Sandisk or Lexar SD cards?

gqtuazon

Gear Head
I need to replace two of my 133x Lexar cards. Somehow both got corrupted by my D7000 recently. My 16gb Sandisk is the only remaining SD card that I have and I am not comfortable without a back-up.

Anyone knows who might have the best deal? I'm looking for a 32gb but no more than 64. Lexar offers 600x which is the equivalent of Sandisk Extreme Pro SD cards.

I thought of asking before I pull the trigger. The prices that I am seeing are under $60. Lower if I choose the 80mb write speed.
 

Whiskeyman

Senior Member
I believe that the real speed advantage is when you download the card's contents onto your computer. In other words, not when you really need it!

As long as the card is fast enough to keep your buffer from filling up and stopping you from activating the shutter, you should be good. Unfortunately, you will likely always be able to fill the buffer when you shoot RAW files. At least, that's my experience with my D700 and D90, no matter what the card.

WM
 

Bill16

Senior Member
Well I guess I lost some money, since I bought 6 extreme pro SDs! But I only got the 8gigs and 3 of them were 45mbs, and were cheaper than the 3 95mbs SDs I bought. Oh well, I don't tend to shoot high bursts of shots normally anyway. Sigh...................:(
 

gqtuazon

Gear Head
I believe that the real speed advantage is when you download the card's contents onto your computer. In other words, not when you really need it!

As long as the card is fast enough to keep your buffer from filling up and stopping you from activating the shutter, you should be good. Unfortunately, you will likely always be able to fill the buffer when you shoot RAW files. At least, that's my experience with my D700 and D90, no matter what the card.

WM

If and when by D800E arrives, the primary card that I use is my CF card which is also my preference since the transfer rate is also much faster.

I also do not shoot a lot of burst rate. This is probably more suited for wild life (bird photography) and sports. I was expecting a better performance from the Extreme Pro also but the demo showed otherwise. I ended up ordering the two pack of 32gb Sandisk Extreme (45mbs read) card which is what I currently have but it is just a 16 gb card. 32 is ideal for my use to cover events.
 

Bill16

Senior Member
CF card? I've neglected to learn if I could use these, and what ones would work best if I can use them.
I saw that huge difference of that physically larger card's speed of recovery. That looked like the type of card to go for.

Sorry for the stupid question. I should have just studied up better, when I looked into memory cards. :(
 

gqtuazon

Gear Head
CF card? I've neglected to learn if I could use these, and what ones would work best if I can use them.
I saw that huge difference of that physically larger card's speed of recovery. That looked like the type of card to go for.

Sorry for the stupid question. I should have just studied up better, when I looked into memory cards. :(

Bill - if I am not mistaken, your D300 only uses a CF card.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 

Sambr

Senior Member
I only use Lexar - for both the D800 & D4 32g 1000x speed super fast. Having said that the 32g 800x is considerably less money and works just as well.
 

gqtuazon

Gear Head
I only use Lexar - for both the D800 & D4 32g 1000x speed super fast. Having said that the 32g 800x is considerably less money and works just as well.

I saw a video comparison against the Sandisk CF cards and the Lexar 1000x, the Lexar performed very well as far as clearing buffer.
 

PapaST

Senior Member
I'm glad I did some research on youtube (LOL).

It looks like the extreme pro is not worth the money after all.


I applaud the youtuber that actually went out and did the real-world tests on those cards. But in my opinion that test is flawed and misleading. Basically his results were as follows:

$10 PNY 20MB/s SD card took 20 seconds to clear the buffer
Sandisk 45MB/s Extreme SD card took 16 seconds to clear the buffer
Sandisk 95MB/s Extreme Pro SD card took 16 seconds to clear the buffer

finally

Sandisk 60MB/s Extreme CF card took about 7 seconds to clear the buffer.

Looking at those results you'd think the Extreme Pro SD was a waste and one could argue that the Extreme SD card was also a waste of money.

I think the youtuber made the assumption that the write speeds of the camera were:

1. equal between the SD and CF slots
2. the camera's write speeds of the SD slots could write faster than any card you put in there could accept (in this case faster write speeds than the 95MB/s Extreme Pro card)

From quick research I found this article pertaining to the camera he tested (Canon 5D Mark III).

Blog @ BorrowLenses

Basically the article claims the speeds between the SD and CF slots are different. And more importantly that the SD slot is only rated as 133x (which I believe translates to 20MB/s). To me this explains why the CF card clears much faster AND points to me why the Extreme and Extreme Pro have identical test times. They clear at the same rate because they are capped at 20MB/s. As for the PNY card taking longer even though it's rated at 20MB/s. I can only guess that you get what you pay for, in this case $10.

I think if he really wanted to illustrate his point he should have done apples to apples. Use a Lexar card rated for the same speeds as the Sandisk counter-parts and compare.

Here's an excerpt from that article:

“…YOU DO NOT want to put a card in the SD slot. Why? Because, for some reason unbeknownst to me, Canon decided to build the 5D Mark III with one very fast CF slot which supports the newer UDMA7 protocol and a standard SD card slot which does NOT support the high speed standard (called UHS – for Ultra High Speed). This is really strange because many other cameras have come out with UHS1 compatible slots over the last year. Without UHS support, the top speed that can be achieved by the SD card is 133x. This is true even if you purchase a 600x SD card and insert it in the camera. The best you will get is 133x…”
 

gqtuazon

Gear Head
Here's an excerpt from that article:

“…YOU DO NOT want to put a card in the SD slot. Why? Because, for some reason unbeknownst to me, Canon decided to build the 5D Mark III with one very fast CF slot which supports the newer UDMA7 protocol and a standard SD card slot which does NOT support the high speed standard (called UHS – for Ultra High Speed). This is really strange because many other cameras have come out with UHS1 compatible slots over the last year. Without UHS support, the top speed that can be achieved by the SD card is 133x. This is true even if you purchase a 600x SD card and insert it in the camera. The best you will get is 133x…”

That makes sense on why the slow read / write speed of the SD cards.

I ended up buying the two packs of SD cards from BH Photo. Not too expensive I think. I don't do frequent fast shutter speeds and the 45mb/s will work just find for video recording.

Memory Cards Page 2: | B&H Photo Video
 
Top