Will getting a faster memory card help with the speed of taking photos?

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jdeg

^ broke something
Staff member
I've been shooting in RAW lately and noticed it take a little longer between photos (I think, or it just might be in my head). Most of the time I use a class 4 15mb/s sd card. Will using a faster one improve the speed of taking photos? Can the D5000 even write at 30mb/s?
 
J

Joseph Bautsch

New member
jdeg, go to page 215 of your users manual, "Memory Card Capacity". You will find the information you are looking for.

"The following table shows the approximate number of pictures that can be stored on a 4 GB SanDisk Extreme III 30MB/s Edition SDHC card at different image quality and size settings."

Your camera will handle up to a 30MB/s card. The camera should store your shots faster at that rate. That's as fast as the camera is programed to work. A faster card than 30MB/s won't make it store any faster. Hope this helps.
 
J

jdeg

^ broke something
Staff member
Thanks Joseph - I'm sure I could've found the answer but I figured others might have the same question :)

Actually, google is getting better at indexing the site...
Google
 
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Browncoat

Browncoat

Senior Member
Mr. Bautsch is right...RTFM.

A lot of consumers are sucked into the name game. We want everything to be bigger/faster/stronger, so when we see high speed memory cards (which are always more expensive), we snatch them up thinking it will improve load times. It doesn't. The card may be faster, but 9 times out of 10, the camera will limit your speed more than the card will.

Here is a great example. This company is counting on consumers being misinformed. No camera on the planet has a write speed of 675x! Yet we're "wowed" with statements like this:

RAW's 500,000 cycle life SSD Flash inside...
More than 5 times the life a 90 MB/sec card.
More than 50 times the life of a 60 MB/sec card.
Click to expand...
Don't fall for this garbage. Snake Oil salesmen still exist, and this is one of them.

I hesitate to even post that link. Because even after all that has been said, some idiot will click it and buy one of those cards. Why? BECAUSE THEY DON'T READ.
 
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PhotoAV8R

Senior Member
Joseph Bautsch said:
Your camera will handle up to a 30MB/s card. The camera should store your shots faster at that rate. That's as fast as the camera is programed to work. A faster card than 30MB/s won't make it store any faster.
Click to expand...
At the risk of being told to RTFM, how would I find the data transfer rate for the D90?

I've done a word search of the pdf manual for "memory", "rate"and "speed", and came up clueless. Likewise, I searched the specifications from the NikonUSA website and couldn't find anything.

Is there some other place to find this information - not just for the D90, but for any of Nikon's camera?

- Clueless in Texas...

And, along the lines of RTFM, I love this one.
 
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