See if you can spot the difference between these two cameras below:
You’ll notice that the first camera has two slots for the memory cards while the second, like most digital cameras only has one. The two main cameras that I use on weddings are both as in the first picture, with two memory card slots. Why is that important? Although digital cameras are very reliable, just like any computer they can crash or the hard-drive/card can get corrupted and lose data for a number of reasons. Because of this real risk my cameras have two card slots to record the data on so that I can automatically record a backup copy of each image I take to the second card. So even if my first card went belly up I still have a backup copy of all my images. Neat eh!
I know what you’re thinking though: “What if both cards failed?” First of all, to be fair the chances of one card failing is pretty remote, but not remote enough for me to ignore. It’s a bit like the chances of me not being able to attend a wedding (see post below). So the chances of both cards failing is way off the radar!! But then stranger things have happened! So to cover that base too, on each wedding I use 2, sometimes 3 camera bodies allowing me to spread my images around in case of camera failure. Added to that the brand of memory card I use ensures a greater level of reliability. E.g. SanDisk Extreme III cards. (Their website says: “Every SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash card comes with RescuePRO® so you can recover images, documents, mail, video, music – just about any digital file, with ease.”) So even if the stangest of the strange happened, I should have all bases covered.
Why am I telling you all of this? Wedding photography is a very demanding field of photography where we have to work under what ever conditions we find ourselves and still, week in week out produce great images. The last thing I need is to be worrying about my equipment. The knowledge that my images are safe frees my mind to concentrate on the job at hand, knowing that I can always deliver the goods, come what may. My customers deserves the best proection so this is the least I could do.