Recommend a SD card?

I need a secure digital (SD) card for a digicam.

I've driven myself crazy looking at the camera forums so I thought I would try here as I think I'll get a concise opinion!

What brand have you used?
What should I avoid?
Do the ultra speed make any real difference and are they worth the money?

I have heard that ultra high speed stuff or whatever only makes a difference in major MAJOR data transfers. Also, I don't have any stay away froms, but I do know that SanDisk and Kingston make excellent sD cards. You should have no trouble looking for a goodly sized and well priced sD on amazon.com. That site is great for electronics. Hope this helps,

M16a

For SDHC, put your trust into one of the following:

1. ATP ProMax SDHC (4GB)
2. SanDisk Extreme III SDHC (4GB up to 8GB)

For SD only, put your trust into one of the following:

1. ATP ProMax SD (256MB up to 2GB)
2. SanDisk Extreme III SD (1GB up to 2GB)

Took me some digging to figure this out when I got a new point & shoot, so just in case you're unaware:

- There's SD and there's SDHC. One's up to & including 2 GB, and the SDHC ("Secure Digital High Capacity") is everything above that, usually 4 GB or more. There's more to this split since versioning messes with the limits, but if your device is newer just use this rule or refer to wikipedia for more info because it gets messy.

Because there are 2 types, not all devices know what to do with a SDHC card. For example my fairly old Canon Optura xi has no clue, so it's 2 GB max for that puppy, maybe even less. My newer Leica point & shoot can handle the SDHC type and I'm very glad it can since I blew through 3 of those 4 GB things on a recent trip to Hawaii.

If you've just bought the camcorder then for sure it'll do SDHC and you won't have to deal with the SD/SDHC issue.

Happy movie-making!

I've just got cheap random SD cards in the past. So, far I've never had a problem with any of them. I've used Kingston, Corsair, ATP, PQI, Adata, Ultra, Connect3D, and Microcenter (store brand).

In terms of personal preference, I do like ATP (no speed rating, but one of the fastest cards I have for reading and writing) but tends to be on the expensive side. For decent price cards, the Kingston seem pretty good.

For avoidiing, maybe the PQI. Not because of reliability but because they claim 60x but that is only the read speed. The write speed was closer to 14x (2MB/sec). The Connect3d and Ultra didn't list speeds but were also on the slower side but still faster than PQI.

As for whether the speed rating makes a difference, it will for certain cases. If you are just taking photos with most point and shoot digital cameras, then most cards are okay. If you have a digital SLR and you want to use raw, then faster is better. If you take video, for example, the Canon P&S takes video and needs to write at about 2MB/sec. For slower cards, I need to wait until the camera buffer writes everything to the card. During that time, you can't take another photo. It can be many many seconds for a long video and I have missed photos as a result. My fastest card (the ATP) finishes saving long videos instantly. So, fast cards can make a difference even in point and shoot digital cameras.

Another thing on card speed is to check the specs. Sometimes the manufactures will list read speed in big letters on the card and the write speed is a lot slower.

Other people have already commented on SDHC versus SD. Just make sure your camera handles whatever card you buy.

Hope this helps.

Thanks people - I knew I could rely on CPF to make sense of it all.

I dont know if the same stuff are available in England...
But you cant go wrong with any Lexar or Sandisk brand cards.

I've used quite a few of them and I've never really noticed a difference between manufacturers. I'm sure if you were testing them side by side in a labratory with high tech equipment, you could measure a difference, but in normal everday use I doubt it.

Also, it might depend on the type of camera you have. At least one of my cameras has internal memory, which is a lot faster than writing to the card. It then downloads the pictures to the SD card during the down time in between pictures. So I can take pictures as fast as I want until that internal memory is filled, and as soon as I stop it will write to the card.

I had a funny experience with a camera. The Consumer reports listed this one at the bottom of the list. It scored well in every aspect except for the time delay between shots. I could not figure out why they rated it so poorly.

It turns out the culprit during the test was probably the memory cards. I found the camera did HAVE a second or two delay between shots with an old, first genreation SD card. With my Ultra II card, I can snap pictures one after an other ( as fast as it can focus) even in 5 megapixel format.

It was even more impressive when shooting video. It can write to the Ultra II card in real time, where it was buffered when writing to the generation 1 card.

Daniel

I recently burned myself. Found a super deal on an 8GB SD and bought it. Wouldn't work with my 6MP Canon IXY 80! I dug out the manual and found it only supports up to 2GB. (Kind of funny as I've had a 4GB card in it for the last 6 months.)

Larry

tvodrd said:

(Kind of funny as I've had a 4GB card in it for the last 6 months.)

Larry

Click to expand...

Larry,
If I remember correctly, Sandisk ( and maybe others ) made an SD card of 4 gigs that was a true SD (and not an SDhc) and this card works perfectly in earlier applications where a true SDhc will not.

I dunno why but I've had very bad impressions with sandisk
An 128 that one day some 3 months after buying it decided to quit
An 256 that the camera can accept, but none of my 3 card readers [one was made by sandisk, one datastation, one PNY] can take it, pics had to be loaded via camera USB one at a time:shakehead
Another 256 makes files disintegrate on it as soon as its saved, and giving me weird files with weird file names. drive properties often throws out like 62GBs, 32GBs, etc. far beyond what 256 can handle. If I leave it in the camera and loaded down without popping out the SD, it would be fine. But once you loaded in the card reader all bets are off, the camera will either continue to function, or tells you the card is unformatted despite the pics you took on it. [I lost a set of wedding photos in this manner:scowl:]
A 1GB that had the same issue as the first 256 above.

on the happy side, Sandisk makes the best flashdrives. I own two cruzer micros: 1GB/2GB
the 1 GB went through the laundry and tumble dry with no issues. My once beloved corsair... well, didn't
AFAIK sandisk is good everywhere else except SD cards:shrug:

when I switched to PNY [made in japan ] its the most super awesome decision I've made. Its cheaper, less sensitive, and slightly bigger capacity than the formatted size of Sandisk
I currently own 2 1GBs, 1 2GBs, and 1 256MB and still haven't hit any snags


*note*: If you decide to use the SD card to do file transfers between computers, and that your SD card is an 128 or greater, transferring music files, word files, and pictures together it usually fails during the move on the destination computer. I was told the SD's brother: the MMC is better suited for this task, I just uses flashdrives:wave:

adamlau said:

For SDHC, put your trust into one of the following:

1. ATP ProMax SDHC (4GB)
2. SanDisk Extreme III SDHC (4GB up to 8GB)

For SD only, put your trust into one of the following:

1. ATP ProMax SD (256MB up to 2GB)
2. SanDisk Extreme III SD (1GB up to 2GB)

Click to expand...

Pretty much what that guy said .

Illum_the_nation said:

...San[D]isk makes the best flashdrives.

Click to expand...

Not quite. SanDisk is using NOR and not the superior NAND in their USB flash memory products. Two products which are known to use Samsung NAND in their products:

1. IronKey USB (1GB top 4GB)
2. ATP ToughDrive (512MB to 8GB)

I will say this in that some of the manufacturers make the sd housing more rugged then others. I've had several and the cheap casing from my ADATA card split right in half on me.

PicStop is a good and reliable UK supplier, with prices consistently cheaper than others. That link will take you to the SDHC card page.

As others have said, check your camera's specs before ordering, to make sure the card size/type will be compatible.

I think I just fixed the card incompalibility problem. Amazon's one-click buy is positively EVIL! Just upgraded the digicam from 6MP to 12MP and added optical image stabilization. (Not to mention the Skeletool CX! Feces! )

Larry

Thanks again.
The Sandisk Extreme III arrived today - In a massive box for such a tiny chip!

jezzyp said:

Thanks again.
The Sandisk Extreme III arrived today - In a massive box for such a tiny chip!

Click to expand...

they tend to do that....
when I first bought my 2GB SD the box was bigger than my Canon Powershot AND tripod COMBINED:shakehead

a question to the packaging service: "if you want to make it so small why are you so paranoid about it being stolen?":shrug: