File :-(, x, )
SD Cards? Anonymous
I just got me a Nikon D40 and I am seeking advice on what kind of SD card I should get. There are all sorts of cards with "extreme" and "ultra" written in bold letters followed by roman numerals, but I'd rather get something practical and not necessarily the baddest, meanest card around.

I've heard the D40 has a good buffer and I don't think I'll be doing too much continuous shooting in RAW or what have you. So, yeah, I'm thinking of getting a 2 GB card - should I opt for a regular-ish one or do the Ultra/Super/etc card make a difference and are worth it?

Pic related
>> Anonymous
yes its worth it. youll do more continuous shooting than you think. and also it makes it so it writes off the card onto your computer or whatever faster too.
>> Anonymous
>>49735
More like, if you plan on taking more than 14 pics in a row in a short period of time.
>> Anonymous
Always go for the speed. Don't assume you'll never use it, and even if you don't, it's a bit of a boost for offloading your images later. Spend the most you can up front, aye?
>> Anonymous
>>49791
Don't listen to him/her. Look for the best value for money.
>> Anonymous
1. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and do not shoot JPEG. Shoot RAW. RAW is such a savior at times, and lossy compression is one of the stupidest ideas ever.

2. Because I trust you, I'm going to assume you are going to shoot RAW. With this in place, do you still think you will not need the extra speed? I can't answer this; I've no clue how large or small the D40's RAW files are.

3. My advice would be, if you're buying just one card, to buy the fastest. Better to spend a little extra money up front, than miss shots and decide you have to buy another one in addition to your slower one.

But I would advise buying a few, say, one highest-speed card for when it matters and two or three slower cards of whatever speed for shooting where it won't matter: landscapes, portraits, etcetera.
>> Anonymous
also buy new cameras for each one of those scenarios, and make sure each camera in turn has its own set of cards.
>> Anonymous
>>49991
Is it really worth it though to shoot in RAW? I mean, I'm going to have to convert it back to JPEG anyways.
>> Macheath
>>49998
Yes, it is absolutely worth it. You have so much more control when post processing.

I guess if you never bother doing any post processing, fine, don't do RAW. But you really should do post processing!
>> ac
>>49999
Winners don't need to postprocess. Winners get the shot right the first time.

(In b4 flamewar. ;) )
>> Macheath
>>50000
You could have posted a get!
>> ac
>>50002
I know. I totally saw it, and I totally had some awesome pictures I could have posted, but by the time I copied 'em off of the card I would have missed my moment. So I went with a troll.

Well, okay, not entirely a troll. I shoot jpeg 99% of the time, max quality and resolution. For things that are standing really still, when I have a lot of time to set up the shot and I *know* it's gonna be a good one, I'll shoot raw. But most of the time, I just do the spray & pray method. Not having to worry about my buffer clearing while the Perfect Shot passes me by is more important to me than a little extra postprocessing latitude.
>> Anonymous
>>50000
'winners' know how/when to use all the tools at their disposal, including post processing.
>> Anonymous
>>50000

nice post get...etc.

yeah i agree. anyone that hase to photoshop the shit out of their pictures neeeds to rethink what they are doing in the first place.
>> Anonymous
>>49997
Multiple cards are useful for several reasons. First, extra storage space when shooting in the field. Second, one doesn't have to hassle as much to clear off a card: there's another one sitting right there, ready to go. Third, finances provided, spare parts should be kept on hand for any and every tool one owns, cameras included.

And yes, having mutliple types of cameras and camera bodies IS useful. A saw and an axe will both cut wood, but they are suited for entirely different types of cutting.

And as far as camera bodies go, carrying multiples at the ready allows for fast switching between different lenses, different films or image settings, and so on.

>>49998
No, you don't. You only convert it to JPEG if you're going to share on /p/. For your own use, pick a lossless format (PNG, TIFF, whatever).

And yes, RAW is worth it. There's plenty of situations where you'll shoot a shot one way and need it another.

Also, if one plans for a shot to be in black and white, shooting RAW is almost essential for the extra color information (paradoxical, I know) for the channel mixer to do its thing with.
>> Anonymous
>>50000
Why not just shoot with a Polaroid for film then? Post-processing a RAW file shouldn't be looked at as "post-processing," but rather as the digital version of developing a negative.

Also, shooting in JPEG surrenders a huge amount of creative control. When shooting in JPEG, the look of one's photographs is at the mercy of the aesthetic taste of the target market of the camera, as judged by the marketing departments of Canon and Nikon and so on. Every photograph that comes out of a camera is post-processed from the "raw" information collected. The difference is that with RAW, one decides himself how it's done and does it himself. With JPEG, the camera does it based on decisions made before the the camera even hit the manufacturing stage.

>But most of the time, I just do the spray & pray method.

You're setting yourself up for bad shots that way. See the case of Gary Winogrand: early on, his sheer volume helped him produce a large number of good photographs. Most of what he shot was probably shit, though. Then he got the idea to stop walking around New York City, move to LA, take photographs out the window while someone drove him around, and never even look at the negatives, let alone develop them.

>Not having to worry about my buffer clearing while the Perfect Shot passes me by is more important to me than a little extra postprocessing latitude.

This is where talent, a good eye, and a fast card comes in. Film photographers used slide film, and still use it, because exposure latitude is vital.
>> Liska !!LIVFOETqL8j
>>50000

Dude, you SO sounded like me there in a previous for a moment. Just felt a compelling need to say that.
>> elf_man
>>5000
QFT. Oversimplified phrasing, but true nonetheless. Postprocessing may give the edge on an already good/great photo, but we all lose out when it's used to 'make' the photo.
>> ac
>>50227
QFT.

*Always* have multiple cards on hand. Even if you've never filled up your main card, have a few spares on hand in case that card meets with an untimely accident (flash chips wear out after a while).

>>50228
Actually, a closer Digital vs. Film metaphor for RAW files would be the undeveloped emulsion. The advantage of Digital being you can develop the "film" and get different negatives out of it over and over again. Then the small image you post on your web site would be the equivalent of a print.

And I *do* shoot in RAW mode. I'm not saying never use it. I'm just saying that if you've got the skillz, you can get good pictures without needing to have raw postprocessing to fall back on. It's kind of like how film photographers get really used to the type of film they use a lot, so they know exactly how it's going to come out when they develop it. It's just that you get a really good feel for how the JPEG's going to look. Oh, and:

>Film photographers used slide film, and still use it, because exposure latitude is vital.
Epic fail. Film photographers use slide film because the colors on slide film are exactly the colors that the film photographer wants, not negatives which can be positivized in a number of ways. Slide film has much less exposure latitude than color negative (I.e., you can shoot color neg at plus or minus two or three stops and still get a usable picture out of it. You have maybe one stop of latitude with slide film). So pulling out the Slide vs. Negative argument is exactly backwards to the argument you're trying to make. :)
>> Anonymous
>>50000

fuck that.
i am sorry, but no matter what camera you have and no matter what you are shooting and who you are, the colors that come straight out of a digital camera arent nearly what film renders them as.

i will stand by this until the day i die, so fuck off.

also: thats a fitting get post. kinda sums up at least half of this boards mentality.
>> Anonymous
>It's kind of like how film photographers get really used to the type of film they use a lot, so they know exactly how it's going to come out when they develop it. It's just that you get a really good feel for how the JPEG's going to look

Why not have control over how it's going to look, as opposed to getting a feel for someone else's decision?

>Epic fail.
Yeah, it was. I wasn't thinking. I've no clue why I said "exposure latitude;" I was thinking of the above JPEG processing settings versus RAW self-processing and I failed epicly.
>> ac
>>50255
>Why not have control over how it's going to look, as opposed to getting a feel for someone else's decision?
Right. When I feel I need that level of control, I shoot raw. But 99% of the time, at least for me, that someone else's decision is the same decision I'd have made.

The reasons for why not are twofold:
1. Speed
2. Capacity
Shooting RAW is slower. When I'm shooting in JPEG mode, I can't fill the buffer on my XTi unless I literally put it in continuous fire mode and hold down the shutter for about 30 seconds. I've never hit the buffer limit other than by doing that. When shooting raw, I get about ten shots and then my camera turns into a pumpkin for a few seconds while it writes its buffer.

Thanks to Murphy, I *always* see an amazing shot pass me by while I'm waiting for that buffer flush. Thanks, Murphy!

Secondly, raw takes about thrice the storage space compared to a highest-res, highest-quality JPEG. That means I can only take a third of the pictures on a given card, and I have to throw down money on a new set of hard drives sooner.

This probably doesn't help my argument, but Ken Rockwell agrees with me:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/raw.htm
>> Anonymous
>>50256
>1. Speed

See, I've never found this a problem. To be honest, I've never actually noticed the buffer in a camera doing its thing. It may just be different shooting styles. When I shoot action, I actually end up shooting less than when I'm shooting a static scene. When I shoot static scenes, I play around with exposure, depth of field, framing, focal length, all of that ad nauseum. It's there; there is no "decisive moment" or whatever term one attaches to it. The only limit is how long the magic light lasts, which is usually long enough to get at least 20+ different versions of the same shot.

Action shots, on the other hand, I wait to press the shutter until the exact moment I want a photograph of. The exception is things like bands on stage. They're there long enough, like a light condition on a landscape. There I do the same thing. But all other types of action photography I shoot much less. Two hours of action photography and I might get 120 frames, tops. I've never done two hours of static photography, mostly because I run out of memory. Which, yes, I would do even if I was shooting JPEG. I did it even when I had an S3IS that only did JPEGs.
>> Anonymous
>2. Capacity

Like I said, if I’m shooting action two or three memory cards will last me the whole day. Static I run out even with JPEG.

But whatever works for you. I do maintain, though, that someone starting out should start out with RAW, so they learn to work with it for when it is absolutely needed, get used to any buffer problems if they are the type to run into those, and so on. If a beginner needs to go to JPEG, he’ll learn the hard way that he does.

>Secondly, raw takes about thrice the storage space compared to a highest-res, highest-quality JPEG. That means I can only take a third of the pictures on a given card, and I have to throw down money on a new set of hard drives sooner.

Back up your old RAW files onto CDs. Much cheaper than buying a new set of hard drives.

>But 99% of the time, at least for me, that someone else's decision is the same decision I'd have made.

I’ll upload soon (I’m on the wrong computer for this at the moment) a camera-processed JPEG and a RAW from when I was shooting JPEG plus RAW.

But again, for you that might be the case.

>This probably doesn't help my argument, but Ken Rockwell agrees with me:
Michael Reichmann agrees with me, not that it matters who agrees with who.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

On a side note, why do people hate Ken Rockwell? I know almost nothing about him except that people dismiss and mock him, and what can be gleaned by reading two or three articles he’s written.

And lastly, I hate lossy compression, and this is one area where I will firmly say that you should, too. There is no excuse for a camera to dump image quality before it even writes the frame to the card. At least save it in TIFF or some other lossless compression format. That JPEG has lossy compression makes it automatically something only to be used for sharing digital “prints” like on /p/, and for cameras that won’t do RAW or TIFF.
>> Falldog !upUGcHlgU2
I'm going to throw myself into the mix by saying that I usually shoot JPEG because it's over all a lot easier.

Most of the time I just throw my stuff up online and it's a pain in the butt to convert files along the way. I don't even have a powerful enough computer to crank away at the hundreds I go through at a time.

When I take photos for other people, I'll shoot in RAW for their sake.

Long story short, JPEG is just fine for someone doing it as a hobby. If I spend thousands of dollars on equipment or intend to make money off of my photos then I'll go to RAW full time.
>> Anonymous
>>50317
I have thousands of dollars in equipment, and the hassle of RAW still isn't worth it to me,
I don't have Capture NX, so i'm not sure how it would be for batch processing, But I take about 2000 pics a week for selling prints, and I usually end up editing about 200 of them, (And organizing the rest)
That Takes a looong time, about 6 hours worth of work, In Raw that would take me more like 12 hours (maybe longer) (using photoshop's plugin for Nikon's raw files)

Also if the WB is correct I don't find the difference between Raw and Jpeg to be much at all.
>> Anonymous
>>50340
it really shouldnt take that much extra time to convert from raw to jpeg then continue on to your normal workflow. there might be some shots you want to tweak the raw a bit first before converting to jpeg, but that time spent will at least be going towards an overall better shot.

also, photoshop has stuff for the most common raw formats built in and whatever.