What's the largest SD card the Q2 can take?

[axio]

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Speed has been discussed a lot, how about size? Is there a limit on the size the Q2 can take?

Has anybody tried a 1TB card in it? 512GB?

[nicci78]

2TB max SDXC capacities. 

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[Marc B-C]

Although I have never had any issues with any memory card (that I can recall) in any camera, I prefer to use several cards of 64-128gb. Should something go wrong, including physical loss or damage, I would only lose the photos on that specific card. On the other hand, I tend not to back up either when on an extended trip.

Edited April 7, 2021 by Marc B-C

[axio]

6 hours ago, Marc B-C said:

Although I have never had any issues with any memory card (that I can recall) in any camera, I prefer to use several cards of 64-128gb. Should something go wrong, including physical loss or damage, I would only lose the photos on that specific card. On the other hand, I tend not to back up either when on an extended trip.

I was thinking where would be the safest place for an SD card. Perhaps it is inside the camera. If I never have to take the card out and use WiFi exclusively for accessing the photos, it may make sense to neglect potential damage.

[Marc B-C]

8 hours ago, axio said:

I was thinking where would be the safest place for an SD card. Perhaps it is inside the camera. If I never have to take the card out and use WiFi exclusively for accessing the photos, it may make sense to neglect potential damage.

You must do what you feel comfortable with. Loss of camera (before photo transfer), corrupt cards are rare and have also not happened to me, but again could cause a loss of photos. I am perhaps too risk adverse in these matters.

[Einst_Stein]

Intuitively smaller SD should have better liability, but I am not sure if that is true.

Anyway, unless you never reuse a SD, if ever, then you'll back up to somewhere. Where is the safer place to back up? take a look at this:

 

 

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[axio]

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I may have missed the point. What does 51 years of use mean?

when I download the photos from Leica Fotos, the data will be backed up in iCloud.

[Leica Guy]

Have you tried to download a large number of images, say 500 or a 1000 for instance, using wifi? Does the battery support transferring that many images? How long does it take? Do you carry several extra batteries? 
 

I find the idea of using Wifi for image transfer to be completely unworkable. My experience especially traveling is I shoot all day. Grab dinner and download images. Backup to an SSD drive. Charge batteries and swap out the SD card so I have two copies. One SD and one SSD. Keep the two copies in different places so if one is lost or stolen I’m not out all my photos. I’ve done multiple month long trips and this system works for me. I often do not have internet or certainly not fast internet access. Because of that I do not rely on cloud backup. 
 

You’ll figure out the best solution for you. I just suggest running some experiments to ensure you fully understand the limitations, advantages and disadvantages of your idea versus other methods. If you’ve already done that, Leica ON!! 

[iRandom]

Isn't Fotos the only way to do a wifi transfer? If so, I've found that to be really slow.

I was hoping that a feature of the Q2 was going to be USB3 type C that supported power delivery so that I could use that to get the photos off the camera. I tend to use multiple SDs only for vacations.

[nicci78]

Leica Fotos app is crap. 
just use a real SD card reader 

Bigger SD card are more reliable. Just like bigger SSD are also. Because flash NAND drive needs more cells for redundancy and self error corrections. If you have more of them. You are safe. 
With smaller SD card you will use the same cell over and over again. Inducing wear and tear. 
 

By the way, Q2 47MP and 4K video will make any SD card feels very small. 128GB will fill up very very quickly. 

Edited April 9, 2021 by nicci78

[Einst_Stein]

9 hours ago, axio said:

I may have missed the point. What does 51 years of use mean?

when I download the photos from Leica Fotos, the data will be backed up in iCloud.

Look at the top right cornor. It says the darker shorter time is "regular used", the lighter longer time is "unused or extreme cared".

Store in cloud? I am refusing to trust them. I had a lot photos uploaded to a well known photo site, it was free and unlimited, but then the policy changed. It's no longer unlimited.  I have to buy the premium membership other wise the photos that exceeds the limit will be deleted. I then found download so much file is impractical, the worse is, the photo files have been modified, no longer the original quality. 

The solution? film? prints?

Don't know.

Edited April 9, 2021 by Einst_Stein

[dnease]

Now that Leica has taken down the paywall for the iPad Fotos app, I find myself using it more for everyday, round the house and neighborhood shots. It's gotten better over time. I find that I can transfer a full DNG in about 30-35 seconds. Not practical for a days worth of shooting, but fine for a couple of quick snaps.

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 22 Stunden schrieb Einst_Stein:

the worse is, the photo files have been modified, no longer the original quality. 

What do You mean with that? That downloading the files will modify them?

As long the software you use is not applying any modification - what you can exclude - there is absolutely no modification in downloading files from the SD card.

Not sure if Leica Fotos is applying modifications while downloading thru WiFi but using a card reader there will no modifications applied.

Downloading by WiFi is considerable more slower than using a quality USB3 sd card reader, the Lexar for example.

Th workflow I use in the last 20 Years is:
copy photos from card to a new directory /photos/year/location/YYMMDD
import them in Lightroom

Basically the same old way I would do to store the photos and negatives/slides in a physical folder

Chris

[Einst_Stein]

25 minutes ago, PhotoCruiser said:

What do You mean with that? That downloading the files will modify them?

As long the software you use is not applying any modification - what you can exclude - there is absolutely no modification in downloading files from the SD card.

Not sure if Leica Fotos is applying modifications while downloading thru WiFi but using a card reader there will no modifications applied.

Downloading by WiFi is considerable more slower than using a quality USB3 sd card reader, the Lexar for example.

Th workflow I use in the last 20 Years is:
copy photos from card to a new directory /photos/year/location/YYMMDD
import them in Lightroom

Basically the same old way I would do to store the photos and negatives/slides in a physical folder

Chris

Not Leica site, a free site that modifies on uploading. 

If you want to upload to cloud without losing the quality, or better yet, to upload the full quality RAW files, you have to pay, The worst problem is their policy may change down the road, on their mercy. I am not sure your files will be kept by any better device.  After 100 years? forget it. I would worry even after 5 years. 

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 29 Minuten schrieb Einst_Stein:

Not Leica site, a free site that modifies on uploading. 

If you want to upload to cloud without losing the quality, or better yet, to upload the full quality RAW files, you have to pay, The worst problem is their policy may change down the road, on their mercy. I am not sure your files will be kept by any better device.  After 100 years? forget it. I would worry even after 5 years. 

Thats the reason why I store my photos locally.

A 2TB cloud space what is not Google or Amazonas ways too expensive for me so I backup on external hard disks.
However a cloud backup solution could be a optional safety system, but the total burn-down of one of Europes Could storage facility showed that this solution is not very safe either.
I use iCloud only for other things and cellphone pix

Chris

[Einst_Stein]

1 hour ago, PhotoCruiser said:

Thats the reason why I store my photos locally.

A 2TB cloud space what is not Google or Amazonas ways too expensive for me so I backup on external hard disks.
However a cloud backup solution could be a optional safety system, but the total burn-down of one of Europes Could storage facility showed that this solution is not very safe either.
I use iCloud only for other things and cellphone pix

Chris

Cloud is still the best way to share but not to backup. I use it for selected photos snd timely recycle the space for new sharing.

[Leica Guy]

4 hours ago, Einst_Stein said:

Not Leica site, a free site that modifies on uploading. 

If you want to upload to cloud without losing the quality, or better yet, to upload the full quality RAW files, you have to pay, The worst problem is their policy may change down the road, on their mercy. I am not sure your files will be kept by any better device.  After 100 years? forget it. I would worry even after 5 years. 

The only medium that will survive for 100 years or maybe even more than 20 are archival prints and books on archival paper all stored in dark, dry conditions. Best to avoid fires too!!

I suspect the problem isn’t format such as a jpeg file as much as the technology used. How long will thumb drives be used? What’s next? Remember floppy drives, CD’s, DVD drives. I can still read CD’s and DVD’s, but I have photos on floppy drives that I have no way to inexpensively access. Fortunately I moved everything over as time passed so nothing lost.
 

It’s an ever changing environment that requires diligence or photos will be lost. 

[Einst_Stein]

2 hours ago, Leica Guy said:

The only medium that will survive for 100 years or maybe even more than 20 are archival prints and books on archival paper all stored in dark, dry conditions. Best to avoid fires too!!

I suspect the problem isn’t format such as a jpeg file as much as the technology used. How long will thumb drives be used? What’s next? Remember floppy drives, CD’s, DVD drives. I can still read CD’s and DVD’s, but I have photos on floppy drives that I have no way to inexpensively access. Fortunately I moved everything over as time passed so nothing lost.
 

It’s an ever changing environment that requires diligence or photos will be lost. 

Any product type in modern technology is likely to last about 50 years. All my VHS/BETA video tape, digital audio tapes are no longer accessible. CD and DVD might follow soon. 

We used to store the IC design data on stream tapes. We rewind every tape about once every year or so to keep the data alive. The only reliable achieved data happens to be the color plots. funny, but it is only human readable. 

I am with you that the prints and films would still be the best storage. -- of course, silvery B&W is preferred. 

[Siriusone59]

3 hours ago, Leica Guy said:

The only medium that will survive for 100 years or maybe even more than 20 are archival prints and books on archival paper all stored in dark, dry conditions. Best to avoid fires too!!

I suspect the problem isn’t format such as a jpeg file as much as the technology used. How long will thumb drives be used? What’s next? Remember floppy drives, CD’s, DVD drives. I can still read CD’s and DVD’s, but I have photos on floppy drives that I have no way to inexpensively access. Fortunately I moved everything over as time passed so nothing lost.
 

It’s an ever changing environment that requires diligence or photos will be lost. 

You are so right in this explanation.  For years I would use floppy disks, hd and zip drives.  That evolved to cd's dvd's etc, none have survived as well as prints or thankfully negatives.  Technology seems to change quickly and the old media outdates rather fast plus the file formats and availability of the drives etc to read that media seem to fall to the wayside.  Computers don't even read a lot of the earlier media.  Prints, either chemically produced or electronically via dye sublimation seem to last for many years and I am so glad for that.

 Sometimes I long for the old days of creating my own darkroom prints that I know would be around for many years to come.   I don't think technology is a bad thing, it just needs to include the previous formats more than it seems to do today, that would be a help.

From my experience, I know there are many images that I have that using today's equipment are not even accessible and I have to maintain older computer gear, drives etc just to use them.  A sign of the times, I suppose.

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Look here: Leica Q

[Cheesehead]

On 4/9/2021 at 8:24 AM, Leica Guy said:

Have you tried to download a large number of images, say 500 or a 1000 for instance, using wifi? Does the battery support transferring that many images? How long does it take? Do you carry several extra batteries? 
 

I find the idea of using Wifi for image transfer to be completely unworkable. My experience especially traveling is I shoot all day. Grab dinner and download images. Backup to an SSD drive. Charge batteries and swap out the SD card so I have two copies. One SD and one SSD. Keep the two copies in different places so if one is lost or stolen I’m not out all my photos. I’ve done multiple month long trips and this system works for me. I often do not have internet or certainly not fast internet access. Because of that I do not rely on cloud backup. 
 

You’ll figure out the best solution for you. I just suggest running some experiments to ensure you fully understand the limitations, advantages and disadvantages of your idea versus other methods. If you’ve already done that, Leica ON!! 

You mention that while traveling you transfer from SD card to SSD.  I have tried that method but have not found a satisfactory way to transfer to SSD without also bringing a computer.  In the end I usually just have my single copy on an SD until I get home and can move to my hard drive.  Every month I also back up from my hard drive to a second physical drive that is not generally attached to the computer, as well as a cloud backup.

Some have mentioned the problem with changes in technology.  Some of you, like me, once saved computer files to cassette tapes and recorded the tape counter position to have easier access.  Every 3-5 years when my computer gets updated, I also copy my entire archive onto whatever the new format is.  Generally a new computer will be access data from a singe generation of formats ago, but it becomes hit and miss trying to read anything older than that.  I now need external devices to see what is on my CDs.  Floppy disks would require major resources and punch cards (which will last 100+ years in a cool dry room) pretty much need to go to the recycler.