The "New Gear/Willy Waving" thread

fowler002 · 18 Jul 2015 at 22:57

Raymond Lin said:
A set for each 5D. I wouldn't fill it but I always stay on the side of caution so get more than enough. 64G each would've been enough if I shoot 50/50 even for each camera but the fact that I shoot more with the camera that has the 35mm on so I alway end up one camera having more and one less. Now with this i don't need to worry.

I also have a bunch of smaller CF cards and 2 x 128 SD...the reason for this is I have 2 back to back weddings (so 4) this year and I don't have time to back up the shoot in between. This way, the back up is done on the fly.

As long as you don't loose the memory card/s and/or there are no data corruptions.

You're getting married 4 times?

Raymond Lin · 18 Jul 2015 at 23:00

fowler002 said:
As long as you don't loose the memory card/s and/or there are no data corruptions.

You're getting married 4 times?

The alternative is to back up onto a HDD.

That is as easily lost, and more prone to corruption (mechanical).

If i were to get SSD, that is no difference to this.

I am not getting married 4 times...4 couples are getting married once.

An Exception · 18 Jul 2015 at 23:35

Raymond Lin said:
I need more memory.

You have the same setup as me. The CF cards are bloody expensive. As I use it as backup, I would much prefer just 2x SD slot's.

Raymond Lin · 19 Jul 2015 at 00:22

An Exception said:
You have the same setup as me. The CF cards are bloody expensive. As I use it as backup, I would much prefer just 2x SD slot's.

It's always a bug bear of mine that they take 2 different cards. I believe it is due to CF cards used to be much faster than SD (they still are but gap is closing) and people want that speed so get CF.

I am hoping the next camera i get will have dual SD cards.

ricky1981 · 19 Jul 2015 at 03:51

Leica Q ordered, now the waiting game begins!

D.P. · 19 Jul 2015 at 19:04

Raymond Lin said:
It's always a bug bear of mine that they take 2 different cards. I believe it is due to CF cards used to be much faster than SD (they still are but gap is closing) and people want that speed so get CF.

I am hoping the next camera i get will have dual SD cards.

CF cards are still much faster, e.g.
http://www.cameramemoryspeed.com/nikon-d800/fastest-memory-sd-cf-card-tests/

The fastest CF card is still twice as fast as the fastest SD card (there are slightly fast SD and CF cards available now, but the gap is still there).

I really notice the extra transfer speed copy photos to my HD.

The other thing is people upgraded to the 5DmK3/D800 form older cameras that only had CF cards, e.g. D700 has dual CF.

furthgermore, the pro Canon and Nikon camera uses to use CF cards, so it made sen that someone who Owns a 1DX and has a 5DMK3 as backup can use CF cards in both.

Nikon has moved their pro cameras to XQD cards. This is a bit mixed, the cards are way faster than even the fastest CF card but are pricy and there isn't much competition, plus yet a new standard and there is now no ability for pros to share cards with their backup bodies.

Personally I would like the D800 successor to have dual QXD cards or dual CF cards but I agree 2x the same type is preferable to a mix IMO.

crinkleshoes · 20 Jul 2015 at 01:07

I love how fast the CF write speed is on the 5D3... but the SD slot is annoying.

With the D800 I was perfectly fine with my 128GB Sandisk 120MB/s SD card... move over to Canon and the burst shots could only handle a handful before filling the buffer and slowing to a crawl or taking forever to empty the buffer.

With a proper CF card... SanDisk Extreme... that full frame rate just doesn't slow down (unless the battery gets under 50%)... was quite impressed when I first discovered that

Phal · 20 Jul 2015 at 14:10

Well I had fun snapping some shots at a mates wedding on Saturday. The new charger I got a while back for my Eneloops really made a difference to how long they lasted in the flash compared to the last time. I had previously charged them in some crappy energizer thing that came free with batteries but this time I used my new Maha MH-C9000 Wizard One Fast Smart Charger

Not my shot but same charger and batteries

saves me taking one hehe

Maha MH-C9000 Battery Analyzer by rickleemorlang, on Flickr

Russinating · 20 Jul 2015 at 14:55

crinkleshoes said:
I love how fast the CF write speed is on the 5D3... but the SD slot is annoying.

The 5D3's SD slot is capped at a lower speed than the CF slot. Really you should be shooting raws to the CF and jpg backups to the SD.

D.P. · 20 Jul 2015 at 17:23

Russinating said:
The 5D3's SD slot is capped at a lower speed than the CF slot. Really you should be shooting raws to the CF and jpg backups to the SD.

A jeg isn't really a backup though.

When I shoot events I write RAWS to both cards. If I get a card failure I then have access to the full RAWs files on the other card.

Raymond Lin · 20 Jul 2015 at 17:35

D.P. said:
A jeg isn't really a backup though.

When I shoot events I write RAWS to both cards. If I get a card failure I then have access to the full RAWs files on the other card.

Not only that JPEG isn't a backup, God, i can't imagine if the entire wedding had to be edited on JPEG! The camera actually writes slower if you wrote 2 different kind of files. I think it has to do with that it need to convert one different to the other.

Yes the SD slot is gimped and it'll never hit max write on the card, but I'm a completist or perfectionist kind of way that I need them to match as close as possible. I don't even need 128G, I need less than half that but it's good to have more. It's not a hobby, it's a weddings so risks need to be minimised as much as possible.

Phal · 20 Jul 2015 at 17:56

Kinda sucks that they gimped the SD slot

It's a few years old now so if it was just a limitation of the tech used then that would one thing but to deliberately throttle it seems daft.

Not read about the 7d2 being limited in a similar fashion so that's probably a good thing. I just tried to see if the buffer would fill at 5fps shooting raw but I got to 68 shots without any slowdown so not sure if it would ever slow down at that speed.

Guess you don't need much more at a wedding apart from the mass brawl that is the bouquet toss?

Balb0wa · 20 Jul 2015 at 18:02

Agreed, the 5D3 came out in March 2012, sd cards were pretty slow then, and the write speed on them was even slower.

Im sure the 5D4 or whatever it will be called will be great with sd cards.

Vertigo · 20 Jul 2015 at 20:06

I'm sure I read somewhere that the reason was the processor in the 5D3 only had "proper" support for a single card slot and the second SD slot was a bit jerry-rigged into the design, thus limiting its speed.

Phal said:
Not read about the 7d2 being limited in a similar fashion so that's probably a good thing. I just tried to see if the buffer would fill at 5fps shooting raw but I got to 68 shots without any slowdown so not sure if it would ever slow down at that speed.

The 7D2's SD slot is UHS-1 compatible I believe.

Guess you don't need much more at a wedding apart from the mass brawl that is the bouquet toss?

Have yet to do a wedding where they've tossed the bouquet, just doesn't seem to be done that much any more. Only time I really use high-speed bursts is confetti.

Phal · 20 Jul 2015 at 20:45

Vertigo1 said:
Have yet to do a wedding where they've tossed the bouquet, just doesn't seem to be done that much any more. Only time I really use high-speed bursts is confetti.

Really? First wedding I've been to in many years and also the first since I've started doing photography and they did one.

I made sure I stood next to the wedding photographer when I used 10fps lol ;D

Raymond Lin · 20 Jul 2015 at 20:53

I think about 1 in 10 in average, some intends to but they forget.

crinkleshoes · 20 Jul 2015 at 21:47

Russinating said:
The 5D3's SD slot is capped at a lower speed than the CF slot. Really you should be shooting raws to the CF and jpg backups to the SD.

Yeah... I only discovered that after I bought the camera, I had been using a 128GB 80MB/s SanDisk SD card in my D800 and it worked really well, so it surprised me as I hadn't noticed until someone mentioned the difference.

Bought a 160MB/s 32GB SanDisk Pro CF card and the difference is like night and day... awesome continuous speed on this camera... didn't even get that with the Nikon. Not that I need to use it often... just nice how quickly it clears the buffer and continues if you really need it to (quite useful when shooting children or animals).

I have both in the camera... but setup as a continuous shoot rather than failover... none of my shots at the minute are critical, only hobby-ist... it would be annoying to lose a cards worth of shots but not the end of the world.

So it'll fill up the CF card before it switches to the SD card.

If/when I get a job shooting a wedding or similar... then I'll use them in failover mode.

Raymond Lin · 20 Jul 2015 at 23:26

The buffer will hit full at about 15 shots with camera writing RAW to both...which is erm, no time at all, even during confetti as that lasts about 20 seconds when they walk. So I've learn to pick my moments and bursts at the right time and not to machine gun all the way through it.

D.P. · 21 Jul 2015 at 18:01

Raymond Lin said:
The buffer will hit full at about 15 shots with camera writing RAW to both...which is erm, no time at all, even during confetti as that lasts about 20 seconds when they walk. So I've learn to pick my moments and bursts at the right time and not to machine gun all the way through it.

This is something I have always pointed out. I don't really care if one camera is 4 FPS and another is 7, if one has a 3second buffer and another is 5 seconds. It makes no difference to my capture rate. The best results come from anticipating the moment, learning behaviors, and pressing the trigger a fraction of a second early.

If you get a pro camera with 12FPS and a 10+ second buffer then sure it can be helpful but I hear forma lot of the sports pros that they sill will often result to single shot or just short bursts.

Phal · 21 Jul 2015 at 19:18

I guess I've progressed quite quickly over the last 3 years from a 650d to a 70d and then to a 7d2.

Every time I've upgraded I've had to get more controlled about how/when I shoot... Otherwise my memory cards fill up and my batteries get drained needlessly lol.