Compact Flash Card reliability?

OK, I'm about to take the *ist D plunge... I'm thinking of using it commercially for photographing weddings. One concern, born of shear ignorance I admit, is the reliabilty of the CF cards.

The idea of shooting 200 images at a wedding and having an electron out of place that results in NO IMAGES really wangles my brain!

Again, I have no basis for this fear other than shear ignorance, so it would be nice to hear what those with real experience think about this.

Any thoughts?

Thank you!

(Also, if you were going to shoot a wedding with this camera, what file type would you use? Tiff? Raw? Clearly I have some "shaking out" before I aim this baby at anyone in a white dress... )

So far, in about two digital years we have had no problems with CF cards. I know others who have had cards that fail.

In general, use CF cards and not microdrives (no moving parts and better reliablility) and buy good, branded CF cards and not cheap offers, We use Fuji and SanDisk and they have all been fine. Treat them with care and hopefully the risk will be no higher than a film being lost in the post or damaged by the processor.

Nothing is 100% guaranteed.....

In five years of non-professional use I haven't had a flashcard fail. The only failures I've heard of involved physical damage such as a bent pin in the camera. I have, twice, lost a single photo. I have no idea why.

FWIW, I prefer flashcards that don't take 200 shots. Perhaps it's habit but I prefer to have a few smaller cards rather than one big card.

With compact flash there is a control chip built in to the circuitry which using the right recovery software you will be able to rescue 99% of a corrupt cf card.

www.cliftoncameras.co.uk

Thanks all!

It really is just fear of the unknown.

I have heard of Photographers losing weddings because the film came screwed up from Kodak! (Provable, too!)

There are no garantees! Ain't that the truth! (Hey, I tell people that all the time... thanks for reminding me! )