[audiobomber]

Well I think that I will use the second cardslot for different things.
[*]With no card in it for about 90 % off the time.

I guess that's Other. I thought of including Empty Slot as a choice, but I decided it wasn't needed. I bet you'll keep a card in there.

Yesterday I made the classic mistake, left my card at home, in the reader. I had to rob the card from my Q to shoot. I used to keep a backup card in the bag, but with so many cameras to stuff I've run out of cards. I've had mechanical failure on two 8GB Kingston cards and one 16GB Adata. I really need another couple of cards.

[johnmflores]

I said backup, but we'll have to see. All of our SD cards are about to shrink by 33% thanks to the 24 megapickle sensor

[panoguy]

I said backup, but we'll have to see. All of our SD cards are about to shrink by 33% thanks to the 24 megapickle sensor

+1

I will definitely be using it for backup on jobs, and possibly for video while chasing the kids around.

[DeadJohn]

I'm wondering how much writing raw and jpeg on separate cards will slow the camera down. Does anyone have experience with dual slot bodies?

Dual cards should speed things up, not slow down, compared to putting raw and jpg on the same card.

[HawaiianOnline]

Backup option here.

[Steve.Ledger]

Not having used any camera with dual SD slot before I can't answer with any conviction. I never shoot JPG (well, only when I mess about with time lapse) and I never shoot (important) video with a dSLR.
So at this point it's all a bit academic. For example, do we know how slots can be designated? Or are we just hoping that any option we like is possible?
Like others, I'm curious about the FLU tethering which if as good as it sounds (and isn't a pig to set up and subsequently unreliable) I can see it living in the wifi slot all the time.
Ask me again 6 months after I've had the K-3

[Vylen]

I'll probably have sequential write... I have been caught out a few times where my memory card is full and I have to quickly change it.

[mattb123]

FLU, backup, overflow (depending on the situations).

[Ishpuini]

Overflow would be my most chosen option I think.

The only time I could really use the second slot would be on a longer trip, typically three or four weeks, after which I generally end up with max 2500 shots. Until a few years ago I carried an external back-up unit, onto which, at the end of the day, I moved all my shots of a single day. This meant I rarely filled up a card. Since I don't want to carry a laptop and external stand-alone drives seem to have gone out of fashion (unfortunately), my old unit is becoming too old and the risk of it crashing larger than card failure IMHO. Furthermore, cards are become large enough to allow me to store all my shots on 2 or 3 cards (K-5 RAWs for now). These are never filled up completely, since I switch cards at the start of the day when I estimate the free space would not be enough to fit the next day's shots. Hence there's space for potentially 100 shots or more that goes unused. The K-3's files being significantly larger than the K-5 ones, optimizing use of card space seems essential for me.

This discussion reminds me of one thing that could be a nice feature to have. Imagine a card write failure that would be solved by formatting the problem card. Wouldn't it be nice if the K-3 would allow you to copy all uncorrupted files onto an empty card in the second slot prior to formatting?

Wim

[MetteHHH]

I voted "other" for two reasons: One, I will (at least eventually) want a flu card and use it for tethering. But second, the second slot will be primarily an "idiot insurance slot". Which I need. Because I am a hopeless, absolute, incurable scatter brain.

I promised myself over and over again that I NEVER leave the camera without a card. When I transfer photos, I either replace the card when I take it out, or transfer and return it to the camera immediately. That is the theory. In practise I have found myself numerous times in perfect locations, perfect situations of the sort that happen only once (a pair of hares MATING five meters from my car in perfect evening light?!?) - and then found that, oops, I broke my own rules: No card in camera.

It's not an everyday event, of course. But four-five times a year is bad enough. With the k3, I will NEVER not have a card in the camera - I look forward to that!!

[Barry Pearson]

I have no idea what dual slots can be handy for. Extra capacity is only an option when you do lots of video, I think. With photo's I've never been able to fill an entire 16gb card. And I've never ever had an SD card fail since the dawn of SD cards, so backup seems pretty redundant as well. The only good use would be like RAID hard disks in computers, for extra write speed and clearing buffers extra fast. But I doubt that has been implemented.

At an airshow I may shoot about 6000 DNGs and fill five 32 GB SD cards (and perhaps need older cards too).

[Barry Pearson]

I will certainly buy a FLU card for studio work. (I've used PK Tether to run my K-5IIs tethered to a laptop in the studio, and I want something better).

Apart from that, up to now I've only shot DNG, not video or JPEG, and if I continue like this I will use the extra slot for extra capacity, during action.

But - perhaps it is time to try video? It would take me a long time to learn video skills for airshows and motor sports, but it could be lots of fun!

[Barry Pearson]

Yesterday I made the classic mistake, left my card at home, in the reader. I had to rob the card from my Q to shoot. I used to keep a backup card in the bag, but with so many cameras to stuff I've run out of cards.

Ouch! To avoid that, I don't close the card-door on a camera unless there is a card in it.

[lister6520]

I'm wondering how much writing raw and jpeg on separate cards will slow the camera down. Does anyone have experience with dual slot bodies?

That brings to mind another possible use for dual SD cards, maybe someone already mentioned it.

The dual SD cards should actually allow the writing speed to double for multiple shooting. Unless the two cards are sharing a common bus then the only bottleneck is the card write speed itself, so writing to two cards should give about double the data rate. I guess it would need to be done such that photos are sent alternately between the cards. So for instance you get the even numbers on one card and the odd on the other.

This would also work as a backup of sorts. Not by actually having a second copy but in that at least you will have half your photos in case of failure, and the half you have will not be the first half or last half but alternate photos.

[Clavius]

I will certainly buy a FLU card for studio work. (I've used PK Tether to run my K-5IIs tethered to a laptop in the studio, and I want something better).

Apart from that, up to now I've only shot DNG, not video or JPEG, and if I continue like this I will use the extra slot for extra capacity, during action.

But - perhaps it is time to try video? It would take me a long time to learn video skills for airshows and motor sports, but it could be lots of fun!

But I was under the impression the tethering functions of the FLU will only work with the K-3?