Best memory card for Nikon D300

Guys, can anyone tell me what is the fastest memory card for the Nikon D300 please ? I do have the Extreme IV 2

Gb but still, is there something faster than this one please?

Thanks in advance for all your support.

You can get the Ducati version of the same card, but i'll doubt you'll see any difference in performance. The extreme 4 is fast enough.

i've not seen the extreme IV -- is that a 266x card?

 

i've been using the 4gb PNY optima pro UDMA cards, which are 266x and can be had for $50 at staplers.

 

(now i expect to get hit on one side by someone complaining that i didn't spend enough, and laughed at on the other from someone saying i spent too much... but such is life in the fast lane at PN.)

 

i can testify that i've filled the buffer on a D300 and timed the PNY card can write it in about 20 seconds.

The D300 is UDMA compatible. If you want the fastest memory write time, get an UDMA card such as the Sandisk Extreme IV, the Ducati, and Lexar 300x UDMA Pro. Whether those fast cards will make any meaningful difference highly depends on your particular shooting pattern.

i don't think you can do much better than an extreme IV. it kinda depends on whether you are firing off machine gun bursts in RAW at 8fps. but if you're interested in the minutiae of different cards and different memory sizes and their relative performance, rob galbraith has a smomewhat obsessive list up at www.robgalbraith.com. other than that, what shun said.

I have the Lexar 8gb 300x UDMA They priced it wrong so I picked it up for $100... Awesome! I also have a Sandisk 3 and to be honest I don't see much difference in shooting. On the upload side I didn't see much difference either so I upgraded to the Lexar Fire Wire 800 Reader... and Yes it's faster (about 1.5x) but not worth the extra money in my opinion.

 

Ryan

The Extreme III are UDMA compatible. There are about 6 different UDMA modes. The IV just supports a higher mode than the III.<br>

<br>

Frank, Shun and Eric pretty much nailed the issue. A D300 with the right card is so bloody fast it seldom makes a difference. The 4 gig IV "Ducatti" does 30.3 megs/sec, the "regular" IV does 25.7, the III does 22.1 If you're shooting lossless compressed raw, at about 13 meg each, that means the raw writes are 0.43 sec, 0.51 sec, and 0.59 sec, respectively.<br>

<br>

If you're shooting Eric's "machine gun bursts", then you're dealing with say, 15 shots...<br>

<br>

6.5, 7.6, and 8.8 seconds, respectively. So, if it's critical that you be able to blast a burst every 6.5 seconds instead of every 8.5 seconds, spring for the Ducatti, otherwise, the EX 3 are good enough for me. Good enough for me and my Nikon D3. <br>

<br>

From the Kentucky coal mines<br>

To the California shores<br>

The flash cards held the secrets of my soul<br>

<br>

Through all kinds of bad light<br>

And everything they shot<br>

The flash cards kept my whole world<br>

<br>

Freedom's just another word<br>

For memory free to shoot<br>

Yeah, memory, that's all<br>

That Sandisk gave me.<br>

<br>

And feeling good was easy oh<br>

When the gigs are cheap.<br>

The EX 3 are good enough for me.<br>

Good enough for me and my Nikon D3. <br>

When I reviewed the D300 for photo.net last December, I did test the NEF write time with different memory cards. Roughly speaking, the D300 can write one lossless compressed NEF per second onto an Extreme IV card. For Extreme III, it goes up to about 1.5 seconds. The Lexar 300x UDMA is perhaps a tiny bit faster than the Extreme IV.

 

Keep in mind that the D300's write speed is about 3 to 4 times as fast as the D2X so that it empties its buffer much faster. I for one have never filled the buffer on my D300 but that happened to my D2X once in a while, which is extremely frustrating.

 

If you shoot a lot of sports and action, it may make sense to get Extreme IV or Lexar's 300x UDMA. I think Ducati is essentially a rip off. For most people, there isn't really any difference.

Does anyone recall the website that tested every memory card in existence at the time, with the D200. I'm sure it has been

updated with today's cards using a D3(?). Could it have been an associated link found on dpreview.com?

Stephen, you must have Rob Galbraith in mind:

 

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9254

I use Ultra II cards which work great for me. You don't need a faster card unless you're shooting High Speed Continuous NEF, which I don't.

The latest Extreme 3 cards claim 30 mb/s read & write time. They seem excellent value to me compared with either the Ultra 2 or Extreme 4 cards (at 18 pounds delivered for 4gb here in the UK).

Why not buy the best, Extreme iv, then never have to worry about anything? Even though they're expensive, I never regret it.

"Why not buy the best, Extreme iv, then never have to worry about anything?"

 

Because if you buy Ex III instead of IV, you can buy twice as many for the same $. Then, on a D3, you use the duplicate card slot and you've got a backup, never, ever losing data.

 

As you said "never have to worry about anything".

up until now i've been using the sandisk extreme III's and they work fine.. I recently bought an Extreme IV and it is MUCH, MUCH faster writing than the ex. III. so.. if you're shooting something moving.. i.e. wildlife, soccer, wedding... where you need to take a lot of pics and write quick, the IV is the way to go. Otherwise the III should be capable of doing everything that the IV can.

 

Hope this helps.

Jeff

I used a 4bg Lexar 133x for about four months and that was pretty fast. Then I picked up a Lexar 8gb 300x UDMA, and that

thing is extremely fast. So I picked up another one and don't see any reason to get a new card in a long time. I had

SanDisk SD cards for my D80 last year; but I wasn't really a big fan. I'm sure SanDisk is good though.