Slashdot Mirror
How Do You Manage Your SD Card Library?
txmadman writes "Like a lot of my colleagues and all of my three children, I have several SD , mini-SD, and micro-SD cards for various purposes: cameras, cell phones, my laptop, etc. These things are handy to have around, offer easy and significant storage, but are very easily lost. We have also have run into some instances where it wasn't clear whose SD card was whose, and have also started to see a need for a storage mechanism. I have seen SD card 'wallets' and such, but have never seen anyone actually use one. So: How do you manage and keep track of your SD cards?"
Put labels on them and keep them in a credit card pocket of your wallet.
This is seriously not a difficult enough problem to warrant a /. story..
see above
I use a wallet and a silver sharpie. Not the Organizational Dream, but it's manageable for now.
holds a whole bunch of them.
It's not a new concept... labeling media goes all the way back to cassette tapes. (Eight tracks are before my time, were they writeable?)
I put one small ad in a hundred newspapers around the world
and then i play the waiting game
Because it's an emergency. Losing your personal storage media means those drunk photos your friends took of you with your camera when you were passed out will be lost forever.
Something like Fluffy said, label them if it helps. To store them, I keep what few I have in a CD book, the kind with the transparent, flexible plastic sleeves and a zipper.
Or you could use a credit card/business card wallet and keep it in a drawer.
I leave them in their damn slot.. be it camera, phone, vibrator, etc... no need to keep multiple ones around... save the data, or delete! jeez... lame noobs....
I know. But, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Get a permenant marker and write on the silly things. After they're all appropriately marked keep them wherever... camera bag, wallet, in the device, wherever.
I keep the cards with the device I use them most with.
MicroSD - my phone or GPS
SD - Point and click camera
CF - SLR
Oh and chuck smaller capacity cards as you replace them (like the ones that they ship with cameras and fit 3 images). They're worse than useless - they're a distraction (possibly at a crucial time in photography).
I find I don't need thousands of SD cards. I probably have 20 SD cards and 10 CF cards.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
i buy 16GB or 32GB only. one per device. the microSDHC slots gets the 16GB ones, the 32GB ones go in the SD slots. one per device means no more shuffling and plenty of storage.
dont buy low capacity cards. the big ones are 30 bux.
Plug them in a PC, move everything over to the PC, reformat the card. Now they are all identical and it doesn't matter who they belong to or if you lose them. Why do you ask ? Incidentaly I use the following Linux/Cygwin script to sort out the files.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I horde my digital media! People. Do. Not. Touch. My. Stuff.
Family members taking personal responsibility to know what is theirs and where it is is the only solution. There is no technological substitute for plain-old responsible living.
Putting labels on cards if they know they'll forget is part of that. Putting their things in their specific corners of the shared domicile are manditory. I infest my bedroom and my computer desk. My dad inhabits his desk of the study and his side of the master bedroom. My brother floats between the sofa, the piano, and his room. My mom Supremely Controls the rest of the house, and of course has jurisidiction as to the aesthetics of everyone else's little corners.
Do what you (hopefully) learned in kindergarten! Put things back where you found them! Develop habits! My keys always go with my wallet and phone and PDA on the articulating arm base of my computer monitor. I never wonder where they are: they're either on me, where they belong, or stolen.
Life is very simple when you take responsibility. It's all black and white, easy to differentiate, and on the whole much more pleasant.
Consider yourself spoken to.
I haven't found a need to have more than one SD card per device - that is, one in the camera, one in the Wii (to back up the WiiWare), etc. You just empty them onto your computer every so often (this doesn't work for the Wii, but that hasn't filled up anyway, and it doesn't look likely to anytime soon).
Card wallet(s) and permanent marker...
Best to plan on never getting one back if you loan it out.
If someone shows envy, I turn the smaller SD cards into 'pass it on' gifts and buy myself another, larger one, asap.
Treat your SD cards as garbage! No kidding!
You do this by using a hard disk copy as the "master", and copying to and from SD, considering that the SD is always "ephemeral", and may get bent, may pop out of the device and be stepped on and lost, etc. So, it is never the host for any critical data for very long.
And you make darned sure to back up the disk. These days my short-term backup medium is a couple of 1G or larger SATA disks, which I place in a front-loading holder and put in the fire safe after they're written. Long-term backup media is currently DVD, but will probably go to Blu-Ray when the media gets cheap enough. Some of these are stored in a relative's closet, because having all of your backups in one building is stupid.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
My last smartphone case had two SD sleeves built into the cover. I had one card with music on it, and another I used for photos and file transfer. I never had a need for a third card to use both sleeves. My new phone uses microSDHC, so I got an 8 GB card (dirt cheap, even high speed) and never need to swap anything.
I really have a hard time seeing a need for more than one additional card that doesn't live in the device, unless you're doing something that would justify a filing system anyway.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Other people have various solutions, label them, have only one per device (which isn't a solution much of the time anyway), don't share them among the family etc.
But you have the solution in your very question: Something to hold them all.
I don't use SD personally (though my next camera will be using SD, as Linux based devices can read them, unlike XD cards). My camera is an Olympus, a few years old now. The camera before that was also an Olympus. One of the best things that came with my camera was a little plastic thingy that holds six XD cards. It's great, I've got four cards, and only one can be in the camera at anyone time (obviously). Being able to carry so many cards, without worrying about them (being so small), especially when I won't be near a computer for a while, is wonderful.
Even if you don't get a plastic or leather thingy that will specifically hold SD cards, it shouldn't be hard to find something.
Anyway, a quick websearch turns up for example,
http://www.jacobsdigital.co.uk/images/products/fullpics/00156001-00156250/156046.jpg
http://www.jacobsdigital.co.uk/images/products/fullpics/00016251-00016500/16474.jpg
I wank in the shower.
Like a lot of my colleagues and all of my three children [...] We have also have run into some instances where it wasn't clear whose SD card was whose
You will have to look at each and every photo on each and every SD card to figure that out. It could get nasty... Actually, come to think of it, that could be quite enjoyable as well!
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Like a lot of my colleagues and all of my three children, I have several white, black, and blue pairs of socks for various purposes: school, work, dress, etc. These things are handy to have around, offer easy and significant comfort, but are very easily lost. We have also have run into some instances where it wasn't clear whose socks were whose, and have also started to see a need for a storage mechanism. I have seen sock 'drawers' and such, but have never seen anyone actually use one. So: How do you manage and keep track of your socks?
Fire safes are generally designed to keep their contents below the combustion point of paper. Hard drives will melt at much, much cooler temperatures.
Dump them to hard disk, RAID array, what not; then threat the physical media as transient and/or a backup.
That way you can also index electronically and what not.
I have a 6 MP digital camera, with a 4 GB card in it. I also have an old 1GB card, but I almost never use it - 4 GB is enough for me to take hundreds of pics and a few hours of VHS-quality video with no complaints. So I download my pics and stuff to my laptop every month or so, and it takes about 3 minutes - less than it takes to drive to my local Rite-Aid photo booth. (which is about 1.5 miles away!)
I think a 4 GB card costs about $10 nowadays, if even that much. And I say "buy big" but 4 GB is pretty ho-hum nowadays. 4x the space costs just $25.
Seriously, who cares? How many pictures do you TAKE?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
4 gig cards are not that expensive and they hold an amazing amount of stuff. Probably 8 gig cards will be pretty standard in a year or two. So just get the largest cards you can afford and you won't need to have lots of extra ones lying around.
My camera case has about 5 SD cards ranging from 512 megs to 2 gigs, and I really could replace them all with one or two 4GB cards. That's a lot of pictures (but we take a lot of video clips too).
Why someone needs extra SD cards for a phone is beyond me. My 512 meg micro sd is larger than I would ever want in my flip phone. I guess a smart phone with a 3 megapixel camera would warrant something more capacious. So a 4 gig card should do it.
This is really not rocket science. It's like those people who used to ask, how large a hard disk should I get with my new PC? Well, the answer was, and still is, as large as you can afford.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Don't flame me but... have you ever thought of actually trying one of those SD card "wallets" you mentioned? o.O
It seems to me that you posted a possible solution along with your question...
I'm very cautious about data security, so I got this neat little pill that screws apart to store two microSD cards. It's made from a non-magnetic surgical alloy, so it won't set off metal detectors, and it's corrosion-resistant, so I don't have to worry about data integrity if I go out for Mexican food. Now I always have my most important data with me, and there's no risk of confusing my cards for someone else's. I got my girlfriend one too, and she loves it. I believe ThinkGeek sells them.
I only have one SD card.
When it's full, I move the files off onto a large data filing and storage system that came with my PC (called a 'hard disk'). That renders the SD card empty again, and I can start filling it with data, photographs, video etc., and then repeat the process.
The PC's 'hard disk' can be accessed by an 'operating system' which has lots of functionality that allows you to easily organise the data into hierarchical 'folders', making it easy to keep track of the contents.
There. Solved that problem for you. Next?
when looking for a solution for my ds, it turns out its a real problem. there are almost zero microsd storage card solutions out there. not even the crappy wallets!
So i ordered a pile of surface mount microSD card slots, glued them to the lid of the DS. instant solid storage. i even spent extra (i think $0.50 each total) to get the clicky ones. nice and solid. I plan on gluing a few of these to the top of my camera lens cap once i get around to ordering the SD card sized ones.
All of my various memory cards and flash drives, when not actively in use in a device, reside in a giant coffee cup on my desk.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I have several SD , mini-SD, and micro-SD cards for various purposes: cameras, cell phones, my laptop, etc. [...] How do you manage and keep track of your SD cards?"
I have a two-stage plan, which I thought was a fairly common technique:
1. Make sure my flash cards have sufficient memory that I will not need to switch between cards for the same device. You know, 1000 full quality photos or whatever.
2. Leave the cards in their devices and keep track of the devices by normal means.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
Why have multiple SD cards per person? They're huge.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Old school cigarette case + foam + x-acto knife is a pretty classy and secure meands of storing several sd cards. A business card case/wallet would also likely suffice, i was given a silver cigarett case a long time ago and never smoked.
I dunno, but I've never had the need to swap out cards.
I have cards of various sizes in my camera, digital photo frame, and cell phone. But have never had the need to swap cards in and out of devices unless temporarily to load data.
I buy cards that are large enough to hold all the data I could ever want for that device, and presto, no swapping.
-David
1) Toss them in a shoebox, the one you just emptied when you threw out all your old rolls of film and negatives. 2 ) When SD (and its relatives) are replaced by double-plus-good-nano-SD (or whatever), go back to step 1.
Why is this on slashdot????
This should be on some AOL board for christ sake.
I stored the info in a database on another SD card.
However I mislabeled it and lost it.
Are you $#@!!~@ serious? I tag mine with wildlife tracking locators and stuff them in my sock drawer what the #$%$. Put a label on them, color code them with colorful dots, give them names, buy an SD card organizer from office depot, velco or 3M double tape em to the wall, radiation tagging like in the Dark Knight, buy a 32GB SD card and consolidate your data, keep your SD card in the device you use it in, punch a hole in them and hang it on a gold chain; that's fashionable, secret shoe compartment, home depot bin organizer, hollow out your bust of Richard Stallman and put them in there, remember where you put it........need I go on?
For Windows, there's catfish http://www.equi4.com/catfish/index.html
For Linux, there's cdcat http://cdcat.sourceforge.net/
I have a little SD card case (from www.7dayshop.com) which is about the size of a cigarette case that can hold 8 cards but I use some of the space in it hold my blue tooth adapter.
The good thing about it is that it is nice and durable which you want when you are lugging them about with your netbook.
When I get to more than 8 cards I probably choose to upgrade some of my older cards to bigger faster versions and not bother carrying the older ones around with me.
I do the same as I did with my floppy discs. Both the 5.25" and the 3.5" that is. And the solution? Label them.
If a few SD cards leaves you confused...
No sig today...
Are you serious? Take a pen and write the name of the owner on them.
Also, do you _really_ _need_ more than one card per device, two per camera? Keeping the old 8 MiB crap around might sound like a great idea to save money, but it's not. If you have many cards for device X, get a bigger card. If you have several of the biggest cards, you will have a case for the device. Stuff the cards into said case.
Since you mentioned the SD card wallets, why not buy one and tell us if they help?
Start with a label maker, add some small boxes (I use an altoids tin).
If you feel the need to personalize your altoids tin, try paints, glue and ribbons.
If you don't like just cramming a pile of SD and uSD cards in an altoids tin, then cut out cardboard compartments to keep them neatly arranged.
Or you could buy an SD card wallet from a camera store.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Buy a 16GB card and move all data of your 32MB en 64MB cards to the new one. :)
I just buy the highest capacity card available whenever I purchase a new camera, and I leave the SD card inside the camera. For instance, I recently bought a digital SLR with a 32gb compactflash card. That way I have enough storage for several thousand pictures, and never need to take the memory card out.
That way only YOU would have to deal with this shit. This isn't a story! (Nor is it an intelligent question.)
With the recent raise of locking devices requiring physical keys, I have found myself with bit of a problem. I have several keys, from my toolbox to my house to my yacht. 'i have heard people use some kind of rings to attach these keys to each other. But wouldn't this be bit of a problem when trying to share said keys with your family? And then what? Where do I put the ring then? Some people have something which they call "pockets" to put all kinds of little items to, but not me. I like to wear dresses but am manly enough not to carry a purse.
So slashdot, help me out before I find some common sense.
Yeah. This askslashdot is silly.
Bot Assisted Blogging
I am really struggling to see how this is news.... or how it matters!
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flamebait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
"Get big ones"
Maybe you should consider titling your next post a little less suggestively? This is Slashdot, you know!
I have 3 cards (I use them interchangeably between my MP3 player, digital camera, phone and PDA).
Why do you need much more than that?
Why aren't you dumping stuff to your computer's disk?
What is wrong with you!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Slow news Day ?
I have seen SD card 'wallets' and such, but have never seen anyone actually use one.
Use the fucking wallet.
Seriously? You can't be the first? Why does the fact that you've never seen anyone else use a SD wallet mean you can't use it? Be a trend setter.
Or how about you write your fucking name on the fucking card.
I find being offended by me offensive.
This guy really did just ask how to do something as basic as getting up in the morning?
I bought two cases which look like this one http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/images/products/prod_7daycase.jpg
I have used these for 6 months and they have and coped well with my travels.
My other sig is witty.
Socks are mysterious - I believe they are subject to similar laws to restaurant bills - and we all know where "bistronmathics" can lead to.
Each time I run a wash through, I end up with a pile of "lonely" socks. I try to match some with previous lonely socks, and occasionally get [cue cries of glee] a match. But not often. I get mad and chuck the unmatched socks down the back of the cupboard. Occasionally I dig them out and have another go, giving in and throwing them out (which cues the reappearance of the "other" sock, to be mercilessly thrown out at once).
So where do the socks go - do they hide in the washing machine? The drier? In someone else's sock drawer?
Or, more likely, surely, in a previously undiscovered fourth sock dimension, little travelled by humans.
"Cats like plain crisps"
I agree that keeping track of memory cards isn't that difficult (I even actually use a card wallet for some of them - they work fine), especially if you label the cards....
On the other hand - the rest of your argument is fairly meaningless given the basic question as you don't know the usage patterns of the person asking the question (and which unfortunately wasn't supplied) - and just assume things.
For one thing - 'on 8 2-gig cards' kind of warrants the question on the best way to organise them as you are talking about sizable number of cards.
On the other side - you just say '800 20 megapixel RAW images on 16GB(8*2GB)' sounds like an 'impressive' number, but it really isn't - for one thing the size of the raw images depends on more than just 20megapixel - I get ~1000 12megapixel RAW images on 2 8GB cards (at 14bpp). And while even a 1000 images sounds an impressive number - my 5 8GB cards weren't quite enough for a week in Istanbul (in total there I took about 55GB worth of photos). How much you can fit on what cards really depends on the actual usage pattern. Just that I shoot almost exclusively in RAW doesn't mean everyone else does...
The only good tip I could give someone who juggles around with many cards - apart from labelling them, is to use card wallets and place cards depending on whether they are ready to use (empty) or full: simply put them with the label facing towards you if the cards are empty, and with the label facing away from you if they're full. That way it's easy to keep track of which cards in your wallet you can still use to take more images, and which cards are already full...
Don't use SD cards for long term storage. Use them for capture only.
Having a wireless Network Attached Storage is a great way for all the family to store, without having to use just one computer for access. We have a 4TB Terastation Pro for the family - and HDV, DV, RAW, and JPG capture is stored there. Getting used to uploading a shoot as soon as arriving (back from holiday, or an event) didn't take so long. When going on holidays that will use more than a couple of 16G SDHC cards, we label them A-G and writelock them once they are finished. We writelock our DV/HDV tapes also. And we use a separate storage for empty cards/tapes than we do for filled cards/tapes.
If your holidays are not remote, you can always use commercial online storage as a temporary cache. Also secure network connections to your own NAS is not really very hard to set up if you belong to the standard slashdot demographic.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
Every one of my xD cards came with a hard plastic shell that holds up to 6 cards securely. The shell is large enough not to get lost easily.
I have seen SD card 'wallets' and such, but have never seen anyone actually use one.
Be the first on your block. Start a trend.
I use a database application running under the new NinnleWM for Ninnle Linux to keep track of the hundreds of SD cards I use.
You grab a handful out of the JAR, then you throw them up in the air, whatever lands on your desk, the first one you grab, that's yours, it's the one you'll be using today.
Give me a break KDawson, you can't be serious, there are much more important things going on in the world today than your stupid SD card collection.
Maybe you can figure out how to store them in your local polling place's Diebold Electronic Voting Machine? hmmm? Perhaps you'll remember next time we start an illegal war, break the oath of office, drown several cities, shread the Constitution, and steal 65 Trillion dollars twice (by making the people pay it back in tax.)
I know of one dark hole you could store them in where it will never get lost. It's named after a planet. Can ya guess which one?
Okay now my serious answer to the question, I manage my library by an air vacuum tube transport system, I simply place the chip into the slot in the front of my computer, and it is sucked up and delivered to a giant warehouse that is run by midget elfs behind my wall, they carefully classify each chip and store each one on steel shelves that are carefully grounded to the green wire. Problem is service is usually slow around Christmas. I never figured out why.
The Pelican 0910 Memory Card Case! 8 x SD / 16 x Mini SD. And It's Sturdy.. Seriously. http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail.php?Case=0910
What's all this talk about 1 GB or 2 GB SD cards? Come on, 16 GB cards are available for as little as 32 euros, and the 32 GB cards ~100 euros. Buying a dozen of 16 GB SD cards costs less than 400 euros. Surely a professional could cough up that amount.
Take life easy: one bit at a time.
...I only have the one which is permanently in my Eee 701, and occasionally loses all it's data for no apparent reason (yay for backups)
But USB memory sticks on the other hand, now you're talking! I wish they'd produce significantly increased capacity ones at very affordable prices so I could carry the same amount of data around in a single stick instead of spread across 2-4 sticks.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Fine point Sharpie Marker?
Illiterate? Write for free help!
but you can't make him drink. The same goes for organization. If you haven't seen people use walets, and don't think they will work, then most other solutions won't either. I use multiple wallets to manage my sd & cf (one for each) for photography. I know if I pull out the red one, it's for my sd cards, white cf. Works really well. Also, if the use for each card for static purposes put a label on them.
You shoot in 14bpp? What is that, 256k colors? Perhaps you meant 14 bits per channel.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
White lables, a sharpie, a box of index cards, a roll of tape. You can figure the rest out.
-- $G
Once the cards got into the multi-GB range I stopped needing to swap between them, excepting on my DSLR where I want a back-up card (and frames are 8MB apiece, so they eat up storage pretty quickly, although it's rare to fill a 4G card in a single shoot).
So there's really nothing to manage. Leave the card in the device. Occasionally take it out, copy data to a computer, and use that for archive. Empty card and put it back in the device.
The idea of managing lots of them seems to presume that the cards are good for long-term storage, which they're not. They degrade faster than any other long-term storage device. If you're trusting them for long periods you should reconsider.
Regarding figuring out whose is whose, I write on their label with a marker. My last name and the date I put it in service. The date is important: I find that many of the cards start to have trouble in the 2-3 year range. I like to replace them every couple of years. Having said that I do have 4+ year old cards still in service, just not in anything I deem important.
I don't get the "they don't fit if you put labels on them" comment I saw earlier; excepting microSD cards all of the SD and CF cards I've ever purchased came with a label already on it, and usually they have a spot to write on too.
This just doesn't seem like a real problem to me these days. It's not like the days when a 32MB card was big....
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
well when i saw all the different formats i decided that every device i would buy should be using the same type.
So PDA Canon camera audio-tower computer all can use CF disk, that's limiting the chaos of many cards.
Usualy they also just stay in their device, only the camera has extra CF's in its bag
So when i go on vacaction i've got some reserve backup cards.
This policy worked well for quite a while.
Until i bought a Mp3 player, which used SD.. the audio tower could allready handle CF and SD but since the player is the only one using mainly that, there is till not much chaos there either.
Basicly the scenario i use is every device one, and the remaining ones endup near my camera.
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Back when a 20MB hard drive was still a big capacity and everyone had zillions of floppy disks to manage I had a teacher give me a piece of advice I still live by:
If the disk contents aren't important enough to justify the tiny effort of labeling the disk then treat the disk as if it is blank.
Saves a lot of hand wringing about whether the files on the disk are important. If it wasn't important enough to take the very simple measure of writing a brief description of the contents of then you probably didn't need the contents anyway. If by some chance you did need the contents your organizational skills/system suck and you deserve the consequences.
The problem should never be organizing SD cards however. The problem should be organizing and backing up the photos once you have downloaded the contents to your PC. Even if a photographer has 30+ SD (or equivalent) cards with him for a shoot, the contents should not remain on those cards for long after the shoot is done.
Seriously /.?
I also shoot exclusively RAW, but until very recently I only had a single 4GB card. When I was at SIGGRAPH this year, I took ~14GB worth of pictures with that card. Since I had my Asus EeePC 900 and a 2.5"-120GB-USB-Disk with me, I just moved all images to the HD every night.
For organisation... someone else said it already. SD cards should be considered somewhat unsafe storage. There's no reason for me to have several of them, except old cards that I didn't throw away yet, because they're still functional - but I don't carry them with me, I just store them somewhere - empty.
SD cards that are higher than 2Gig are SDHC and most older devices do no support them. Before you get rid of your old cards, make sure your devices can handle SDHC cards.
Actually, the majority of sensors used in cameras are Bayer sensors, and for those each pixel only captures one color channel. The raw conversion process then interpolates the other colors into each pixel.
The only alternative I'm aware of that captures all colors per pixel are the Foveon sensors, and I think the number of cameras that have used those is small enough to count on two hand.
all the photographers i know have lots of cards, but they usually take the photos off the sd cards right away after the shoot. depending on the shoot, they will cycle cards out so they can develop early shots while taking additional photos. there was a time when a (studio or table top) photographer would call a film house to rush develop sheet or roll film to see how a shoot is going before committing to expending more film. this habit is still prevelent in the form of developing RAW images into jpeg or tiffs for quick proofing to inkjet printers.
i guess the bottomline is that the SD cards are only an intermediate format and aren't considered permanent archive. anyone who keeps files on SD/XD/Flash/CF/fill-in-the-blank is an idiot. copy your file onto harddrive right away, burn them onto cd/dvd for archive(two copies minimum!).
as far as memory card storage? i use an old cedar cigar box. it has a certain retro je ne sais quoi...
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
Pelican makes a case #0910 that works okay for SD and Mini-SD (8 SD, 16 Mini). However, there's no good solution for MicroSD that I've found, and since a micro can be made into a mini or SD with an adaptor, it'd be nice to find a case that could hold two dozen microSD's with a space for a mini and SD adapter, plus maybe one of those microUSB readers.
I just bought a few (and fast) PNY 16GB SD Cards on Newegg a few weeks ago for under $40. 8GB MicroSD cards should run about the same for a decent brand.
That makes it: 1 SD for my HP mini, 1 SD for my camera, 1 spare SD for whatever else I come across, 1 MicroSD for my Blackberry, and 1 MicroSD for my DS. They stay in the devices at all times (except the DS when I'm loading stuff).
Baring HD Video recording, why would you need to carry any more than that?
My camera has one and it stays in the camera. My Blackberry has one and it stays in my Blackberry, and all other devices are the same way. The closes thing I have to a problem is when I upgrade to a larger card for say my Blackberry. Then it's just like kids clothes. A hand-me-down occurs, and the smallest one gets tossed into a small container of old SD cards. Those usually just sit and do nothing unless I find someone who needs one.
I fill and store my SD cards. I am hoping to start a tag and list system to keep them organised, not critical yet as I've only got about a half-dozen. (I lost a bunch with the camera & bag that Toad got when he took my Volvo out for that wild ride.) IMHO a flash ROM that's been written to once only is adequately reliable to back up the .jpgs that have been stored on HDDs. I have dated each SD to when it was used, I'll start a file describing the contents. Real soon.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
This guy here :
http://www.prophotolife.com/2008/12/19/atn-35-my-first-olympus-dslr-an-e520/
Uses 35mm slide protector pages, they fit perfectly for CF cards, but you could still use them for SDs.
...and no data on any flash drive is ever permanent. Usually, the first thing I do with one before I start using it for whatever task I've picked it up for is wipe it. There's a folder on my file server of .dmgs - snapshots of 'important' jumpdrive stuff that I'm not confident is being replicated everywhere. But I have convinced myself that ever an SD card, CF card, USB drive, whathaveyou is found, the data onboard is transient.
These cards are not intended as long-term storage, they're portable medium until you can get the data onto something with more iron. If the data is important to you, transfer it to the drobo, or file storage, or CD or something. Just not on the portable media.
It's the same old story: backup, backup, backup.
Informatus Technologicus
I can't believe I don't see more people using this.
Eye-Fi
I use the dewey decimal system.
say about 3 and 1/2 inches, big enough so it wouldn't get lost and could be easily written on with identifying information.
All the cheap, consumer grade stuff have is SD. If I had the money, I'd get nothing but CF for the speed. My little snapshot camera does not support that, but I always get the "fast" SDs.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
by "raw conversion process" you mean "what happens in the camera before it even produces a RAW image", don't you? Or are the RAW images really RAWer than I thought?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've actually solved the sock problem. When I take out a load of laundry and fold it, I put any single socks right back into the dirty laundry queue. Since I flush the laundry queue at least once a week, eventually the socks will be matched up. If a sock sticks around in the queue for a few weeks, eventually the pair will be declared corrupted, and I'll throw it in the rag pile, where it can be used as a shoe or silver polisher. I have yet to recover a pair from the rag pile.
... you insensitive clod!
I keep one or two cards as backups in the cases I carry for each device that uses them. Current photos, music, videos, etc., I keep organized on my PC's harddrive and I keep external USB harddrives, including a couple of portables for when I travel, as backups for everything.
I feel a little out of it, on this thread, with my leetle camera, but I get 1600~ pix on a 2GB SD card. That is quite enough to overwhelm my filing system, I don't even use any bigger ones.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
Raw image format:
A raw image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of a digital camera or image scanner.
Raw formats' purpose is to faithfully record both 100% of exactly what the sensor "saw" (the data), and the conditions surrounding the recording of the image (the metadata).
That said, why would the camera interpolate extra data into the file? It would just take extra space and could equally well be done on the computer.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
No, the raw conversion process is what happens on the computer (well, it happens in camera when you shoot jpeg, but since jpegs are only 8 bit anyway, that's not relevant to this discussion). The raw file itself is simply the raw data read straight from the sensor (and the EXIF metadata). No processing has been done other than lossless compression. Thats why a 12MP RAW image is typically only 12-20 MB. Once you interpolate the channels and add the extra 2 bits to round up to an even 16 bits per channel, you typically end up with a TIFF file that's 40-70MB, even with compression.
Minimally processed, I just didn't know how much processing was going on. I do seem to dimly recall from somewhere in the past that some camera companies have gotten flamed for having not-so-raw-RAW images, but I didn't remember the details (I don't actually HAVE a camera with RAW support, hence my confusion. Seems kind of lame that my super-zoom compacts don't have it though. I guess they just don't want you to see just how bad the lens distortion is.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
For large quantities of cards...
Business card books.
o Keep each card in its case for extra static protection.
o Label each card.
o If you need more metadata for a card, write in on a blank business card and slide that in behind it.
My .02,
-Adam
Computer Science is all about trying to find the right wrench to bang in the right screw. -T.Cumbo?
I put them all into a zip-able anti-static bag, and that then is placed in the side pouch of our camera bag. The only ones not in there are microSD's that are installed in my sticks that stay with the laptops. Not lost one yet.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Transfer the files to your computer then back them up however you wish. Why would you use an SD card for storage?
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
The two high speed CF cards for my 40D are labeled "The Card" and "The Other Card". This makes it easy to tell them apart.
I don't use anything smaller than SD, and definitely prefer CF.
How can it be "buy a sharpie", an answer for a /. story?
There are others, but this is enough. You have to make one major assumption: You are going to lose this card, and it will be at the worst possible time. Whether it is to the washing machine, or just plain wearing out of the card itself, you have to prepare for this.
So that being said, there are good programs out there for achival. So what would you all recommend?
I have used Adobe, but what else is there?
Also can we widen this a bit to indexing and archiving other forms of data, such as source code, music, text documents, and so on? Yes, Google has given us really nice tools for finding the stuff, but....
Why though? There are much better solutions to store the data then an SD card.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
I simply use a sharpie to label them and I keep them in a draw string pouch in a drawer nearby the TV when not in use. I keep the card reader in there too.
I don't find physical devices too hard to keep track of, but which slot are they attached to on the workstation? I find it easier to keep track if I add an Autorun.inf file and an icon (image.ico) to the root directory of the card or stick or whatever. I have never had problems with these files in the desitination device (camera, Mac, Zaurus etc.) but they make handling stuff on the PC which has a lot of attached devices a lot easier. You can iconise pictures with Irfanview - a 16x16 pixel block is all you need, and I guess anything distinctive will do (but I like to make 'em pretty!). The text in your Autorun.inf should look something like: [autorun] icon=image.ico label=Corsair stick (4GB) - you can add your name to the label if that helps sort out ownership.
I actually use the wallets, on top of that I label each card with it's intended purpose (slow cards for storage, fast for the camera) and use a labeling scheme for the volume name that helps me see which is which. I. E. books - 1 for the ebook reader, camera-2, .....
It takes a fair amount of work but it might be the way to go for you as well.
Go somewhere that caters to coin collectors and buy a bunch of 2" zip-lok bags. You can write on the bag with a ball point or marker.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
I keep mine in an onion hanging from my belt.
And I like it.
Get or make a small wooden box with an open top that is a little wider than an SD card. Insert dividers as needed for labels(i.e. "RHS Photo Shoot"). Then you can just load it up like a file cabinet.
For organizing mini and microSD cards you can probably use a microscope slide case. Since microscope slides are 1mm thick and mini/microSD cards are 1mm thick they should fit in the slots the same. Then just follow the same labelling methodology.
Since SD and SDHC cards are about 2.1mm thick they might not fit in common microscope cases, but the first solution should work pretty well for these.
I have another question, should I be wiping from front to back, or back to front? What should my friends and family be doing? What if we get mixed up and they wipe me?
Go with Apple products. They don't accept memory cards. Hence, no problems with managing the cards and no added expense.
But my SD cards are all black, you insensitive clod!
That would be "African American" you insensitive clod!
I don't think you'd need RAW files in order to see lens distortion. In-camera processing does not correct lens distortion AFAIK.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Buy the biggest SD card that your device supports and always leave it in the device. If you need spares, keep them in the case where you store your device.
This sounds like the age old question posed by teenagers in movies: "Teen: Mom, I can't find anything to wear!!!", "Mother: If you picked up your clothes once in a while, you'd be able to find something...." Same thing applies to our gadgets and their memory cards, pick them up and put them away. As simple as that....
David
4 gig cards are not that expensive and they hold an amazing amount of stuff.
But 4 GB cards aren't compatible with nearly as many devices because the SD protocol changes for cards over 2 GB.
So where do the socks go - do they hide in the washing machine? The drier? In someone else's sock drawer?
The dryer does actually eat them. Some years ago, our drier died. I thought..."ok, I'll take it apart and salvage any useful parts. motor, pulleys, etc".
Upon taking the drum out...there was literally a double handful of singleton socks inside the box, and a coupla dollars in coins.
Eric Baird
I don't know if management is really the issue as much as having the right card at the right time. For this, you should check out http://www.eporterinc.com/. These cases carry 3 SD cards very easily. You could get several as they come in different colors. Put family stuff in the blue case, and work stuff in the silver case or something like that. Anyway, they make it so you always have your memory with you. In fact, the company tag line is "Don't lose your memory!"
So you cut out the holes with a sharp craft knife or scalpel, then glue the sheet to some sort of sheet, backing board or plate. Whether you then glue a second sheet of clear flexible plastic on top with suitable slits on top, or have rigid sheets of acrylic front-and back, or some other variation, depends on how and where the storage system is going to be used. Some people might want A4 storage sheets that will match their existing A4 negative storage-sheet system and binders, others might want a smaller format (A5 or Filofax). The smaller sizes would be useful if you're taking sheets of SD cards out into the wild.
There are credit-card-sized SD card holders available commercially that are great for carrying cards in your pocket, but not so good for filing.
Eric Baird
I just have to say this is a stupid slashdot story. Why is this on here? Figure it out dumbass.
simple, fast homepage with your links: http://www.ngumbi.com/
Well as a photographer shooting weddings I generally carry 8 SD cards on me at any given time. When I load them into my SD case I put them all label up to signify that they are empty and ready to go. As I go through cars during the course of a day I put my spent cards back into the case label down to signify that they are no longer empty and need to be downloaded to the computer.
Most of my colleagues use the same method with their SD or compact flash cards.
Technology is most abused by the very people it was created to help
It's always amazed me that people think socks just magically disappear.
Obviously, the dryers are shredding the socks, probably one a load, and producing lint with them.
I mean, where do people think that 'lint' comes from? Thin air?
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
So how does one label an SD card
With one of these. Should have thought that was obvious...
You need one card per device. Every 6 months (or every new device) you buy one with double the capacity. It costs you the same as the last one and you have the extra space you think you might need. Keep the old one as a blank backup, in case you happen to need more space all of a sudden and find your current card full and a laptop to dump to unavailable. Hell, if your devices use the same size card, you only really need one emergency card, and you clock through the ones you have every 6 months, putting the new, big one in the "prime" device and pushing the stack down through the less used devices.
I have uSD in 1, 2, and 8 GB varieties, and will pony for a 16 when they hit $40 (then practically my whole music collection will fit on my phone)
The 2 is in a super small usb reader (Adata) that resides in my wallet for emergency transfers
I have SD in 1,2,4,8, and now 16GB for my SD cameras, of which I "own" 3 (two for work and one for my daughter). Yup, the 16 is in mine, 8 in daughter's, 4 in the second work camera, I carry the 2 as a backup.
Nothing resides on my SD cards for longer than necessary, because they have no way to get automatically backed up. Everything gets dumped and deleted from the SD asap. The files then reside on a redundant array (mirrored drives on W2003 or an Unraid array), and get backed up to a removable drive every night with syncback.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
As others have noted, it's fairly straightforward:
1) label your cards. Use a perm marker, not a sticker.
2) backup your cards to a central storage, like your computer's drive, as well as onto DVD(s).
3) Reduce the number of actual cards you keep around by moving data and consolidating onto larger cards and getting rid of the smaller and older cards. Why risk card failure or worse yet... cards that are no longer supported?
I used to have to manage around a dozen cards, but over time, I've learned that the best way to keep things manageable is to keep the card count down:
DSLR: 4 cards ( 16 GB compact flash cards )
Digicam: 1 card ( 8GB SDHC )
Celphones: 2 cards ( microSD / SDHC 4GB )
No dinking arond with 512MB or 1GB cards. Just have the one card and backup/flush the data when you don't need it anymore.
While you CAN archive onto flash media, it is much more expensive to do that than to archive onto say... a pair of external USB hard drives. As you outgrow them, migrate to a new pair of larger drives, wiping and reusing the previous pair for something else. This way, you always have two seperate copies. Keep one in a safe place, until you need to add files to it.
You can also make use of a centralized storage mechanism in conjunction with an online data warehousing service like Amazon's S3, which charges on the order of $0.10-$0.15/GB to store per month.
Winged Power Photography
I have lots and lots of SD and SDHC cards for our cameras. Fortunately, the 3 cameras we have all use the same flash card format (and battery).
My Canon TX1 can burn through memory at an alarming rate when taking Hi-Def video. For a recent wedding shoot, I had 3 8GB cards, 3 4GB cards, and a 16GB card. I have a little $2 SD card case I got at Wally World that holds 8 cards. I grab this if I know I'll be shooting more than an hour of video.
Otherwise, we just keep all the cards, batteries, and battery chargers in 1 communal box, with the rule that if you grab a fresh battery, you must immediately put your old one in the charger. For cards, we generally use a PC program called "Stamp 2.8" that pulls the files off the card reader, renames them according to the date and time they were taken, and clears the card for re-use.
I like having the "useless" smaller cards - they come in very handy for archiving stuff. The 32 MB card that came with the camera is useless for picture taking, but I can copy 15 years worth of email onto it and throw it in my safe deposit box.
To answer the original question - a $2 zipper case from Wally World.
I had this problem and realized that the amount of time I spent sorting socks was ridiculous. The solution? Flatten your socks down to 1 or 2 types (white and black) and now the sorting problem goes away. Anytime your socks start developing holes or you feel you need to replace them, throw out the entire batch and buy all identical ones. By now you don't even have to pair up the socks when sorting the laundry. Just throw them in the drawer/basket and you're done.
I use SDs for my Palm for music and have found a metal case (which holds 8) works great. Photo stores sell them.
Why carry several different format cards around ? Get a BIG NAS, and a wifi SD card, and acces your network. No more fysical trouble ! - I am a eurofag == bad spelling && grammar -
Disappearing socks turned into lint? - nonsense. If that were so, it would happen steadily (and it does, you find it on the dryer filter). Thus socks would gradually get thinner - and they probably do. But to suggest that the dryer picks on one sock and eats it is less weird than my theory of an alternative sock universe.
Occam would be ashamed of you.
(Actually, Occam, being a deeply religious monk, would be horrified by the current use of his name all over the place. But I digress)
"Cats like plain crisps"
The cards for my camera are in my camera bag. The cards for my other devices are in the devices themselves -- I can't fathom needing more than one card for anything that's not a camera.
I have a carefully constructed hill of SD cards, flash drives and DS games. I never lose any since removing one from the hill could make the whole thing collapse. However, when things are successfully removed, they are placed at the base after they're used, a little to the right of the pile, so as things are used and replaced the hill creeps right. I used to do the same with CDs and DVDs, but they're much less... robust... Didn't damage any discs or their data like that, but to look at them you'd be surprised they held any data at all.
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
So the SD card is in a sealed dustproof enclosure, you can still read the SD label, and you can plug the whole thing into a USB port.
It costs one pound.
I ended up buying a batch of them, and a batch of cheap SD cards, and colour-coding the cards, and I use them for stuff where I want access to the latest versions of files on multiple computers, without necessarily wanting those files stored permanently on certain machines. I back them up, of course, but I find that "SD-in-USB" is a good mobile transfer medium for working files. I have one for computer graphics (where I might be updating source code and rendering on different machines), one for job info and cvs, one that I was using for coursework, one for sales data and marketing info, and so on.
Also, my Mum has one of those Kodak picture frames (which can take one SD card and one USB drive), so an SD card in a USB enclosure gives maximum flexibility. And she's now got one of those ASUS Eee machines, which also has an SD slot & USB. And I just got an Eee Box bolted to the back of my monitor for wordprocessing and browsing, and that has an SD slot, too.
At some point, I'll probably get a new hifi with SD slot(s) rather than an optical drive. All my CDs are on MP3 anyway, and some of the recent digital radios can record direct to SD. Some SD-equipped players seem to have filesystem limitations, but it wouldn't be too much of a hardship to have different categories of music on their own cards.
So yes, it is quite possible to end up with a lot of SD cards, even if you don't have a camera or mobile that takes them (I don't).
I'm not using these things because of a lack of other options ... I have a serious firewire-based multi-HD storage unit for backups and backups-of-backups ... but I like to keep it switched off whenever possible, to reduce mechanical wear and tear (and the risk of accidents). I also usually choose not to network my "fast" PC, because I like to keep it running a minimal set of drivers and disconnected from the internet. I've also ended up with three mobile 2.5" HD caddies, which are handy and portable ... but if anything, they hold too much data, and are too "delicate" to be treated casually. So for relatively small amounts of data, it's nice to have a format that's cheap and shockproof, runs on anything, and lets you take small datasets out and about without carrying a load of unnecessary info with you that amounts to a copy of your entire life history, and "sensitive" info.
I used to use the "normal" thumb drives for this, but it annoyed me that they were all different designs and shapes and colours, and had inconvenient capacities, and it was difficult to remember what was on what drive at any given time. So these little one-pound "see-through" SD USB enclosures have been great.
Eric Baird
It doesn't pick one sock.
Socks are destroyed in a quantum-mechanical manner. Socks don't specifically disappear, or slowly disappear, they just disappear in general, like 'an electron' jumps from one energy level to another, although we all know it's not possible to tell electrons apart.
It's a statistical disappearance, where 'each sock' (Although we know that socks are, while being washed, actually 'waves' that are indistinguishable from each other.) has something like a 5% chance of totally disappearing, but lint is produced continually from the probability that a sock vanished.
Sorta the opposite of the photovoltaic effect, where the gradual absorption of electrical energy results in the random emission of entire photons.
Sometimes, at the end of the wash, enough lint was emitted that the system finds itself minus a sock when you collapse the waveform by opening the door.
This is, incidentally, why you shouldn't look inside a washer while it's running...you'll lose a lot more socks, up to one every time you peak in.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Now you're talking! Quantum-mechanical socks, yeah baby!
"Cats like plain crisps"
Mobility, security, wallet-scale portability, use on embedded equipment (hifis, picture frames, etc.), use on non-networked home PC's, PC OS backups (that need to be on a format that a PC can boot directly from), shock-resistance, and backups of data that you want kept mechanically separate from your usual backup scheme.
And for archiving medium-ish amounts of data, where you don't actually know which data formats are going to last the longest, it doesn't hurt to use multiple physical formats. If you can fit an extra backup of all your most important family photos onto a 16 gig card and keep it in your wallet, then why not?
Eric Baird
Got me one of these, mostly cause it looks cool.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/388980-REG/Gepe_3853_03_Card_Safe_Mini_Red_.html
I have a job where I spend time outside "in the field" (as we put it) and I interact with multiple, SD Card reading devices. These include cameras, surveying total stations, XRF devices, etc. These can create very large files very quickly (250 Mb for one device we have per data point). A laptop is not a practical solution when you're standing knee deep in a polluted stream, so dumping my data to a PC isn't an option in the field, hence I use multiple SD Cards.
I have a neoprene card wallet that is quite nice and fits in to my pocket while holding 24+ Gb of SD memory. It zips closed and has 6 mesh pockets inside that can hold up to 2 cards apiece.
I like the layout inside, it's comfortable in my pocket, and floats if I drop it. The only problem is the neoprene's knack for soaking up specific pollutants.
SD cards are pretty cheap relative to the effort required to upload the data. Also I believe that rewriting over the media eventually leads to increased failure. It isn't meant to be archival media, but it is SO cheap, I have decided not to reuse it. For me, that is the "better solution". It's not really for redundancy or anything. I never re-formatted used floppies either, I guess I must be new here.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I'm African Welsh, you insensitive clod!
An SD card is about one square inch and as thick as a credit card. A micro-SD is smaller then the fingernail on my pinky. Even if you have labels that you can use, or attempt to use a sharpie, What are you going to write in a space that small that will hold its meaning at a glance?
Get plastic sandwich bags. toss the cards in there with a piece of paper describing the contents. Cheap and more effective than any other solution so far. If they are zip-lock bags, it will even save the day if you drop them in the bathroom...
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
http://www.eporterinc.com/products.htm
Take a stack of 3x5 cards & write in the upper left area of the card:
DATE:
TIME:
LOCATION:
SUBJECT:
NOTES:
Then take a piece of standard cello-tape, fold it into a loop (so there's a "sticky side" on both sides), and tape a single memory card to the card *label side up*.
That is your clue that the card is empty & ready to be used.
Repeat this with as many memory cards as you have.
Put them all in the hard-plastic "recipe box" 3x5 card container & close the lid.
Toss it into your camera bag.
When you get to a 'Shoot Location, set the box on the table, flip open the lid, & lay a few (3x5 Cards + Memory Card) on the table.
When you use a card, stick it back on the 3x5 card *label side down* so you know that one's already been used.
When you're done with the Shoot, fill out each card, stick them in the front of the box, & when you get home, deal with them as normal.
Make new blank 3x5 Cards for each of the Memory Cards you've used.
Put the freshly-emptied Memory Card label-side-up on the blank card, & put it back in the box.
Put the box in your camera bag.
Repeat this cycle for each shoot, and you'll always have a list of what's on each Memory Card.
Once you've emptied the Memory Card to your computer for processing, write the photo file names on the associated 3x5 card.
This way you have a perm record of each shoot: When, Where, & What.
Then you can label the top of the 3x5 Card with a general idea of what the shoot was about (ex: "Soccer Game", "Vanessa on the Beach", etc), & use the 3x5 Cards as a literal "Card Catalog".
Organize them by similar topics (sports, people, etc), & then you should be able to easily find the names of the photos associated with that topic.
Finding the photo files themselves is variable as to how/where you store them, but the 3x5 Card "Catalog" will be a complete record of what you've taken.
My father did this for nearly twenty years.
Shoot a roll of film, put the film in its canister, tape the canister to a 3x5 card with the Date/Time/Notes bits, & grab a new roll from the next card.
Get home, process the film in the dark room, & then save the physical photos behind the matching 3x5 card.
Put a new box of (canisters + 3x5 cards) in his camera bag, & never worry about remembering where or what any particular roll of film was about.
He kept the notes as he took the shots, and now nearly thirty years later, the family doesn't wonder who is in any particular shot.
We can flip through the photo album, read the 3x5 card before each group of pictures, and know *exactly* where each picture was taken, when, & of whom.
Now that you do the storage digitally, you can have an even larger collection of photos at your disposal.
Which means a LOT more 3x5 Cards, but the principle still holds.
You'll have kept a record.
Your family will thank you.
=)
I was looking for a wallet for my SD cards, but couldn't find one anywhere (I have an Eee with a couple of extra cards (one for backup, one for Slax, etc.)).
I ended up using a couple of sleeves of a coin album page: they're the right size, and protect the cards ok.
I don't think you'd need RAW files in order to see lens distortion. In-camera processing does not correct lens distortion AFAIK.
I bet it mitigates it slightly.
I can indeed see lens artifacts in my JPEGs though :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You could test it. Get a large piece of graph paper and set up your camera in front of it (make sure it's flat, centered and perpendicular to the camera axis) on a tripod. At various zoom levels and apertures, take pictures of the paper in both RAW and [some other file format]. Open up the files in an image editor where you can overlay the photos on a rectangular grid. Compare. You can see barrel and pincushion distortion etc. Note that "distortion" in an optical sense is only a subset of many types of optical defects, which also include things like chromatic aberration (common in cheap optics) that I was not including. Correcting distortion would require some geometric transformation that would vary depending on the lens settings and therefore be very difficult to do, in-camera or otherwise. Conclusion: I don't think you'll see any difference in distortion.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Wow, so many posts and so much effort to NOT answer a question. Reminds me of a joke: Guy goes to the doctor and says, "Doctor, it hurts when I go like this," so the doctor says, "Don't go like that."
Anyway, I have had similar issues with memory cards before. I'm no expert, but I can tell you what I do.
I use SD cards with several devices - digital camera, cell phone, USB "thumb drive", portable digital music player (read: MP3 player), GPS unit, and my laptop (or "netbook").
Yes - you CAN take the 1GB card full of photos and dump them elsewhere. It's just nice to be able to swap them out if you're "in the field" and not near a larger storage device.
For the music player, I like to have a gig or two of one type of music per card, so I can then swap out cards depending on what mood I'm in. Yeah, yeah - people will say, "Just use playlists, DUH!" But this particular player seems to only do random across the whole device. Not to mention the hassle of dealing with all the mislabeled MP3 metadata.
For the netbook, I use an 8GB card as a drive. If you want to keep your machine completely "legit" and not have pirated audio/video on it (not that *I* would, of course), it's handy to keep it on a removable piece of media.
Anyway, here's some stuff I do:
1) Try to go with a single size (physically) for all your cards. I just get the smallest (microSD) and use adapters to step up to larger sizes.
2) Make sure your various devices can use the "high capacity" (4+ gig) cards before slapping one in there when you really need one.
3) I got a bunch of different brands (from Newegg). This let me "label" them simply by using the brand name printed on the card. Then, I just have a little slip of paper that maps the brands to the content. I was also kind of interested to see if any brand in particular failed and was to be avoided in the future.
4) Sometimes you might have repeat labels (brand/capacity combinations). For that, you can get some brightly and uniquely-colored sticker, cut a sliver, and put it on the top (non-data contact) edge of the card.
5) I also got them in varying sizes (1, 2, 4, and 8 gig). This lets me use whatever is appropriate for the task. 8GB for movies, 2GB for photos, 1GB for music, etc.
6) Get a few adapters. Usually when you get a microSD card, it'll come with sleeves that let you use it in a miniSD or SD slot. I Also recommend getting a "microSD-to-USB" adapter, for easier file transfer. In my camera, I have a microSD card in a "Trifecta" (search on Newegg for it) adapter that lets me use it as regular-sized SD in the camera, but then also as a USB card reader, all without removing the microSD card from the adapter (and bypassing any handshaking where the PC wants to use some special photo-handling software).
7) OK, here's the main thing you were asking about - management. SOME of the cards I will leave in the device (camera, netbok, USB adapter, etc). For others, this is what I did:
I went to two stores. One was called the Container Store and has... well... containers. I got maybe a half-dozen pill containers to try out for microSD cases. They're usually clear, so you (and the TSA) can see what's in them. Some of them even have threaded tops, so you can screw on the top and be more sure that the container isn't going to pop open.
The other store was a craft store called Michaels. There, I got a thin piece of foam rubber, cut a little rectangle (or whatever cross-section of the container is), and punched a dozen slits in it.
Push the cards in the slits. Make sure they're all facing the same direction, for ease of looking through them. The flexibility of the foam rubber lets you "bend" cards out of the way while rifling through them with meaty fingers.
Then just slide the foam rubber cross-section (with embedded cards) into the container. Put the label-to-contents map in with the cards (or rubber band it to the outside). Wrap a rubber band around the container itself, if you want to make sure it doesn't open on
etc.
That way you KNOW what kind-of-stuff is on a card, just by looking at it.
Also, hit http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ and search
Delkin SDHC Pro
and you'll find the most incredibly cost-effective cards around ( fast 16GB for about $36! fast 8GB for about $15 iirc )
It's the same as notes in a notebook: one subject/page, so you can tear out that page and file it in ONE file/place.
If you want to grab all your music, and you have your music segregated onto the M-cards ( sharpie's good, colored sharpie's better ), you can grab 'em all & sort 'em out on the road ( no, I wanted the other one, with the Rosalind Tureck, or Heinrich Schiff... ).
Videos on V-1 V-2 etc... Simple, Obvious, Clear, Doesn't Waste Brainforce.
If, instead, you've got different *kinds* of stuff jumbled onto every card, clarity's boshed.
Clarity wins, everytime ( ask Apple corp about that, re their UI & apps ).
Cheers,
Captain Obvious
anyone who is herding SD-cards is horde-ing 'em.
( a pod of Wales, a Horde of cards... )
( :
Captain Obvious