Canon EOS 30D Memory Card

Please recommend what memory card I should buy for Canon EOS 30D.

 

Thank you

Dan

2 x 2Gb Sandisk Ultra II or Extreme III / IV depending on your budget.

 

If you have a penchant for burst shooting lots of raw shots, consider 4Gb flavours.

<p>A reputable brand, of a size that's reasonable for your use, and a speed that's reasonable for your use.</p>

 

<p>Brand: I'm probably being anal here. But I'm happy to spend moderately more money for a brand name I recognize and that's been around for a while and earned a good reputation, compared to some fly-by-night name that I've never heard of before. The fly-by-night card may be fine, but I've worked in the computer consulting field for over a decade and a half and have seen more problems with fly-by-night brands than with name brands, and I don't want those sorts of problems impacting my photos.</p>

 

<p>Size: I would suggest that a few smaller cards are better than one big card, because if the one big card gets damaged or destroyed or stolen or lost, you lose 100% of your images, whereas if the same were to happen to one of your smaller cards, you'd only lose some of your images. I'd only suggest one big card if it's impossible or horribly inconvenient for you to change cards while shooting. How much space do you need? Only you can tell, based on what file sizes you'll be generating (the camera has thirteen options for how much data it writes out each time you take a picture: RAW only, six varieties of JPEG, and RAW plus six varieties of JPEG) and how many pictures you'll be taking between when you have a chance to download the files to your computer. Shooting a dozen photos at a friend's party and shooting a thousand photos on a trip to somewhere where you have no access to a computer will require vastly different quantities of memory.</p>

 

<p>Speed: Fast cards are great, but all else being equal, they cost more than slower cards, and for many uses, the fast card will gain you very little. If you shoot rapid bursts, a fast card may be useful as it will help you shoot a bigger burst at the full frame rate before the buffer gets full. It will also speed up chimping and downloading of images. But if you're (say) going to take a dozen pictures at a friend's birthday party, the world's slowest card will work as well as the world's fastest, and will cost you less. I tend not to shoot bursts, and my workhorses are slow cards (they're marked "4x", though in actual fact they're around 8-10x). I also have a 50x card, and it's nice, but to be honest, I rarely need that much speed.</p>

BH has Lexar 4Gb 133x cards on sale for under $50 after rebate. You have to add to your cart to see it. I just ordered mine.

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&kw=LECF133X4GB&is=REG&Q=&O=productlist&sku=420118

 

 

Mark

Is it true that Canon does not support the write speed of memory cards. I read it on Phil's article.

It does not support Wa (Write Acceleration) something Lexar has. I have 4 Lexar cards. On my 20D in Large Jpg, I can get about 30-35 continuous shots (5fps)before it slows with a 16x card. With my Lexar 80x tested it to about 60 shots then gave up, and it never slowed down. So even the 20D can benefit from faster cards, and the newer cameras can benefit more. They just can't take advantage of the Wa.

 

Mark

http://robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-8478

 

With the new SanDisk Extreme IV cards now on the retailers shelves, you might want to look for some SanDisk Extreme III 2GB cards at a good price.

 

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