Best SD Card on the Market?

[fivepoint]

I just helped my parents buy a new digital camera, and am now wondering about the SD card. I was thinking 2-4GB would be fine, but was wondering if there is a lot of difference in the cards themselves. Differences between brands, speed, reliability, etc.

I know for example that the same company will have several different models (SanDisk 2GB vs. SanDisk ULTRA II 2GB vs. SanDisk EXTREME III 2GB), but am unsure if there is any actual performance difference or if it should simply come down to price.

Would it make sense to simply buy the most storage for the money (SanDisk 2GB cards can be had for less than $5 on Amazon or up to $30 for the same size depending on which model) or is this a bad thing to buy bargain basement with?

Thanks!


P.S. In case it matters for bottle-neck calculation reasons... the camera is a Casio Exilim EX-Z200

 

[fivepoint]

Also, any thoughts on the SanDisk Ultra II Plus USB cards? You fold them and then slide them into any USB port. Seems pretty sweet.

 

[juanm]

It's only a card, get a Sandisk or a Lexar, and you'll be good to go. Get the biggest card you think reasonable to buy. If you're using the camera to download chances are, it won't matter at all.

 

[Chappers]

Also, any thoughts on the SanDisk Ultra II Plus USB cards? You fold them and then slide them into any USB port. Seems pretty sweet.

I use a SanDisk - Ultra-Plus 1GB in my point and shoot and it is great and very cool. I have used it in my SLR and it is fine but is slower than SanDisk extreme III but I can plug it in any computer.

Buy one - you won't regret it.

 

[cube]

If it's a new model, it's very probable that the camera supports SDHC, so find this out.

SD is rated at maximum speed, while SHDC is rated at guaranteed speed. This is important for video.

 

[fivepoint]

I use a SanDisk - Ultra-Plus 1GB in my point and shoot and it is great and very cool. I have used it in my SLR and it is fine but is slower than SanDisk extreme III but I can plug it in any computer.

Buy one - you won't regret it.

Thanks!

If it's a new model, it's very probable that the camera supports SDHC, so find this out.

SD is rated at maximum speed, while SHDC is rated at guaranteed speed. This is important for video.

I did double check. The camera does support SHDC. It saves video in H.264 format.

 

[cube]

If you download the camera manual, you should be able to find out how many MB/s the card needs to support (guaranteed rate).

 

[Aperture]

I have a 2Gb Sandisk Extreme lll and have been very satisfied. Your camera most likely has a memory buffer to facilitate the moving of data to the memory card so unless you're shooting burst, most cards you can find will do just fine.

 

[fivepoint]

I have a 2Gb Sandisk Extreme lll and have been very satisfied. Your camera most likely has a memory buffer to facilitate the moving of data to the memory card so unless you're shooting burst, most cards you can find will do just fine.

Ok, this is excellent information. So, you're saying that with most cameras, other than the pro models or those that shoot burst mode, that the card is rarely the bottleneck anyway, and that most new cameras have a memory buffer which temporarily stores the image anyway... so the speed of the card doesn't really matter.

Obviously this is different with pro cameras... but with basic consumer models, this is usually true? The bottleneck is with the camera itself and a higherpriced/ more expensive card won't necessarily speed things up.

Gotcha. Thanks.

 

[anubis]

Ok, this is excellent information. So, you're saying that with most cameras, other than the pro models or those that shoot burst mode, that the card is rarely the bottleneck anyway, and that most new cameras have a memory buffer which temporarily stores the image anyway... so the speed of the card doesn't really matter.

Obviously this is different with pro cameras... but with basic consumer models, this is usually true? The bottleneck is with the camera itself and a higherpriced/ more expensive card won't necessarily speed things up.

Gotcha. Thanks.

I have a Canon 20D ("pro camera") and recently bought the cheapest 4GB CF card I could find on Amazon (which happened to be a Kingston). I can shoot full RAW AdobeRGB (12mb pictures) in 5-picture bursts with absolutely no problem. I think that "extreme" speeds mainly benefit you when you're downloading pictures off the camera into the computer. *shrug*

 

[taylorwilsdon]

If you really want the *best* SD card, the fastest tested card is the Sandisk Ducati. Whether your camera is fast enough to take advantage of it is another issue.

 

[Hls811]

Also, any thoughts on the SanDisk Ultra II Plus USB cards? You fold them and then slide them into any USB port. Seems pretty sweet.

I LOVE these cards - especially as a MacBook Pro owner (no built in readers) - I have no problem sacraficing whate speed differences there may be in a faster card for hte convenience of going right from Camera to Computer with no additional cables or equipment to carry.

 

[cube]

The 20D might be a prosumer camera, but it's old.

I have an old pro camera (Kodak 14n), but I think anything above around 40x is overkill. It doesn't have much buffer, and if I take 3 pictures in a row, I have to wait on the order of tens of seconds for the images to flush to the card because the camera is too slow (in RAW+JPEG, at least when mirroring the photos to the 2 cards. I don't know, maybe if I activated only 1 card I could shoot some more pics in a burst. Ditto for JPEG-only).

 

[taylorwilsdon]

The 20D might be a prosumer camera, but it's old.

I have an old pro camera (Kodak 14n), but I think anything above around 40x is overkill. It doesn't have much buffer, and if I take 3 pictures in a row, I have to wait on the order of tens of seconds for the images to flush to the card because the camera is too slow (in RAW+JPEG, at least when mirroring the photos to the 2 cards. I don't know, maybe if I activated only 1 card I could shoot some more pics in a burst. Ditto for JPEG-only).

That's because the 14n is a film camera that was clumsily glued to a digital back, making for the biggest, slowest digital slr of all time. And I wouldn't consider the 20d a professional camera either.

 

[cube]

It is not the biggest DSLR, it's way smaller than a D3.

There was no option but Kodak for full frame on Nikon until last year, and it's still the only affordable alternative (used), if you're ready to accept it's shortcomings.

It was a pro camera, It cost $5000 new, and I can take a picture of a color chart or gray card, pick a spot with the neutral gray on the LCD, and white balance, for example. It also has 2 card slots, so you can backup as you shoot without need of a computer.

 

[rtdunham]

Also, any thoughts on the SanDisk Ultra II Plus USB cards? You fold them and then slide them into any USB port. Seems pretty sweet.

I can't imagine you'd be unhappy with the plus USB cards. i've used 'em for travel to four continents, never had one go bad, never had the hinge break, never had probs with slow downloading of large numbers of images.

like some others here, i try to use only the pluses because of their convenience--i had to go to circuit city today and buy a little card reader (damn, one more piece to carry around) because a family member gave me a couple 2GB NON "plus" cards that i have to be a good sport and use.

btw, circuit city had the 4GB pluses for $39.95 today icnluding a tiny little plastic case to carry a spare in.

but if you really want to max your purchase, see if you can find one (I haven't been able to recently) that came with a little put-it-on-your-keychain snap-shut tiny holder for a spare card.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

It is not the biggest DSLR, it's way smaller than a D3.

There was no option but Kodak for full frame on Nikon until last year, and it's still the only affordable alternative (used), if you're ready to accept it's shortcomings.

It was a pro camera, It cost $5000 new, and I can take a picture of a color chart or gray card, pick a spot with the neutral gray on the LCD, and white balance, for example. It also has 2 card slots, so you can backup as you shoot without need of a computer.

I was just giving you a hard time. Its just "brick like." I've used one occasionally.