current state of higher capacity memory cards

[Chip]

I'm going to be buying new higher capacity memory cards and am not aware of the current "state of the art". These will be for 2 Canon's. I currently have SanDisk SD, Canon SD and SanDisk Extreme III SD's.

Any info/updates on what is better quality would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Daniel Eagan]

You don't say what capacity you're looking for, but there is a lot of flexibility nowadays. I have a Canon PowerShot SD880 with a Panasonic SD 4GB card that I got for under $10.

Here's a small sampling of available cards:

http://www.jr.com/category/cameras-and-optics/digital-memory-cards/

Pricing fluctuates but to my mind seems very reasonable overall.

 

[David Metsky]

SDHC Class 6 cards are the fastest out there. You can buy all sorts of brands, I generally don't bother with major name brands because I don't think you're getting anything besides the name.

I'm currently using some Transcend 8G Class 6 SDHC cards and have had no problems. The price on 16G cards is roughly double, the 32G cards are still at a premium.

You'll be buying SDHC cards if you want capacity greater than 2G. You can get 4G SD cards but they are a bit of a hack. SDHC looks the same as SD but they have slightly different file systems on the cards.

 

[Chip]

thanks. I'm going from carrying two 2GB cards to probably carrying two 4 or 8GB cards as I'm using the movie mode more often these days (and GB's are now dirt cheap). I guess my question is if there are any newer options that are known to be a better quality (faster/less noise/whatever) and also if going from, say 4 to 8GB is a reduction in quality to pick up the extra storage. Price really isn't a concern as I'm not looking for huge capacity.

And I ask about "quality" knowing there may be no difference in data storage quality, like there is with, say, lense quality, as an example. In that case your response might be: "Chip, there are no "image storage quality" issues these days, buy whatever is cheapest."

Thanks again.

 

[DougPaul]

And I ask about "quality" knowing there may be no difference in data storage quality, like there is with, say, lense quality, as an example. In that case your response might be: "Chip, there are no "image storage quality" issues these days, buy whatever is cheapest."

Once something becomes digital data, it is simply data. The analog of quality would be reliability. Some feel that name brands are more reliable, some don't. Take your choice...

If a card shows a problem, stop using it immediately--there are rescue programs which may be able to save the data. See the thread "Memory Card Help" for more info: http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18695

Doug

 

[Chip]

The analog of quality would be reliability.
Doug

...and speed, I guess, but I'm not sure how speed affects me.

"Quality" would refer to image quality. I hadn't considered product reliabilty.

 

[Chip]

...but I'm not sure how speed affects me.

The speed of a card refers to downloads (or uploads) off the card, right, not time between shots ? If it was time between shots and I'm taking movies, that would affect me. If it's download time to the computer, I'm not that concerned.

 

[David Metsky]

Once you reach a certain level of speed, the limiting factor is the camera, not the card. With modern digital cameras, a class 6 card is faster than the camera can write so there are no limitations.

 

[DougPaul]

The speed of a card refers to downloads (or uploads) off the card, right, not time between shots ? If it was time between shots and I'm taking movies, that would affect me. If it's download time to the computer, I'm not that concerned.

Looks like some manufactures rate by read speed, some by write speed. (Read is generally faster than write.) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sd_card for more info.

Doug