The typical photography enthusiast will be careful with the gear. Always afraid of some disaster waiting to happen, dropping a lens and the most common Card failure.
In my line of photography the gear will take bangs and some liquid every now and then. It is just part of the deal, I try to be careful and not drop the gear however banging the gear into walls, doors, … will just happen some times. The biggest ways to avoid disasters are: be as careful as possible, get a very good insurance and pay it on time. Yes every January it really hurts to pay for the insurance when there was no income, today I have way to much gear to take the risk. So far I have only broken a few filters when the tripod did tip over, 2 lenses where the zoom or AF failed. This are my workhorse Minolta 17-35mm f2.8-4 and the 70-200mmf2.8. For both I found a great used replacement.
Now lets get to the real topic of post. Damaged or corrupted memory cards. Check out any YouTube video, blog post or comments and you would think that memory cards fail at least once a day and you will lose some pictures. Then when you read or hear some of the long time photographers. They used to shoot film go on assignment for 3 month shoot 100 rolls of film and send them back in a single package. I guess we did get over paranoid with time. I really think we need to find a balance between caution and being paranoid. I get so bored when people recommend 8GB cards, seriously. I would need at least 3 cards for every event. Probably the best way to lose one of them.
Back when I had compact flash cards The issue was more with card readers when some pins got bent. Since the switch to SD cards this is no longer an issue. I always buy the fastest cards I can afford, even if the camera can not use the fast speed. The fast speed is always a plus back on the computer when I have to copy a few 1,000 pictures. I always have 2 cards in the camera. Most of the time I do shoot to a single card except for weddings or other critical events. After the event I copy the pictures to my workstation, I then swap the cards in the camera, before heading to the next event I will format the card in slot 1. This way just in cases I still have the originals for a while in slot 2.
The only problem I ever had was with the RX100 when I did accidental formatted the card. Thankfully the Sandisk Recovery tool got all the pictures back and a lot of older one
Hi Claire.
Thanks for your articles.
You have inspired me to buy the Manfrotto gimbal, along with a little lens that is the Minolta 600mm f4, lol.
I picked up an absolute mint, hardly ever used, with not a spec of dust – non high speed version with a mint case and all filters plus Minolta 1.4 and 2.0 tc’s for £3,000.
I saw that you recommended a certain Lowepro rucksack to transport your lens in one of your articles, but cannot find it now. What was the model of the rucksack that you use for your 600mm. I am looking for some kind of lint / velvet lining bag also to protect it. I might have make that myself.
Thank you very much, Regards Rob…in the UK.
Thanks Robert for reading my blog. I was actually contemplating to take the site down. I guess I should leave it up and write a few new articles.
The Bag I am using is the Lowepro Trecker Lowepro Trekker
My Lens stays in there or is laying around somewhere on a muddy rugby or football field. I would not worry too much about the lens. If you plan to take the lense out in the rain I would recommend the rain cover from either Lenscoat Lenscoat or Thinktank Think Tank Rain cover. I have both and if Interested I can write a comparison of both.