Going Digital

[photophorous]

I'm going digital. I just can't pass up the deals on the D70s any longer. I'm going to miss the sweet smell of fixer, but I know the 0s and 1s will treat me right. Before I buy, I could use a bit of advice.

Should get slower speed memory cards for finer grain? J/K. But seriously, there are a lot of options. I can get a 1Gig Lexar 40x for about $40, an 80x for about $60, a Sandisk Ultra II for $53 or an Extreme III for $63.

Will I be able to tell any difference between these cards? From what I understand, the write buffer in the camera will make any card seem fast? If that's true, why would anyone pay more for the faster cards? I don't shoot sports.

Thanks,
Paul

[OldSchool]

Hey Paul,

I'm not sure, but you may just be wasting money if you get a card that goes too fast. Also, I don't know what card speed has to do with how fast you can download -- something to look into.

Me, I just went with what your Nikon manual recommends. Sorry I couldn't be more specific.

Tim

p.s. Congrats on going to the digital side. It's a fun ride...

[Franglais]

I'm going digital. I just can't pass up the deals on the D70s any longer. I'm going to miss the sweet smell of fixer, but I know the 0s and 1s will treat me right. Before I buy, I could use a bit of advice.

Should get slower speed memory cards for finer grain? J/K. But seriously, there are a lot of options. I can get a 1Gig Lexar 40x for about $40, an 80x for about $60, a Sandisk Ultra II for $53 or an Extreme III for $63.

Will I be able to tell any difference between these cards? From what I understand, the write buffer in the camera will make any card seem fast? If that's true, why would anyone pay more for the faster cards? I don't shoot sports.

Thanks,
Paul

If you shoot RAW + JPG like me then the D70s should have enough space in it's write buffer for 5 images so yes if you're only doing single images then any card will seem to have the same speed.

There is just the question of reading back from your card to your storage device. When I'm out doing something intensive like a parade or a wedding then I fill up a 1GB card in about an hour or so. I have my ARCHOS portable disk with me so I go and take a coffee or something and slip a second 1GB card into the camera while I transfer the contents of the first card onto the portable disk. However I'm always afraid that I will miss something while I'm doing it. All my CF cards are at least 45x which means the transfer happens in under 5 minutes. I would hate to have a really slow card.

Charles

[photophorous]

Tim & Charles,

Thanks for the comments. Right now, I'm thinking the best deal may be the 2Gig Lexar 80x for $90. It should read fast enough, and only costs a little more than buying 2 of the 1gig 40x cards.

Charles,

I'll be in your area in October on vacation. Do you know how the prices for memory are at your local shops? I may want to buy another card while I'm there, so I'm kind of curious. Can you recommend a shop?

I'm excited about getting a new toy, but I'm forcing myself to wait a few weeks, so I can make the most of my last month at the dark room I've been renting. Hopefully I'll be able to post more photos here once I go digital.

Thanks again,
Paul

[Loupey]

Should get slower speed memory cards for finer grain? J/K.

Paul

And when pulling images from it, make sure to thoroughly soak your memory card in the developer and agitate appropriately

[another view]

Card prices keep going down, so it's best not to buy more than you need. 2GB 80x for $90 is a great deal - a few years ago a 256mb 24x was about twice that amount...

Will you see a difference in speed? It depends (what answer did you think you'd get? ). It depends on the camera and what you shoot. My ancient Fuji S2 won't benefit from a faster card and I really don't see any difference between my 24x, 40x and 80x cards. Newer cameras write faster and may take advantage of increased card speed. Check Rob Galbraith's site for tested write speeds with different card and camera combinations - pick the camera from their list and see what they say. In the real world, I don't know if I've ever overshot the buffer on my Fuji, but I'm not a sports shooter working in RAW - that would do it though.

With the exchange rate, I think I'd pick up that extra card before you go. I usually shoot RAW these days (not sports like I said though...) and I guess I'd probably shoot about a gig (6mp camera) every two days - maybe more, maybe less. Some (maybe many) wouldn't last past the first edit but just to give you an idea...

[Sebastian]

Any cards will be fine. The most important thing is to come up with a sound backup strategy and follow it from day one. I just spent a week going through my archives to get everything to match the system I have set up now. Don't procrastinate.

[photophorous]

Any cards will be fine. The most important thing is to come up with a sound backup strategy and follow it from day one. I just spent a week going through my archives to get everything to match the system I have set up now. Don't procrastinate.

Hey Seb,

What kind of back up system would you recommend? I was thinking about buying a DVD burner.

Paul

ps. nice avatar pic

[photophorous]

Card prices keep going down, so it's best not to buy more than you need. 2GB 80x for $90 is a great deal - a few years ago a 256mb 24x was about twice that amount...

Will you see a difference in speed? It depends (what answer did you think you'd get? ). It depends on the camera and what you shoot. My ancient Fuji S2 won't benefit from a faster card and I really don't see any difference between my 24x, 40x and 80x cards. Newer cameras write faster and may take advantage of increased card speed. Check Rob Galbraith's site for tested write speeds with different card and camera combinations - pick the camera from their list and see what they say. In the real world, I don't know if I've ever overshot the buffer on my Fuji, but I'm not a sports shooter working in RAW - that would do it though.

With the exchange rate, I think I'd pick up that extra card before you go. I usually shoot RAW these days (not sports like I said though...) and I guess I'd probably shoot about a gig (6mp camera) every two days - maybe more, maybe less. Some (maybe many) wouldn't last past the first edit but just to give you an idea...

Thanks for the link, AV. I was hoping someone would post something like that.

I've been wondering about those portable hard drives with card readers built into them. They seem to be available from 20GB to 80GB, starting around $200. For the same money, you can get 5-10 times the storage as compact flash cards. One of those and a couple of cards, and you'd be set for just about anything, it seems . I just don't know if I trust them. Do you have any experience with them?

Paul

[SmartWombat]

Yep, that's a good start.
How about external hard drives, too?

I backup the raw files to DVD.
And copy the Raw + JPEG + Sized to the external HD.
I have one 250G drive for 2004 and earlier
Two 250G drives for 2005
One empty for 2006 and two in the box waiting to be unpacked...

I'm now using Dual Layer DVD, but plan to upgrade to BlueWave or whatever wins the formar wars later.

[Sebastian]

I only back up to two external HDs. Burning discs irritates me to no end, so I don't bother. Do a search here for "backup" and you'll find some pretty good threads on the subject. But the main thing to remember is that no matter what form of backup you use, for it to be effective, you NEED to have at LEAST two backups. Just as the main storage can fail, so can the backup, no matter what the media.

[another view]

Agree on the two backups from personal experience...

I don't have any experience with the portable HD's that have built in readers but being the overly-concerned type, since I can't actually see the image that's been saved I don't think I'd put 100% trust into them. You can buy a laptop for not too much more than that - either used or a fairly slow but useable new one in the $5-600 range. That's what I'd go with, and maybe burn CD's or DVD's from there - or better yet also save to an external USB hard drive.

[photophorous]

I have one 250G drive for 2004 and earlier
Two 250G drives for 2005
One empty for 2006 and two in the box waiting to be unpacked...

Holy Crap! 500GB per year! You take a lot of pictures.

External hard drives are sounding better than constant DVD burning, but that's going to get expensive. I'm sure I won't need as much capacity as you do, at least not at first. Maybe I should just do the DVDs until I figure out how much I really need.

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to do some more reading on this topic. I have a lot to learn about digital.

Paul

[Franglais]

Tim & Charles,

Thanks for the comments. Right now, I'm thinking the best deal may be the 2Gig Lexar 80x for $90. It should read fast enough, and only costs a little more than buying 2 of the 1gig 40x cards.

Charles,

I'll be in your area in October on vacation. Do you know how the prices for memory are at your local shops? I may want to buy another card while I'm there, so I'm kind of curious. Can you recommend a shop?

I'm excited about getting a new toy, but I'm forcing myself to wait a few weeks, so I can make the most of my last month at the dark room I've been renting. Hopefully I'll be able to post more photos here once I go digital.

Thanks again,
Paul

There are areas in Paris dedicated to particular activities. If you want to buy anything related to computing then it's around Rue Montgallet, in the north eastern part of the city. I usually go to:

TDI Systems
174 Rue de CHARENTON
75012 Paris

Expect to queue, especially on Saturdays. Walk down Rue Montgallet and you see shop after shop with people milling around outside looking at the latest prices posted on the windows.

TDI currently have the Transcend 2GB 120x card for 55.90 Euros (about 70$). They won't have the Lexar. These places specialise in brands with no advertising and no overheads. I have two Transcend cards already and I've never had a problem.

The mainstream shop in France is FNAC. There are about 5 spread around Paris. You'll probably find the Lexar in there - for a higher price than you would pay in the States.

Charles

[photophorous]

Seb and AV,

When you guys say "two back-ups" are you saying 3 copies, total?...main + two back-ups?

I thought digital was going to save me money. :cryin:

[These new smilies rock!]

I'll do some searching through the old threads.

Thanks!

Paul

[photophorous]

Awe. My "cryin'" smiley didn't work.

[photophorous]

...TDI currently have the Transcend 2GB 120x card for 55.90 Euros (about 70$). They won't have the Lexar. These places specialise in brands with no advertising and no overheads. I have two Transcend cards already and I've never had a problem...

Thanks for the information, Charles! I hope to be prepared before I get there, but I'll look for TDI if the need arises.

[another view]

When you guys say "two back-ups" are you saying 3 copies, total?...main + two back-ups?

I thought digital was going to save me money.

There are a lot of start-up costs with digital, but as I said with CF cards the prices of everything are always coming down. I don't miss the lab bills; whether they were a few dollars or a few hundred they add up quickly. The main thing is to have some sort of backup, knowing that anything electronic might decide to quit working at the most inopportune moment. At first, I saved a copy on my hard drive in my PC, then backed up to CD. I'd eventually get rid of the files on my PC and it would take forever to find a shot buried somewhere on a CD, even if you're organized. Now, I'm still burning CD's as a secondary backup and my main files are on an external drive so I guess that's one backup at least after a certain point.

When I'm done shooting, I copy my files off the cards with a USB2 card reader. I don't re-format until I shoot the card again. That could be the same day or several months later - but I have a copy there if something goes wrong transferring data. I also keep a copy for awhile on my PC - so I may have anywhere between two and four copies of anything.

Let's wait to hear what Seb says though - I'm sure what he does is much more bulletproof!