Sd cards
- Thread starter jesshopes
- Start date
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Well if you do a lot of fast shooting, meaning mashing and holding down the shutter button in "Continuous" mode, you might see a difference, but I don't see much practical difference between them and certainly not enough to justify the additional cost. Also bear in mind when they give you a write speed, say for instance, 45MB/s or 90MB/s, that is the maximum write speed the card *can* support. It does *not* mean the card will in fact write at that speed all the time; many other factors will come into that equation, the main one being the camera body itself.
Class however, as in "Class 10", does indicate the minimum sustained write speed.
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Hi there,
This is the thing about consumer products: fetishism!
Altogether, I use only "HIGH SPEED WRITE" 16, 32, and 64 GB SD cards.
Why?
The "write" speed.
The size of my files are good reasons enough:
Which ever camera, I need to shoot when I want to shoot! If, during a shooting,
If I happend to fill the buffer, I'll have to wait for the next shot that the buffer had
time to transfer some picts to the card. I don't have to wait until it's empty but
that some new room is made available. If a slow "write" card is in the camera…
The bottom line is writing speed. For every one? No! If you shoot at a low pixel
count and are a casual shooter, "writing speed" is irrelevant and you may save
a lot of money choosing lower "write" speed cards
• The reliability
This is an important point for everybody. Lower or higher "write" speed does not
say anything about the quality but the capacity. The reputation of a manufacturer
is based on the quality, durability and reliability of the products made.
These memory devices are everywhere and are getting cheaper. Many names are
competing on the market for your money and as the saying goes, you have to earn
it twice…
If you do your homework, the hundreds you will save on fetishism, will get you your
new lens sooner than you think.
This is the thing about consumer products: fetishism!
Altogether, I use only "HIGH SPEED WRITE" 16, 32, and 64 GB SD cards.
Why?
The "write" speed.
The size of my files are good reasons enough:
---D3S = 12+ MP = 15 MB
---D3X = 24+ MP = 30 MB
D800E = 36+ MP = 50 MB
---D3X = 24+ MP = 30 MB
D800E = 36+ MP = 50 MB
Which ever camera, I need to shoot when I want to shoot! If, during a shooting,
If I happend to fill the buffer, I'll have to wait for the next shot that the buffer had
time to transfer some picts to the card. I don't have to wait until it's empty but
that some new room is made available. If a slow "write" card is in the camera…
With the D3S, which is the on I use for high number sequences, it is important
that I keep shooting when I want.
With the D800E, I don't think of shooting so fast (it's not the right tool for this)
but the files are more than three times the size of the D3S, and the buffer is
not much bigger than the one in the D3X!
that I keep shooting when I want.
With the D800E, I don't think of shooting so fast (it's not the right tool for this)
but the files are more than three times the size of the D3S, and the buffer is
not much bigger than the one in the D3X!
The bottom line is writing speed. For every one? No! If you shoot at a low pixel
count and are a casual shooter, "writing speed" is irrelevant and you may save
a lot of money choosing lower "write" speed cards
• The reliability
This is an important point for everybody. Lower or higher "write" speed does not
say anything about the quality but the capacity. The reputation of a manufacturer
is based on the quality, durability and reliability of the products made.
These memory devices are everywhere and are getting cheaper. Many names are
competing on the market for your money and as the saying goes, you have to earn
it twice…
If you do your homework, the hundreds you will save on fetishism, will get you your
new lens sooner than you think.
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
I use Sandisk Extremes. They're Class 10 and UHS-1 rated. That's plenty fast for the D7100 and won't break the bank. Truth be told, though, you could probably get away with using San Disk Ultra cards just as well while saving yourself a few bucks at the same time.
For RAW files (Slot 1) I use a 32GB card and for JPG files (Slot 2) I use a 16GB card.
I also suggest you keep at least on spare card in your bag as an "Oh s--t!" backup.
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Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Oh yes, if I was shooting a D800 using Continuous High, 14-bit RAW files then my suggestion on which card to use would certainly be different!
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For a D80? Different models have different properties.
If (for example) you have a 10 megapixel camera, and it writes a 5 MB JPG file, and you do use JPG, and you don't use the continuous burst mode (if you only write one JPG now and then),
and if you are willing that it takes 1/2 second to write that file, then obviously you can use any card that writes 10 MB/second. That is a Class 10 card.
If you do use continuous shooting, and fire off a burst of five, that is 5x5MB or 25MB, and could take 2.5 seconds to finish writing, without a faster card. Might not be any issue.
D80 specs say SD card which supports SDHC (manual page 122). That could be a fairly inexpensive card
SanDisk 8GB SDHC Memory Card Extreme Class 10 SDSDRX3-8192-A21
This claims read/write speed of 30MB/sec (if the D80 can do 30MB is a different question however, but possibly the burst could be faster?).
Newer cameras may want a faster card.
Whiskeyman
Senior Member
An issue or so ago, Advanced Photographer (I believe) magazine ran a test of many SD cards and a Transcend brand card was rated the best. Nikon also publishes a list of recommended cards for each camera they market.
Just as important is to purchase the cards from a reputable source. Some sources will buy cheap cards and re-label them with a "quality" card label. I've seen such a counterfeit card, and it was a lemon. But the owner got it for a great price.
WM
Just as important is to purchase the cards from a reputable source. Some sources will buy cheap cards and re-label them with a "quality" card label. I've seen such a counterfeit card, and it was a lemon. But the owner got it for a great price.
WM
Horoscope Fish
Senior Member
Speed Class designates the minimum, sustained, writing performance of the card in question. So a "Class 10" card supports, at a *minimum*, 10MB/s write speed; the Speed Class says nothing about the *maximum* write speed. If the camera allows for faster writing, say 15MB/s for instance, a Class 10 card will certainly support it, up to it's maximum stated thorough-put (e.g. 45MB/s). But in order to get that 45MB/s transfer speed, your camera has to be able to move it's data that fast and if it can't there's no point in paying extra for "speed" you'll never use.
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