SD card explanations please...

[keithdog]

About 2 years ago I bought my first digital camera. Untill then, I've always been a film guy. I use Nikon equipment, my last film camera being the Nikon F100. Now I'm using the Nikon D90 digital camera and loving it. I'm still learning about the digital world in photography. LOTS to know! I currently use the Sandisk Exteme III 4GB card. I'm going to buy a second card soon and am looking around. What I don't understand is why there is such a difference in prices of SD card? Even within one brand there will be several models of SD cards of various prices. There are 8GB cards in the Sandisk lineup that vary in price. I was at Best Buy, and the 8 GB Sandisk SD card was double the price of the 8GB PNY SD card. I'm sure there is a good reason for this, but does anyone know why? I've had very good results using my Sandisk card, but would a cheeper PNY card work just as well? Confused here!

[lilmule]

Its most likly like everything else sometimes a cheaper one is actually better than a more expensive one or possibly the better buy for the difference in money.Maybe a better card would give better results but are they worth the difference considering all the photo shop programs available and camera programs freebees like kodak.
Ive used different brands in my easy share not having a high resolution to begin with cant tell any difference.

All I did with this is to crop it as dark woods behind were total black in the top part of pic.
Really a kodack moment.

[nofearengineer]

Keith, it isn't an issue of "quality". It is an issue of read/write speed. When buying an SD card, you need to consider the read/write speed of two things: your camera, and your connection to your PC.

Serious photographers often take many, many pictures in rapid succession, sometimes even in "continuous" mode, holding the shutter release down while the camera captures images as fast as it can. Your D90 has a really fast memory buffer, which will hold a certain images, depending on resolution and quality.

However, once you have "overflowed" the buffer, the write speed of the memory card will come into play. It will limit the maximum frames per second your camera can capture. If you don't do any continuous shooting (never more than 4-5 frames in a burst), high write speed memory shouldn't be a priority for you if it is more expensive.

Now you want to transfer all of those files to your PC for editing or viewing. This is where the memory read speed comes into play. As before, serious photographers want to get those images uploaded as fast as possible. Myself, it doesn't make much difference, as I am more casual. Use your judgement here on what is cost effective for you. You can easily afford another quality lens (a nifty fifty comes to mind) for what you would "over spend" on premium memory, so keep that in mind.

Extreme III has served me well, but keep in mind that the prices for it are all over the board, with it being on sale from time to time. Sometimes you can get absolutely stupid prices on 4GB cards if you keep your eyes peeled.

[BigBassin144]

Bryce beat me to it. It's all about the speed.

I own three SanDisk Ultra II 8GB cards and never have a problem with the speed. Although I never shoot much more than 15-20 frames at a time.

BB

[keithdog]

Ok, I've done some homework and learned quite a bit about these cards since I posted this. Your right about the speed thing. The card I've been using is pretty fast, but I want to start shooting my pics at a higher quality. I've changed my settings to JPEG Fine with a compression ratio of 1:4 and left it at the cameras default setting of large image size which is 4,288 X 2848 pixels. I'm sure this will give me knock out landscape prints. I'll back off of that of course for taking every day snap shots. But with this higher image quality setting, I'm thinking the Sandisk 8GB 30MB class 10 Extreme SD card will serve me well. It might be over kill, but it's around 80$ and when I'm out on a 3 day photo shoot in a state park, I will appreciate the speed and storage. Especially when loading it onto my comp when I get back home. I can take a lot of photos on a 2 or 3 day photo shoot! Figure I'll use this card for my "artsy" photos, and the 4GB card I have now for my every day shooting. What do ya think?

[nofearengineer]

Keith,

My take on memory cards is a sort of "highest common denominator" thing. I think taking the memory cards in and out of the camera is how things get worn out, lost, damaged, etc. So I get the largest I can buy at a reasonable price (personal choice), and just offload as frequently as I need to.

I don't know how shutter happy you are, but I have never even come close to filling up my 8GB card before I had my PC available for upload.

[keithdog]

Well, untill recently I almost exclusivly shot slide film which can get expensive! That kept me down to around 200 or so shots on a two day outting. But now by going digital and with a bigger capacity card, this right index finger is gonna be gettin real twitchy, lol.

[walkeraviator]

I here ya on the film keith... i have a minolta i have been using for years... and luckily the lenses will fit Sony SLR cameras since Sony bought out Konica/Minolta... so that is where i am heading when teh bait monkey lets up enough i can buy one...

[keithdog]

Originally Posted by walkeraviator

I here ya on the film keith... i have a minolta i have been using for years... and luckily the lenses will fit Sony SLR cameras since Sony bought out Konica/Minolta... so that is where i am heading when teh bait monkey lets up enough i can buy one...

Your gonna let the Shutter Monkey get ya???

[BigBassin144]

I have never come close to filling up my 8GB card. The most shots I've taken in one day was about 1400 at the Woodward dream cruise.

I leave my camera set to the highest quality JPEG setting, and have recently started to shoot in RAW FOR for some things

BB

[screwballl]

As a long time computer tech, there is a slight difference between the several mainstream options as most of them hang around the 9-11MB/s speed range... then there are some that just suck but those tend to be the super cheap ones.


Here is a good technical comparison:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/cam...?cid=6007-9424

[keithdog]

Well, I bought the Sandisk Extreme 8GB-30MB card last night. And got 10% off too!

[Bryan]

It's amazing what can be stored on these cards. I can buy a 32GB micro SD card that's smaller than a dime, and put 8 hours of video on it. We've come a long way from VHS!

[nofearengineer]

Originally Posted by Bryan

We've come a long way from VHS!

Lord....I can still remember when the true audiophiles had big reel-to-reel decks in their stereo cabinets. And the term "hi-fi" actually meant something. Now, a $20 stereo system has better signal reproduction than the expensive ones then. It always cracks me up to hear old guys talk about how the music sounds better on their old equipment. Put the bong down, man.

[bamabassman]

hey bryce, i HAD a reel to reel, duel cassettes, 8 tracks AND turntables WITH a mixer. mad emy own cassettes and 8 tracks. hahahahaha, i still say the LP's sound better thatn CD's. more bass. and i only can hear outta one ear! lmao!!