D50, SD cards, how large can you go?

I bought a 2Gb SD card with my new D50 from B&H, but was wondering, I have seen

4Gb cards out there, do they work with the D50? Anyone try this yet?

The D50 is not compatible with SDHC (high capacity) cards, so 2G is the limit. However, apparently you can format SDHC cards on a computer and then use them on a D50, but it is safer to stick with 2G or smaller cards. See footnote #4 in the article below:

 

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7905

 

The D80 and D40 are compatible with SDHC cards.

You will see some non-SDHC 4GB cards. These are completely out of spec for SD (which has a 2GB limit).

 

Sadly Nikon has not seen fit to give us a firmware update for SDHC compatibility on the D50. But considering you can get 300 or so RAW's on a 2GB card with the D50, this isn't all that big an issue, I'd just carry a second 2GB card for safety's sake.

I am surprised to hear the responses above. I am using a 4gig SD with D50 with no problems.

Yes,

 

The camera recognizes memory card size, and formats as appropriate using FAT or FAT32.

 

Some people format memory card for the camera either from PC connected computer, or from a card reader outside of camera. In this case they must know what is appropriate FAT or FAT32 to format for the memory card size. If they do not know that, problems can occur, as already were reported on photo.net.

 

Always format your memory card inside camera using either camera buttons, or camera manu, and you will be fine with any memory card size currently on the market.

I would also suggest staying with 2GB cards as you never know if you'll loose a card or have it fail on you. I used to use a 4GB microdrive in my C-8080 and it died on me! I could not get any of the pictures off of it as it would not start again. 4GB is ALOT to have all your eggs in one basket. I have a D50 and I got two SD 2GB's for safety.

 

I just have a strong reaction to massive cards because of my "incident" but I do know of others who are happily shooting away with big SD and CF cards.

With a recent Nikon L6 P&S digital I got in December; the manual only mentions a 1 gig SD card.<BR><BR> I downloaded the spec sheets and they only mention a 1 gig card as max. I called Nikon and they mentioned a 1 gig card as max.<BR><BR> Since the camera only came out in August 2006; I really being dont believe this dogma. At first I had a 1 gig card. It shows up as FAT formated via windows explorer. I punted and bought a high speed 150X mystery Brand 4 gig SD "TOPRAM" with usb reader off of ebay for about 40 bucks to try. <BR><BR>When first inserted in the camera it gave a card not supported error.<BR><BR>YUK!<BR><BR> When I removed the card and replaced it with the 1 gig card the camera still saw the old one. Then when replacing the card again with the 4gig card it magically didnt complain, it shows 4x the shots available and works well. The 4x card must have been either preformated or was formated by the camera. It shows up as FAT32 on the cheapie flash reader.<BR><BR>I left the 4gig card for 15 minutes when I first tried it; thinking it might stop it it was formating the sd card. Maybe it was; but required another insertion to reset the error displayed on the LCD<BR><BR><b>It might just be that some XYZ Nikons will read FAT32 and other XYZ Nikons will not; ie due to firmware vintage in the camera.</b><BR><BR>FAT only goes to 2 gig; fat32 about this.<BR><BR>In Nikon L6 ebay sellers some earlier ones last fall mentioned 1 or 2 gigs as the max, then some were being bundled with 2 and 4 gig cards. Thus who really knows. My L6 has firmware "coolpix L6 ver 1.0" when one uses the cameras menu. <BR><BR>With some ancient Olympus D360L 1.3 megapixel cameras I own, the lot of three have different firmware versions; and one that is higher can address a bigger smartmedia card than the other two. Thus it might be a more complex question when asking whether ones goobertronic digital camera will address a 2 or 4 terrabyte card.! :)

With the Nikon L6; the faster 150x SD card of mine allows one to shoot 30fps VGA video without the 23meg internal buffer from barfing with long shots; when it cannot absorb the slack writting to a slow SD card. With a slow card and the high 30fps rate in high end vga the camera will delay after awhile; the slow sd card being the bottleneck.

<p>yea I just purchased a 16G HCSD and the D50 does not see it.....I going to return it</p>