topic Re: Dual card slots in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

How important is dual card slots for a non-professional?

Mjmilam79 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:09:42 GMT

Has anyone actually had a card get corrupted, and the second slot saved their bacon? How important is dual slots for a non-professional? Thanks for your opinions and insights.

Re: Dual card slots

deebatman316 — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 21:53:10 GMT

I’m not a professional but I have my camera set up to record to both card slots at the same time. You always have a 2nd copy of images of the one of the cards were to fail.

Re: Dual card slots

March411 — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 23:15:13 GMT

Same as deebatman316, writing to both just in case. Once I load the images to a drive on the computer they both get formatted. I always thought, why not use the available resource for protection.

Re: Dual card slots

p4pictures — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 10:12:42 GMT

I have several cameras with dual card slots, but I rarely use them as a backup for each other while shooting. Most of the time I have the camera set to auto switch so when one card is full the camera switches to the other one automatically - even in the middle of a continuous burst.

I would also suggest buying quality branded cards from a reputable source. Also never use a microSD card in an adapter.

Re: How important is dual card slots for a non-professional?

justadude — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:25:57 GMT

There are a few good reasons to have two card slots. The obvious one is backup, as debatman and Marc have already suggested.

I've only had one card fail over many years. It wasn't some cheap knockoff brand, but one of the best SD cards on the market at the time. Like anything man made, things sometimes fail regardless of quality. Anyway, luckily it wasn't for a hired job, and I know you said "non-professional", but it was a full week's worth of family vacation photos that was lost - forever. I did not have dual card slots on that camera (Pentax K10D), so since then I have been thankful to have some camera models with dual card slots - which I use for pro work, and also for non-pro work that can't be reshot (vacations, event photography, Northern Lights, etc.)

However, if it's things I can easily reshoot (street photography, local landscapes, etc.) then I'll often set one card as RAW (if I only shoot one card, it's always RAW), and set the other to JPEG with an in camera profile, such as monochrome (or whatever option you choose). Sometimes the JPEGs are perfectly fine to use (photos sending to family, social media, etc.)... other times they simply give me a goal of how to edit the RAW if I like the looks of the JPEG, but need the large RAW file for large prints.

I've also have friends that do as Brian suggests at times with when one card fills, it will start the next.

All that being said, I can't think of any benefit of NOT having two card slots (although I do have quite a few cameras with only one).