Memory Card Management

Carrying over 168GB of memory cards, the last thing I want to be thinking about during a wedding is which cards are used/empty, which cards are paired with which, and are they securely stored!

So here’s how I look manage my memory on the day…

Firstly I shoot exclusively with Canon 1D’s which are setup to shoot to both a Compact Flash & Secure Digital card simultaneously (this gives me a little resiliency incase one card should fail) , therefore each Compact Flash card is paired up with a Secure Digital card.

I use exclusively SanDisk Compact Flash cards and a variety of SD cards. I use 8GB cards in the 1D IV and 4GB cards in the 1D II’s, these sizes work for me and I get around 300-400 images per pair. I prefer these sizes over larger capacity cards as I’m not “putting all my eggs in the same basket”. Although sometimes when I’m downloading all the cards I wish I could just get a 12 card CF card reader, loads all the cards in and press go!

Each card is labelled with both my contact details (incase I drop/lose a card) and also a unique number which identifies the pair. The first two characters denote the type of card, the first digit the capacity and the remaining digits the pair number.

They are then safely stowed in pairs in a LowePro sliplock memory card case which has 12 little compartments allowing me to hold 12 pairs (24 cards). All cards are stored front facing (dark label showing – denoting empty cards)

When a card pair is used, it goes back into the case with the rear label showing (reversed), this allows me to quickly identify which cards are empty and which have already been used.

On the day this case remains clipped to my LowePro S&F utility belt and doesnt leave my sight, until all cards have been fully downloaded and backed up. My first backup of the day is during the wedding breakfast (whilst im preparing the evening slideshow), and involves downloading all cards to both my macbook and 2 external WD 750GB hard drives (one of these then stays on me during the evening) (see custom case post for more info).

All in all I think I have a pretty robust workflow here, its been tried and tested during many weddings and works pretty well.