815 raw files to be exact..
just as you've stated that you've made this point time and time again..
I still subscribe to the belief that changing cards frequently, increases the chance of a lost or corrupt card,
my cards are copied to 2 portable storage devices every night, since my last trip I've aquired a laptop, and a portable dvd burner, so dvd's will be made every night as well, on my next trip.
I'll be using 1 16 gig card in each camera and have at least 2 16 gig cards as backup
the odds of losing cards that are not in a camera are greater than the odds of losing your camera..and the odds of this[my camera was stolen, lost, dropped, bumped, or went for a swim on POTC,} are extremely rare for those of us who always use a neckstrap,
I'm very careful with my gear and my cards, there will never be more than 1 days worth of pics on any card,
I tend to buy the largest cards available for several reason..
1. if I go crazy on any given day I have the memory to cover it{ often do photo shoots with models, thatlast all day and fill more than 1 16 gig card..
2. if I upgrade to a newer camera{ such as sony's soon to be released A900, 24 MP sensor} with larger file sizes I don't need to run out and buy new cards right away
3.. the belief I previously mentioned, that it's safer to use one large card, than to frequently change cards, during a busy day
4. if the risk were that great, Pros wouldn't be using large cards since their photos are their livelyhood
You're arguing against my advice, yet you're following my advice - you backup your pics every night to a storage device and/or laptop and/or DVD - as many as two backups per pic.
You're not putting all your eggs in one basket; you're just using different baskets. If one of your 16gb cards goes PHOOEY on you, you will not have lost anything but that days pics, because all the previous days' pics are safely backed up in your hotel room - just as I've always advised.
It may surprise you to learn that I use exactly the same strategy you use - I backup my pics to my laptop and CD or DVD each night and re-use my memory cards. In point of fact, I only have 4 1gb cards, each of which holds about 200-250 pics (I save mine in JPG, not RAW, so the files are much smaller). And I carry 2 spares, in addition to what's in the camera, on a regular basis.
I recommend the many cards approach to most vacationers because most of them don't want to lug a laptop with them on every trip as we do, or invest the money in a backup device. Memory cards are cheap these days; they provide the easiest, cheapest, and smallest-size solution to splitting your pics up and not risking loss.
Nowhere have I ever advocated "frequently changing cards" during the day; in fact, my advice has always been to buy memory cards large enough to handle one days pics during your heaviest shooting day, so you won't have to change cards at all. This reduces the possibility of dropping a card or losing one while changing it.
I am somewhat dubious about your belief that "changing cards frequently, increases the chance of a lost or corrupt card". Certainly, if you change cards a lot you can more easily lose them, but as for corrupting them, I don't believe I've ever heard a whisper about cards getting corrupted from just putting them into or taking them out of a camera once a day.
Besides, the strategy I advocate (one card per day) means that during a week-long trip each card will be inserted into and removed from the camera ONE time only, then stored safely in the hotel safe (preferably in a protective media storage wallet of some kind).
And the reason pros use large cards is not because they're safer, it's due to the same reasons you use large cards - because pros shoot RAW, pros use cameras that make huge files, and pros shoot a LOT of pics on any given day and can't spare the time to change cards in the middle of the action.
Pros also have fewer problems with their cards than mere mortals because they tend to use the highest-quality, most expensive cards out there, such as the Lexar Professional series, or SanDisk Extreme III line.
All of the pros I know also remove their cards from their cameras to copy files off every single time, because they tend to buy high-speed card readers like the Lexar Professional Firewire reader, because such readers can download 16gb of pics way faster than the USB 2.0 interface in the camera itself.
So, in essense, you're saying that my advice is wrong, but you're following it quite closely; you're just using a slightly different technique.
