Camera memory card Choices ?

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cheech

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Hi All,

I am intending on getting a new body probably a 7 D.
Not sure what size memory card or how fast.
When I read 30mbs, 60mbs or 90mbs, is this just the down load speed to your computer or does it also help when shooting at high fps ?
I often shoot motorsport, moving birds etc
I'm thinking of a pair of 8gb or a 16 gb.

What would you guys n girls recomend please

Many Thanks

PS sorry if this has been asked a thousand times!
 
Hi Cheech,
I'm no expert, but have done quite a bit of research on this.
Generally, the higher the speed of the card the better it will perform in camera as well as transferring to your PC. That said, it's only really the time it takes the camera to commit it's write buffer to the card that changes. Unless you use a really slow card, you will still get the same fps that the camera is specified with.
One area where it does make a measurable difference is recording full HD video. With CF cards, you should be OK, but avoid 15MB/s or less.
Canon cameras seem to like Sandisk cards and get very good throughput rates on any Ultra, Ultra II and Extreme cards. The extreme ones are particularly good (IMHO) as they are more rugged and can withstand a bit of dust and battering.
At all costs avoid buying your memory cards on eBay. There are a huge number of forgeries in the market which are difficult to tell apart - until they fail!
For the sake of saving a few quid, it's not worth the risk of losing a once in a lifetime shot.
In conclusion, my recommendation would be to get the fastest you can afford from a reputable manufacturer. a 30MB card should perform just as well as a 90MB card in the EOS 7D.
Happy Shooting.
 
The camera has a buffer that will hold images whilst they are waiting to be written to the card. So unless you are shooting shots on a lot of "continuous," this buffer will make up for slower cards. So look at the price and trade off price/speed.

As far as downloading is concerned you are limited to the speed of the interface, USB for most people or Firewire if you have it. This is going to be the bottleneck in most cases .

As far as card size is concerned, I'd go for 2 8Gb rather than I 16Gb. Should the card fail ( yes it does happen) you have only lost 8Gb not 16Gb.
 
Chappers said:
As far as card size is concerned, I'd go for 2 8Gb rather than I 16Gb. Should the card fail ( yes it does happen) you have only lost 8Gb not 16Gb.
Click to expand...

They used to say get 2 X 512MB and not 1GB card
Then they said get 2 x 1GB can and not a 2GB Card
2 X 2GB and not a 4GB
2 X 4GB and not a 8GB
2 x 8GB and not a 16GB
and so it goes on.

I'll be getting a 2TB card over 2 x 1TB cards in about 10 years :D
 
Thanks for all your help

Much appreciated, still have to check out those links but already have a good idea thanks to you all
 
Here's my opinion (based on real data). Here's my conclusions:

So, before you splash out on a 60 or 90 MB/s card ask yourself some questions -

* Do I often fill my camera's buffer?
* Do I ever fail to get a shot because I'm waiting for the 'Busy' light to go off?
* Do I have a high-speed card reader?

If the answer to any of those questions is 'Yes' then a high-speed card may be for you. If the answers are all 'No' then you'd probably be wasting your money.
 
Frank,
Yes to first two.
I normally download straight to PC.
What advantages are there with a card reader, never used one, I presume they are another storage device?
 
whiteflyer said:
They used to say get 2 X 512MB and not 1GB card
Then they said get 2 x 1GB can and not a 2GB Card
2 X 2GB and not a 4GB
2 X 4GB and not a 8GB
2 x 8GB and not a 16GB
and so it goes on.

I'll be getting a 2TB card over 2 x 1TB cards in about 10 years :D
Click to expand...

More like 2 years :P
The new SDXC cards are due to be released next year starting with 0.5TB, then 1TB then onto 2TB.
 
cheech said:
What advantages are there with a card reader, never used one, I presume they are another storage device?
Click to expand...

With a card reader you plug the reader into your PC and slot the card from your camera into the reader. Several advantages over plugging the camera into a USB port. There are readers that can use different interfaces. USB is slow, if your PC has FireWire 800 or express port then you can get speeds up to 4x faster than USB.
 
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