Recommend a memory card

dankellys

dankellys

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Dan
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I am looking at getting into photography (see my other post here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=416154) and I am putting together 'starter-pack list' to help me with my budgeting.

In you excellent opinions, should I be looking at going for a super speed SD card (like the SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s - 32GB=£55.20) or would a slightly slower card still be ok (such as the SanDisk 32GB 45MB/s Extreme - 32GB=£25.20)?

Dan
 
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Super high speed cards are only really neccesary if you are a machine gun shooter or incredibly impatient when downloading images, I find 133X (20meg) more than sufficient on my 7D and that includes shooting video. Using a couple of 16Gb Transcends at the moment.
 
Fast is better if you shoot a lot of RAWs on drive, or shoot video. Otherwise, you're paying for something you won't get best use from. I'd also think about using a number of smaller ones than one hungnormous 32GB. You have back-up in case you loose it or it dies (though cards hardly ever die), or you put it through the washing machine (voice of experience :gag:) and it's a way of separating shoots. I generally use 8MB. An 8MB in my 21MP body gets about 260 RAW shots.

45MB should be plenty fast enough for most stuff.
 
I wouldnt use a 32gb card, Seems far too risky to keep filling up untill you need to change it, Far better to by 4 or 8gb cards instead encase one off them should fail you wont have lost the lot.

Assuming ofc your not gonna use it for video.
 
I use 16gb cards as its a good compromise. A days shooting normally almost fills a card so I can swap cards when taking a break for example.
I have a 20mbps and a 45mbps sandisk card and there is no real difference when shooting on my canon 600d.
 
I bought 4 16Gb Class 10 Duracell SDHC cards, 2 each for my 60D and 5D3, as I already had some 16Gb Duracell CF cards which are excellent. Both types of card work flawlessly and fastly too. I picked them up for a great price from 7dayshop, which I've been using for over 10 years now, without any problems.
 
Hotshots said:
I wouldnt use a 32gb card, Seems far too risky to keep filling up untill you need to change it, Far better to by 4 or 8gb cards instead encase one off them should fail you wont have lost the lot.

Assuming ofc your not gonna use it for video.
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A 4GB card would give me 130 shots, not useful when shooting 1200 shots a day, we have had the same smaller is safer since back when it was better to play safe and get 2 * 512MB cards and not one big 1GB card.

I would say 16GB is an absolute minimum size nowadays.
 
acetone said:
A 4GB card would give me 130 shots, not useful when shooting 1200 shots a day, we have had the same smaller is safer since back when it was better to play safe and get 2 * 512MB cards and not one big 1GB card.

I would say 16GB is an absolute minimum size nowadays.
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All my smaller cards are my older ones (I cringe when I remember buying a 64MB CF card for, iirc, about £70,). The last card I bought was a 32GB one that has never given me any problem. I shoot RAW +Lfine Jpeg and so bigger cards are better for me. I missed out on 16GB cards (but I might still 'go down' to one for my next purchase if the price is right - I don't [yet] consider it too small). My other cards that I pack in my bag are 8GB cards - an empty one of those in my camera set to 800 ISO and my camera tells me I've got capacity for 263 shots.

Just found this December 2002 post from another board quoting a WEX price of £329.99 for a Lexar 512MB CF card!
 
I have 2x16gb 2x8gb and 8x4gb all sandisk 30mb cheap jobbies, and my 7d goes perfectly happly with them.....
 
acetone said:
A 4GB card would give me 130 shots, not useful when shooting 1200 shots a day, we have had the same smaller is safer since back when it was better to play safe and get 2 * 512MB cards and not one big 1GB card.

I would say 16GB is an absolute minimum size nowadays.
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1200 shots a day? your eigher spray and pray or your a pro which in such case it would still be foolish if you were putting the whole of someones wedding on one card.

Im sure most professionals dont go much higher than 8gb atm,well from the ones i've seen and they where using FF 1D's and 5D cameras.

but your entitled to your opinion and this is a very debatable subject, i guess we all photograph to whatever we feel comfortable with.
 
Wedding photographers should be shooting and storing the photos to two cards simultaneously anyway and probably more chance of cards being lost or stolen outside of the camera than in it.
 
Thanks for all the replies, think I will go for 2 16gb cards for now. Might also buy an 8gb, will see how I feel at the time.
 
16 and 32 GB class 10 cards were just on sale at ebuyer for pretty cheap. They are verbatim cards and were £7 for 16 GB. I thought about picking up a couple just for backup. That is more than fast enough for my D90 shooting RAW at 5.5 fps.

thanks
rick
 
As has been noted, there's only so much utility in going with particularly fast cards, which can certainly be useful in specific situations - I'm given to wildlife photography, where, on occasion, there's a good use for being able to catch as many shots as possible of a particular action moment. You really don't want to be waiting on your camera's buffer to flush to the card when that happens!

It's also worth noting that some cameras may not even be able to write at a good card's full speed - the D90, for example, has a ceiling of about 20MB/s. (A fast card reader will, of course, still be able to pull the shots off the card that bit more quickly)
 
I use 8gb most of the time, i have a few 4gb as well, but i do find they can fill up quick and catch you on the hop, particularly if your doing studio or sport photography, a couple of things i would say though, definitely don't buy from a high street store like Jessops because you will pay a fortune, and don't buy from ebay, as you will get cheap cards, but theres a strong possibility they will be fakes. I mostly buy from Amazon now, or Mymemory, If you go for Sandisk or Lexar you won't go far wrong :)
 
Hotshots said:
I wouldnt use a 32gb card, Seems far too risky to keep filling up untill you need to change it, Far better to by 4 or 8gb cards instead encase one off them should fail you wont have lost the lot.

Assuming ofc your not gonna use it for video.
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Bad logic. There are far more points of potential failure in multiple small cards than a single large card. So while multiple small cards decreases your chance of losing ALL your images at once it greatly increases your odds of losing SOME of your images.

Consider a 32GB card that is big enough to shoot even the longest day of shooting vs Four 8GB cards.

32GB failure points: Card dies/corrupts. Camera toasts the card. Camera is stolen. = 3 total failure points.

8GB failure points: Card dies/corrupts (x4). Camera toasts a card. Camera is stolen with a card in it. Card is stolen after being removed from camera (x2, average). Card is lost after being removed from camera (x2, average). Card is damaged after/while being removed from camera. = 11 total failure points.

The most important advantage of a single card that is big enough for even your longest day of shooting is that you don't EVER have to take it out of the camera if you don't want to. That is a massive security advantage and greatly decreases the odds of the card ever failing for any reason.
 
dankellys said:
I am looking at getting into photography (see my other post here: http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=416154) and I am putting together 'starter-pack list' to help me with my budgeting.

In you excellent opinions, should I be looking at going for a super speed SD card (like the SanDisk Extreme Pro 95MB/s - 32GB=£55.20) or would a slightly slower card still be ok (such as the SanDisk 32GB 45MB/s Extreme - 32GB=£25.20)?

Dan
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artyman said:
Super high speed cards are only really neccesary if you are a machine gun shooter or incredibly impatient when downloading images, I find 133X (20meg) more than sufficient on my 7D and that includes shooting video. Using a couple of 16Gb Transcends at the moment.
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Hi Dan

As Ken says, there isn't a need to buy the super high speed cards, and if your still looking at the Nikon D3100 body, then it's an overkill as your camera will never be able to write fast enough to the card.

I'd certainly recommend Sandisk or Lexar cards...
 
With regards to size of card, it is a personal thing and as you can see from some above posts, people have there own feelings about this, which is better to go for etc etc - I opt for a couple of smaller size cards over one larger size...

Hope this is of help...
 
I'm using Transcend and Sandisk 16gb cards a good compromise and perfect for a days shooting
 
I have a 16GB Extreme Pro and bought a 32GB Extreme later, not really notice any difference on the camera, only the Extreme pro is much quicker for transferring using my laptop sd card reader.
 
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