 128GB CFe and 128GB SD V90 (R5)

 

[JustUs7]

I do stills to one and videos to the other. But if I was an event shooter, I’d just use the second card as a straight backup in case of failure and shoot raw to both.

 

[Dean Wilson]

Still photography only and hobbyist, so:

SanDisk Extreme PRO 128 GB CFexpress for RAW.
ProGrade 128 GB SDXC II for JPEG L

RAW and JPEGS in a sub folder. Cull the JPEGS for those deemed editable. Very lazy is discarding obvious horrible files.

 

[Gnhntn]

Strictly a hobbyist here but I always shoot RAW and JPG to both. Never know when one will fail.

 

[ACEkin]

The settings menu, normally where the option to format cards are located, allows you to choose how the camera writes to the cards. There are a plethora of combinations available. In the R6M2 I set it to write to “multiple”. That writes the images to both cards in the same format.

I essentially wanted the second one to remain spare and be used when the first one gets full. I don't remember seeing that option on my R7 but I will look again.

 

[Dave Williams]

It appears that many folk don't have confidence in their card manufacturer!!
Depending on what format you are shooting in and at what FPS, if you are not careful won't the buffer fill and you'll miss shots rather than risk losing through card failure? Particularly if one card is much slower than the other and you are recording RAWs on it.

 

[YangMills]

RAW and JPG to both.

 

[RedCobra]

It appears that many folk don't have confidence in their card manufacturer!!
Depending on what format you are shooting in and at what FPS, if you are not careful won't the buffer fill and you'll miss shots rather than risk losing through card failure? Particularly if one card is much slower than the other and you are recording RAWs on it.

It's not a matter of confidence, it's about possible accidents or a failure in camera or the card.
Speedwise, with a CFe in one slot and a SD V90 in the other, I have never hit the buffer on my R5s. (RAW to both). I don't have any slow cards.
When I spend a ton of dough on a African Safari, shooting to both cards is cheap insurance.

 

[MikeZ]

It's not a matter of confidence, it's about possible accidents or a failure in camera or the card.
Speedwise, with a CFe in one slot and a SD V90 in the other, I have never hit the buffer on my R5s. (RAW to both). I don't have any slow cards.
When I spend a ton of dough on a African Safari, shooting to both cards is cheap insurance.

I agree. I used to set one card to RAW and one to JPEG thinking that the JPEG would serve for quick, general distribution (people viewing the image on their phone, for example). But I found that I NEVER used the JPEGs and any image that I shared with anyone was processed from RAW first. So now I feel that it is smarter to save RAW to each card and provide myself with some level of insurance.

 

[Dave Williams]

It's not a matter of confidence, it's about possible accidents or a failure in camera or the card.
Speedwise, with a CFe in one slot and a SD V90 in the other, I have never hit the buffer on my R5s. (RAW to both). I don't have any slow cards.
When I spend a ton of dough on a African Safari, shooting to both cards is cheap insurance.

Each to their own of course! Do you transfer the images to an external hard drive when away on a trip or keep them on the cards? I'm just looking through my South African trip for last year and I took a ridiculous amount of memory space which I'm only now getting around to deleting.4K Video at 120fps is the main culprit for eating memory.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

Ok next question- do you use a large card for the back up slot, say 256-512 gb, and something smaller in the main spot, like a 128, that’s still probably large enough for several hours (I’m shooting ~28MB R6II files) or same size? My thinking is larger cards are more dough and I’m not likely to fill them. I’m probably not going to fill a 128, but if I do I’m only swapping one card and leaving the back up in camera.

 

[RedCobra]

Each to their own of course! Do you transfer the images to an external hard drive when away on a trip or keep them on the cards? I'm just looking through my South African trip for last year and I took a ridiculous amount of memory space which I'm only now getting around to deleting.4K Video at 120fps is the main culprit for eating memory.

I take a handful of cards, Keep the backup cards (replace when full) and dump the CFe to a laptop daily running LR which uploads to the cloud and downloads automatically to my home desktop in LrC.

 

[Grahamk]

I currently have the same type & capacity of card in both slots on my R6 Mk 2 and save jpg to one and RAW to the other. On the card reliability point, there is a separate thread on the issue. Very few commentators have reported any failures.

 

[Gnhntn]

It appears that many folk don't have confidence in their card manufacturer!!

Not really that I don't trust my cards, but when you have a card go bad in the middle of using it and lose a few hundred photos you will want that second card as a backup. That's why I always go RAW and JPG to both cards.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

I wish we could go RAW to one and CRAW to the other.

 

[dmanthree]

Raw to both, but only because I'm paranoid.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

I’m contemplating switching to CRAW. I shot an 85gb party the other night.

 

[lostnomore]

It appears that many folk don't have confidence in their card manufacturer!!

As much as I love technology, I will never, EVER fully trust it. RAW backups to both cards for me. And on 2 occasions as a photographer (with previous systems, mind you), I'm very grateful I did the same!

 

[Dave Williams]

I’m contemplating switching to CRAW. I shot an 85gb party the other night.

Makes a big difference in memory storage and I see nothing lost in doing so.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

Makes a big difference in memory storage and I see nothing lost in doing so.

The only thing I’ve seen from reviews is some detail loss in highlights/shadows, but it looks so minor zero people would ever notice. Since I’ve gotten into photography it seems a lot of things such as- “CRAW loses some detail in shadows and highlights” comes from pixel peeping that isn’t remotely relevant to real world use/delivery/enjoyment. No one views an image at 1200-2400%.

 

[RedCobra]

The only thing I’ve seen from reviews is some detail loss in highlights/shadows, but it looks so minor zero people would ever notice. Since I’ve gotten into photography it seems a lot of things such as- “CRAW loses some detail in shadows and highlights” comes from pixel peeping that isn’t remotely relevant to real world use/delivery/enjoyment. No one views an image at 1200-2400%.

Depends on how much you need to pull up the shadows.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

Depends on how much you need to pull up the shadows.

I shot exclusively in CRAW yesterday. Going to see what they look like tonight.

 

[JoeTheSnowPlowGuy]

I shot exclusively in CRAW yesterday. Going to see what they look like tonight.

At ISO 100 across various apertures and shutter speeds to maintain proper exposure I found zero difference. I had a portion of photos in the shade that I thought the camera’s meter was under exposing, but I stuck with the meter for the purposes of this post. In post processing I did find the images to be a bit dark. I pulled some up as much as a stop with zero detail loss/lack of data. Photos look great. Next I’ll try to find some situations where I have to shoot above ISO 10,000 and see what those look like. (Note: I used zero noise reduction in post with my ISO 100 photos. I’m having a difficult time with my current install of Luminar Neo not showing Noiseless AI in the extensions. None of the photos warranted Topaz clean up. All had zero detectable noise at 100, as to be expected with the conditions I shot them in.)

 

[Hali]

I take a handful of cards, Keep the backup cards (replace when full) and dump the CFe to a laptop daily running LR which uploads to the cloud and downloads automatically to my home desktop in LrC.

I find I run into a limitation with the regular lightroom plan for the cloud. Do you have a bigger plan?

 

[RedCobra]

I find I run into a limitation with the regular lightroom plan for the cloud. Do you have a bigger plan?

1TB

 

[RedCobra]

1TB

ps: I also have 1TB on the iPad Pro I use to backup in the field.