Railfan Technology > Canon 50D How big a memory card can you use?

I just got back from an extended railfanning trip, which I had prepared for by buying a new CF memory card.

I bought a top of the line 32 gig card for my Canon 50D, with hopes of not running out of space for three weeks (yes, I shoot a lot, and in .RAW mode most of the time).

Not such a great idea. All went well for a while, although the "remaining frames" counter stayed stuck at "999" the whole time. Then, with only about 20 gigs worth of images on the card, the camera refused to take any more photos and gave me a message that the card needed to be reformatted.

Obviously, I didn't do that. I had other cards with me, and used those. The new big card was fine, and when I plugged it into my laptop, the card reader read it without a hitch. But I still have a card that I paid a bunch of cash for, that the camera can't use properly.

Does anybody know what the problem is here, or best of all, know a way around it?

The remaining frames were stuck at 999 because there are only 3 digits to read out. Had you gotten below 999, it would have started counting down.

Once you've downloaded all the photos, reformat the card in the camera. That will most likely solve the problem. You probably had some type of corruption in a file or the file structure on the card. It happens, it's digital. The formatting should fix it. Big cards, little cards, cheap cards, expensive cards: it happens to them all (though better cards are generally less susceptible). If the card cannot be formatted or doesn't work after formatting, you may have a defective card. The manufacturers warranty should cover it, if it is truly defective.

There's nothing wrong with a 32gb card in a 50D. The only downside is all your eggs are in one basket, and if something does happen to the card, you have a lot of potentially lost images. I'm not sure the max size (maybe 64gb?) but your manual should have this info.

-James
http://www.steamtrainvideos.com

Better to download your photos from the card to a laptop, or upload them to a storage site. Having all your photos on one card is risky. IMO.

Agreed on the "risky" argument.

The point was that I was on the road for three weeks, seeking to minimize baggage, and wanted to leave both my laptop and my little wallet of 8 gig CF cards at home.

I'll try reformatting the card this weekend, after I get all the pix from the trip backed up.

My only observation is that a larger memory car made my Nikon Coolpix take longer to boot-up. Of course boot time is a problem for grab shots anyway, but larger memory exacerbated it.

RailNet802, out