Digital Camera Memory Cards - Does Size Matter?

One of the most vigorous debates regarding digital photography revolves around the question of size vs. quantity when considering memory cards. Should one use the biggest single card one can afford or rather go for a few smaller cards? We'll take a look at the pro's and cons of both arguments in this article.

Digital storage, like most technical fields, is perpetually evolving. Five years ago a 1 GB card was considered massive. Today the average is 2 - 4 GB and 32 GB memory cards are available. These quantum advancements, although overtly a good thing, have given rise to the great memory card size debate. In the big card camp, protagonists of size over quantity argue that one large card offers the greatest flexibility and convenience.

The opposing team claim their mantra of "more of less" is safer and sometimes quicker on the draw. Which one of the two that gets to holster the smoking six-gun and ride out of Dodge is largely a matter of personal preference. Perhaps a closer look at the bare bones qualities of each argument will help you develop an allegiance.

The great size debate

With the average "medium quality" setting for jpegs running at ± 3000 x 2000 pixels and consuming up to 6 Meg of disc space, not to mention AVI files chewing up Gigs of valuable storage, size does seem to count. A 4 Gig card gives me 1900 large 10MB jpegs or 285 NEF & jpeg shots. These quantities differ of course with subject matter and settings but that's still a lot of photos before you have to clear the card. When one considers that portable hard drives are now not much bigger than a pack of playing cards and pack up to a terabyte of space, you realize that you would have to shoot very, very hard to run out of storage.

So when shooting under the gun on location where you don't always have time to do a quick card swap, the "Biggy Best" argument seems to be in the lead by a
length. And if you do fill your 16 Gig memory card, then it's a quick and easy process of transferring the files to your portable hard drive and you're back in business. Large capacity memory cards also tend to be more cost effective as they cost, on average, less per Gig than several small ones.

The downside is of course - loose one, loose 'em all. As far as I'm concerned, this is the only argument against large capacity memory cards that holds any water. Should your memory card get lost or suffer physical damage or data loss you loose more than you would have using several smaller cards. However with the levels of reliability found in data storage these days even this gripe is getting more distant and echo like all the time. Besides, most photographers dump their data at the end of
every session anyway, so the likelihood of loss is reduced.

The "Less is More" brigade on the other hand, argues that smaller memory cards cost less per unit making it easier to beef up your capacity slightly when needed. Manufacturer's tendency to apply new features or technological advancements to their smaller card ranges is also sited as a plus. Neither of these does it for me. Frankly, smaller memory cards mean more cards. More memory cards mean more management issues, more card changes and more chance of loss or mishaps. For me "Big is Better".

I always carry backup cards in case something does go wrong, but so far haven't needed to use the contingency through all the mud, blood and beer. Basically, it all boils down to personal preference. I don't think there is a clear right or wrong choice on this one. I just believe that size does, in fact, count!