# Total File Size - All Your Images and Keep or Delete



## extremeinstability (Jan 2, 2013)

36.5 gigs 2002 through 2012... at the moment...though I feel like whittling down even more. Actually quite a lot of TIFF files(star trails/etc) in that making it larger than it really is imagewise. 

I always wonder how many others are like me out there and delete like a madman, just to keep things in check as far as total images kept over the years. If I don't whittle often and delete away, I end up feeling like I don't even know what all I have and can't keep a grasp on that. Figured it might be interesting to see some of the total image file size out there. As in whatever you got that you keep and well back-up. 

I'm sure for the wedding photographers and portrait business folks out there, it's a different deal and huge just for the customer's sake. Still probably interesting to hear. 

Since 2002 I've had a Sony F707, 5 rebels and 2 5D II's and really actually shoot quite a bit. Often stuff that's just not repeatable later. I think many take the "logical" route of "it's safer to save and not delete and storage is cheap anyway". It is logical. Deleting takes courage lol. If I took that route and had been keeping everything, man I'd feel so so lost whenever I'd go to do anything with things. I get into a severe delete mode, just find something, anything to delete, to whittle the pile way way down. I do that with the collection, then later on I do it again to the same total collection. The earliest stuff gets so so whittled down. I'll stop and think to myself, what are you doing, then say screw it, just a photo, and delete...over and over lol. And of course half the time someone e-mails wanting to license an image, they pick one off the site that I never kept and I kick myself a little. 

It's fun to sorta trip yourself out later realizing you can stick all the images you've kept the last 10 years on a single cheap flash card.


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## JaxPhotographer (Jan 2, 2013)

Extreme,

Wow, 36.5 GB to store your last 10 years. I am currently operating with 520GB in image files on my primary storage for photos and another 400GB of non-primary storage RAW files. I agree it is cheap to store but I sadly cannot put my kept files on a flash card right now. My trip out to Arizona a month ago to shoot in Canyon De Chelly, Monument Valley, Slot Canyons in Page, AZ and the GC alone totalled nearly 30GB in files and this was a scouting trip.


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## bycostello (Jan 2, 2013)

i dare not add it all up.... would frighten me!


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## FatDaddyJones (Jan 2, 2013)

Memory is cheap. You said it yourself. To me, it's not worth deleting a single frame. If I take a shot that's not worth keeping, it gets deleted in camera before I transfer the files to computer. I'm just an enthusiast that takes the occasional photo shoot on the side for extra cash. 

Even though most of my shots are personal pictures, I've got lots of 'em. I went digital in 2002 and have about 60,000 shots from 2002-2009, and another 40,000 shots from 2010-2012. To date, I've taken 100,509 photos in the past ten years. That's nothing compared to most full time pros, but even with over 100,000 shots, it only takes up a little over 600 gigabytes. It needs to be said that I shot only JPEG until 2010, and then only about half of the shots were taken in RAW. I take RAW shots exclusively now, which increases storage space exponentially. I've got all my photos backed up on four separate systems, two external drives, and online too. A also have backups on disc. I'm not taking the chance of losing a single photo. 

Doing professional video is another thing I've done for over ten years. That's where the real storage space gets filled. On my main editing system, I've got nine terabytes of drive space, and I only have about 350Gb free right now. It's all filled with HD video. My external and network storage gives me several more terabytes. In comparison, my picture storage is trivial. 

It's video where I'm forced to do what you are doing with photos. After many projects, I will delete the original clips and keep only the final edited video. During some projects, I'll produce several versions of a clip, applying different looks and effects. Those also get deleted after the project is completed, as they take up too much space. 

I'm not a packrat at home, but I am obsessive about keeping my photos. They are organized and tagged so that I can find just the one I need, when I need it. 

It's fun to sorta trip yourself out later realizing that you have an entire bookshelf full of hard drives.


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## Dukinald (Jan 2, 2013)

FatDaddyJones said:


> Memory is cheap. You said it yourself. To me, it's not worth deleting a single frame. If I take a shot that's not worth keeping, it gets deleted in camera before I transfer the files to computer. I'm just an enthusiast that takes the occasional photo shoot on the side for extra cash.
> 
> Even though most of my shots are personal pictures, I've got lots of 'em. I went digital in 2002 and have about 60,000 shots from 2002-2009, and another 40,000 shots from 2010-2012. To date, I've taken 100,509 photos in the past ten years. That's nothing compared to most full time pros, but even with over 100,000 shots, it only takes up a little over 600 gigabytes. It needs to be said that I shot only JPEG until 2010, and then only about half of the shots were taken in RAW. I take RAW shots exclusively now, which increases storage space exponentially. I've got all my photos backed up on four separate systems, two external drives, and online too. A also have backups on disc. I'm not taking the chance of losing a single photo.
> 
> ...



+1

I usually buy several portable HDDs on black friday. My 3 1TB HDDs should be enough for the coming year as am just a hobbyist. I also delete shots i do not like right away on camera or while copying from SD card to portable HDD. A great majority of those shots are also loaded to online sites such as facebook or shutterfly.


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## FatDaddyJones (Jan 2, 2013)

Consider a Flickr Pro account - cheap unlimited storage and more than just photo sharing, but a great backup option for your photos.


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## Hillsilly (Jan 2, 2013)

36GB isn't a big drama. Also, if a photo is good enough for you to upload to a website, I wouldn't even consider deleting it.

Personally, I only delete the photos that clearly have problems. Photos that are suffering focusing or exposure issues which don't have any redeeming features will get deleted. Often, I might take multiple photos of the same thing and will delete the poorer efforts. Unflattering photos of my wife also tend to find their way into the trash (sometimes by magic).


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## tpatana (Jan 2, 2013)

I shoot for fun, and I get ~600-1000GB a year. Never delete anything, and I backup everything on two separate hard drives.

Last 3TB drive I bought was ~$120, so nothing compared to the other photo gear.


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## Canon-F1 (Jan 2, 2013)

around 1500 GB (without backups) for around 80000 images.
80% are edited TIFF files... i store only the best images as RAW originals too.


i delete a lot... it makes no sense for me to store images i will never look at or use.


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## extremeinstability (Jan 2, 2013)

I didn't even think about video. I'm almost the same with those. With those I tend to delete just entire days at a time rather than go through the clips from a day and delete unwanted clips. I chase storms so well later I think, that day/storm wasn't that interesting compared to other things caught. Trash bin it goes. 

And it has completely nothing to do with cost of drives. Someone could give me huge TB drives and I'd still have 36 gigs kept right now is all. 

I kinda look at it like a box of family photos later in life. I'd think say 10,000 should cover it, rather than having to deal with 100,000 instead. I'll never have 10,000 as I barely have 2,000 after 10 years. Seems like keeping 10 photos from a day out would be ideal or even 20 I guess. Not sure how much that would change if I say shot sports instead. Probably a lot but then again not really sure it'd matter much. 

The one thing I have learned is to not spend much time deleting off the camera at the time. Whole lot easier to do it later on the pc and usually a lot wiser. 

Seems to me spending time deleting and whittling down a lot is anything but "wasting time". I guess if I was fully wise I'd always stick files on a big ol hard drive and not delete those down and instead just have a separate area where I whittle like mad like I already do. I have too much of a screw it attitude though. Not saying to hell with all the photos at all, but it just seems excessive to save everything. 

I'll agree if it's worth putting on a website it should be worth keeping. I just end up thinking that one backwards after the fact when I'm whittling down and thinking it wasn't worth putting on the site in the end...but it's already there. If it is in my stock section I will for sure have the original file still. But man no one wants to just use that section and instead find it elsewhere. 

I've gone over this topic with others a few times in the past and some have come back later totally changing their minds and wishing they had kept their pile at a more sane level. I want to end up in with a very much best of pile. Then if I want to say put out a calendar or simply change stock sites, or whatever might come up, it'd be so so much easier to start from a very much best of pile than seeing a trillion highly similar shots. And it is. And yet it's still a bit of a mental chore to pick, even now. 

If I shoot say some atmospheric optic that trumps all the versions of the same phenomena shot earlier, then in my mind life is simpler to delete all the lesser versions from the past. 

I will say though that what I do actually keep, I'm a backup madman like most everyone. I'll have it on this computer at home and another, 2 external hard drives, then I'll also keep a couple copies at my parent's place. That all barely feels like enough lol. 

I guess I'm just surprised there aren't more that take this approach and would rather do the opposite and keep it all. The exception is if it's for someone else you are shooting, wedding, portrait, sports, etc.


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## 2n10 (Jan 2, 2013)

I am at around 25GB, but I only got started with DSLR shots in May and did not keep the RAW files after processing at first. (I know stupid, I'm a hobbyist for now) I too delete bad and non "A" shots. I have a few TIFF and DNG copies that are also converted to JPG.

Edit: checked at home last night and I am at about 33GB.


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## unfocused (Jan 2, 2013)

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who delete and those who don't. I don't.

I have no illusions about the value of most of those images and if I had all the time in the world I would go through my files and delete. But, for me, time is limited. This is a hobby that I practice in my limited spare time and I would rather buy a 3TB portable drive and just transfer all the junk over than waste hours and hours sorting through everything. 

I have separate folders of "portfolio" shots that I keep on my hard drive and save backup copies of those files, but the rest of the stuff are like old negatives to me: file them away in a safe place and someday, if I really need them, I'll retrieve them.


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## Dylan777 (Jan 2, 2013)

My ave about 15-20% as a keeper. Recently bought two 5TB external hard drives, since I'm only shoot raw.


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## bdunbar79 (Jan 2, 2013)

For sports, I keep all RAW files from a season. Once the season changes from Fall sports to winter sports, for example, all the RAW's get deleted and I move on. 

Personal pictures I keep.


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## bdunbar79 (Jan 2, 2013)

Freelancer said:


> Dylan777 said:
> 
> 
> > My ave about 15-20% as a keeper. Recently bought two 5TB external hard drives, since I'm only shoot raw.
> ...



I think Toshiba might.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Jan 2, 2013)

36GB seems like nothing to me, I use a 64gb compact flash card for one days shooting, and have a 12 TB NAS. With the low cost of storage, there is no need to throw out images that you might want in a few years. I bought a 3TB drive this xmas to use for a 2nd drive on my new PC.


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## camlars (Jan 2, 2013)

Storage cost doesn't factor into the decision at all for me, storage is cheap. 

I rarely delete photos in camera since it is slower than deleting them on the computer, and sometimes you can't really tell if it is a keeper until you see it on a bigger screen. 

I try to delete at least some of the weaker images as I go through them the first time since I think it saves time. Cmd-Delete instead of next doesn't really take that much longer.

I too would prefer having 10,000 images some years down the road rather than 100,000.


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## cayenne (Jan 2, 2013)

FatDaddyJones said:


> Memory is cheap. You said it yourself. To me, it's not worth deleting a single frame. If I take a shot that's not worth keeping, it gets deleted in camera before I transfer the files to computer.


Just curious....I'd been told that for longer life of your memory cards, that it was best to NOT do maniuplations, deletions from the camera to individiual files on the cards while in camera.

That is was best to unload all your images from a session(s) with your card reader to your comuter, and once done, you reformat the cards in the CAMERA to totally erase them to be ready for next shoots.

Thoughts on this? Myth or Fact?

TIA,

cayenne


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## camlars (Jan 2, 2013)

Freelancer said:


> i guess you do no keywording?
> otherwise it would make no difference to delete the junk when you do keywording.



Exactly! I would say even without doing any keywording that as long as you actually *look* at the photos after transferring them to your computer it doesn't take any extra time to hit delete instead of next.


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## joshmurrah (Jan 2, 2013)

~400GB here, that doesn't include TIFFs and whatnot from star trails, that's just the RAWs/jpgs.

I keep 'em in a folder on an iMac, have timemachine running with an external drive, with a 2nd drive in a firesafe that I swap around once in a while.

I use Crashplan for cloud backups. Took about two months to do the initial sync but syncs quickly overnight now that I'm in sync.


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## extremeinstability (Jan 2, 2013)

cayenne said:


> FatDaddyJones said:
> 
> 
> > Memory is cheap. You said it yourself. To me, it's not worth deleting a single frame. If I take a shot that's not worth keeping, it gets deleted in camera before I transfer the files to computer.
> ...



It's probably a bit of both. Generally if you work something more it won't last as long as otherwise, but with that it's probably a big none issue. Something else will screw up a card first. I've only had one card fail the last 10 years. 

Of course now I notice the card reader comment. I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer. I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will. I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).


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## vab3 (Jan 2, 2013)

I'm a hobbyist who lost a portable hard drive a few years ago, so now I prefer at least two physical backups of RAW files, and one JPG on-line. (Luckily, I still had all my jpgs on-line). 

However, the whole process taught my how much I care about my tens of thousands of pictures that didn't make the cut. Not much. You have to trust yourself. If you determine that ten images sum up the weekend at the lake, then so be it. 

First of all, as soon as I upload, I delete anything that is out of focus, duplicate, or uninteresting. 

I keep a year of RAW photos on my laptop, and periodically copy them all to a portable drive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocopy - great tool). I upload JPGs and share them with my relatives. The result is I generally have 3 copies -- 2 RAW and one JPG offsite. 

At the end of the year I make _copies_ of all my favorite RAW files from the year, and back those up both to the portable drive and offsite. I also upload new copies of the favorites online as JPGS. Friends and family enjoy the 'year in review' album. 

From then on I only worry about the favorites. The bulk RAW for the year are removed from the laptop, and the ones on the portable drive are relegated to folders that can be deleted after a few years. Occasionally, I purchase a new (bigger) external hard drive, copy everything, and archive the old one until I feel like purging.


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## extremeinstability (Jan 2, 2013)

Glad to see some others that are pretty big on purging and deleting. I realized a bit ago probably the biggest reason I'm so bad at it. I'm so anal on putting the best of the images forward whenever I do anything. I think, I have to whittle down so it's easier to find/sort/know the best(in my mind) for this or that use. The other thing that I think drives what amounts to being the opposite of a hoarder is, I really really really hate doing headlines, captions, and keywords for stock sites. Having far far less to screw with makes that a lot easier. Yeah many are similar, but at least as far as keywords are concerned, it's often not as easy as simply highlighting all in a basic group and "appending metadata" for the keywords. If I delete the piss out of things before I get to that point, it's all the easier to accomplish that and move on. Those are the biggest reasons I delete away. The third would probably be, it sorta feels healthy to just let go of some of it lol. I always think about later on down the road in life, I don't need an ocean of images, a lake or pond will do. Maybe that would have been a better way to look at this/do this post. When you are at the end of your photography year's rope, how many photos will be enough. I'm shooting for a best of collection I guess. If I "only" have 5,000 of those after another 30 years that should be more than enough.


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## agierke (Jan 2, 2013)

up until recently i have kept everything. i am currently running 5 TBs worth of drives and though storage is cheap its become a hassle that i just dont want to deal with anymore.

the biggest culprit for me is weddings. i did about 100+ weddings as a second shooter and kept everything so that i could look through later for portfolio reasons (i didnt have to do any editing at the time, just shoot and drop off the raws to the 1st shooter). well, i never got around to going through all those weddings so now my "pile" is enormous. i'm ready to unload the bulk of those stored shots its just a matter of finding a few weeks to sort through it all.

i expect its going to get much worse as i take on more and more weddings myself. at least with my own weddings i edit it down to 1000 shots per.

the real dilemma is that digital files just don't last that long. will my digital files be around in 20 years? i have already had files shot in the early 2000's become corrupted and hence are unusable. i need to identify my all time best shots (the ones that will stand the test of time) and figure out a hard copy archival solution to store them.

anyone store prints of their best shots for archiving purposes or even better yet get their digital files on 4x5 chrome? an expensive proposition but is there a better way to ensure that my best images will still be around after i pass?


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## extremeinstability (Jan 2, 2013)

That's a good point on corrupted images. I've always sorta wondered what the best route is to keep backups with that possibility in mind. I've feared something gets corrupted and then when I back up, I write over in all the back up locations using a corrupted file. Suppose the key would be when backing up, doing it once in each location and not writing over the first ones. Not so simple to have several places when we are talking 5TB obviously! But even for my whittled down 36 gigs I'm wondering the best safest route to prevent that corrupted issue. I guess if you browse through them all in like Bridge as you are deleting down you could see if anything had gotten corrupted on the main harddrive. Course that might have to include purging bridge cache and letting it make new previews. Just this being brought up again now makes me want to only add to the back up drives each year and not re-write over the older years. Because it would be pretty damn annoying to get a corrupted file on the main pc, then screw up all the backup locations by simply re-writing with a bad file.


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## FatDaddyJones (Jan 3, 2013)

extremeinstability said:


> cayenne said:
> 
> 
> > FatDaddyJones said:
> ...



I've had four cards that either failed completely or corrupted some of the images on the card. (All were Kingston - I use Lexar and Sandisk only now) Each time it happened was in an external card reader while trying to transfer files to the computer. Each time it was a different card reader and different computer. What good is high speed transfer if your pictures are all corrupted? I use USB from the camera now exclusively. (Sure wish the 5D3 had USB 3.0 - that was just dumb oversight on Canon's part) I delete photos immediately if they don't turn out just right, and I've never had a card fail in the camera while doing it. I don't know if it's the best thing to do for the card's sake, but from my experience, I'll take deleting on camera/USB transfer over a card reader any day. 

One other word of advice - Never plug your camera or card into a device that is not properly grounded. That can corrupt your card and fry your camera. It's not a big problem in the US, but when shooting overseas there are lots of places that don't have grounded power outlets.


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## John Thomas (Jan 3, 2013)

My two cents:

1. Do not do anything else on your cards (neither edit, neither nothing...) just download them on the PCs. The NAND cells have a finite lifetime (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Memory_wear) and controllers from camera or USB readers are way to simple to provide advanced techniques like wear leveling, GC etc.

2. There ain't such thing like 5TB disk. WD will have them but in late 2013 (AFAIK - see http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2012/12/05/wd_5tb_hard_drives_coming_next_year). The products like the one to be found at http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-301355U-5big-Network-Drive/dp/B001IB10CW are in fact a NAS with a RAID card in it using 5 (five) disks in RAID 0 or other config (RAID 0 not recommendable at all for data safety imho).

HTH


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## tpatana (Jan 3, 2013)

When I shoot my hobby sport, I usually get 60-70GB on ~7h shooting. I carry 80GB cards with me to those. 2011 a big competition I shot 180GB in 3 days. Typically <25% keepers, <5% make the editing board, 3-4% make the final cut. Don't know for pros, but I assume that's quite normal.


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## FatDaddyJones (Jan 3, 2013)

tpatana said:


> I carry 80GB cards with me to those.



80GB memory cards? Never seen that. CF? SD?


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## RLPhoto (Jan 3, 2013)

I currently have 1,750GB of RAW files from Film Scans, 10D, Rebel XSI, 5Dc, 7D, & 5D3 cameras. Lightroom handles it fantastically and I can easily view progress from camera to camera.


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## cliffwang (Jan 3, 2013)

FatDaddyJones said:


> tpatana said:
> 
> 
> > I carry 80GB cards with me to those.
> ...



I guess 32GB x2 + 16GB x1


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## cliffwang (Jan 3, 2013)

I believe I keep only about 20% of my images. I have about 100 to 200 GB photos, and some of them are from my old camera jpg files. That's already too many files for me. Thus, deleting images is very important for me. Here is how I usually do nowadays.

1. Take photos.
2. Move them to my computer and decide which files I will keep.
3. Move the files I want to keep to my storage server
4. Do easy process for the files I need to share or keep for myself from lightroom
5. Output those files in JPG file format and store in a JPG subfolder
6. Synchronize the storage server with backup drive


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## tpatana (Jan 3, 2013)

cliffwang said:


> FatDaddyJones said:
> 
> 
> > tpatana said:
> ...



Yup, didn't mean one card 80GB, but total combined.


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## agierke (Jan 4, 2013)

FatDaddyJones said:


> tpatana said:
> 
> 
> > I carry 80GB cards with me to those.
> ...



i currently have 108 GB CF cards in my bag at all times. if i have to shoot 2 weddings in a weekend i come very close to using every card i have. if i shoot multiple jobs throughout the week, a card used gets rotated out of the bag until i know that it is dowloaded and backed up (not always able to keep up with downloading immediately after a job)


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## FatDaddyJones (Jan 4, 2013)

I hear ya. I just got a new 64gb lexar cf card, and with shooting lots of video plus a few raw shots to boot, it doesn't take long to fill up. I have a few 16 gb cards but I just get tired of swapping them out so often when I'm in the middle of shooting.


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## cayenne (Jan 7, 2013)

extremeinstability said:


> Of course now I notice the card reader comment. I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer. I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will. I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).



Interesting, I'd also been coached by some more experienced photogs I've been talking with and picking their brains, that they said they *never* hook their cameras directly with USB to the computers to transfer pics...that they only did it when necessary for firmware upgrades.

Not sure how much of that was superstition....but, I figured a card reader is easy to use, often faster, I have a multiple card intake on mine, so I can plug in a CF and SD card at the same time and start copying off from both....and get back to shooting while those are copying off.

The card reader seems to transfer a bit faster than directly from the camera so far for me....anyone else experience that?

Cayenne


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## FatDaddyJones (Jan 8, 2013)

cayenne said:


> extremeinstability said:
> 
> 
> > Of course now I notice the card reader comment. I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer. I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will. I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).
> ...



I'm sure what each of us do or don't do is according to our own good or bad experiences with things in the past. Most are probably over-generalizations. Even though I don't use card readers because I lost four cards full of photos in card readers, I'm sure that not everyone has had the same experience. Otherwise, you wouldn't see card readers being sold everywhere. The same goes for the USB transfer from the people you've talked to. I've never had a problem transferring my pics via USB. The point is, pick what works best for you. 

Some card readers can utilize the speed of higher speed cards, but there is always a bottleneck at the slowest common denominator - whether it's the camera, USB, card, card reader, HDD, etc.


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## PeterJ (Jan 8, 2013)

cayenne said:


> extremeinstability said:
> 
> 
> > Of course now I notice the card reader comment. I have always done mine via usb cable/camera to the computer. I think taking the card out, putting it in a card reader then back out and back to the camera will do more harm than deleting images on the card ever will. I've always been paranoid about that weakening a card that I just always have a big enough card each time and never take it out of the camera and use the usb route(till the usb port failed on my T2i anyway lol).
> ...


I've always assumed pros do it that way for the reasons you mention, plus buying multiple card readers is pretty economical if you want to download a few CF cards at the same time. And they are often swapping multiple cards anyway for redundancy / capacity reasons.

Being an amateur I'm not too concerned with speed so use the USB path. Most of the time I'm only using a single card and my reasoning is the USB port is probably more robust and cheaper / easier to repair than a CF card slot if it does fail. Plus while I have a 5D3 now previously my cameras were single slot, so a broken USB port would give me the 'Plan B' of using a reader until it was repaired.


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