Memory Card Recommendations

[mirceaciuca]

Sandisk Extreme III have a new model for this year and it have a note on each card "model 2008" and under this note writes "30Mb/s" which will be enough for you 50D. Take two of 16 Gb, or for the beggining take a two cards of 8Gb, that will be enough for a large RAW wedding.

For your work you dont need "burst" cards. Even Extreme III or Lexar UDMA x300 will work just fine. The speed on your computer it counts if you want a Extreme IV card or Ducatti. But for 20 seconds maxim you can spend the money for your needs or other cards.

Rob give you a link and before I take a card, 8Gb Sandisk Extreme III, I read that test. I take it for a Nikon D300. BHvideo.com have some rabate of US people.

Take what you "really" need and not a Lamborghini, with a big engine on a 120km/h highway limit.

And please look carefully at the card. Like I said it have a note "model 2008" and "30mb/s" if not are the old version of extreme III and they have 20mb/s.

With the rest of money take a firewire cardreader or up to 28-30mb/s that have the speed transfer needed for this speed cards transfer.

Mircea

[mirceaciuca]

You can go also on the www.dpreview.com and see the biggest files (raw) how much space on the card is it and calculate aprox. how many shoots are you taken often+ a little bonus (photos) there.

And you got your answer...16Gb or larger.

Mircea

[harold_motte]

I have used all different Sandisk cards, xD cards, and the one I settled on is the Lexar 4gb UDMA 300x.

I shoot sports and use a 40d. Everthing is very fast. The card writes and writes to, and reads so fast you could

not possibly need a a faster one for what you say you are going to shoot. I have never had a failure except on a sandisk card.

The one input you have about not putting all yhour eggs in one basket is good advice I think also.

I think I want to be ready / be prepared and want the equipment on hand if I need it. Although you don't say you are going to shoot sports, you would be ready with the Lexar udma 300x card.

Harold

[alan_myers]

Hello Heidi,

 

I agree with a number of points already made:

 

1. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Get multiple, smaller cards and swap them out during the event, rather than one big one. That way if something happens to one of them, you still have the images on the other ones.

 

I currently use 13 or 14 cards with three cameras. I've only ever had a single card problem, and that was due to "user error" (I pulled the card before it finished writing, and lost about 1/3 of the images on it.)

 

You may not need that many and how large a card you use is up to you.

 

I like to be able to shoot between 150 and 200 images before swapping, so I size my cards accordingly. David's post says he's getting 67 RAW files on 2GB cards, so if it were me I'd go for either 4GB or 8GB cards in the 50D (which I don't have yet).

 

2. Since your camera can utilize 300X UDMA, that's what I'd suggest you look for. This type card is more expensive but not a lot. It will both write in the camera and download to your computer faster. With the larger file sizes of the 50D, I think you'll be glad for both. I'll reiterate, too, that for faster downloads to your computer you will need a card reader that can take advantage of the 300X UDMA card, if you don't already have one. These are a bit more expensive.

 

3. All the major brands, bought from a reliable vendor, will be fine. I am currently using Lexar, Sandisk and Sony CF cards. No issues with any of them at all (the failure I mentioned was on a Sandisk, but again that was user error, not a problem with the card). Some of my CF are 3 or 4 years old now.

 

4. My main gripe about Sandisk is their speed rating system. They state it differently than everyone else. You can calculate it from the transfer rate they give on the back of their package, but other manufacturers else simply use 133X, 300X, etc., so are more easily compared.

 

I think I calculated Sandisk Extreme III was equal to 133X but it's been a while and I might be wrong.

 

Other than Sandisk, if a card isn't marked with a speed at all, it's probably 80X, 60X or even 40X. Those would bog down in your camera, I'm sure.

 

5. Stick with a brand name card. I have heard too many horror stories to ever consider generic memory. There's not enough savings to justify taking the risk, especially if you will be shooting weddings and other once in a lifetime events.

 

6. Oh, and yes... Do buy online to save a lot. In the past I've bought cards from Adorama and B&H. Most recently I've bought from newegg.com, outpost.com and amazon.com.

 

I had to pickup another card in hurry one afternoon and went to Best Buy on the way to a shoot.... It was very overpriced and all they had was slower memory. They really take advantage of peoples' confusion about memory in the local stores!

[joseph_cheng2]

I think I'm dumb. I've read thr' this post twice, incl all the links, but still failed to make out if the high end expensive

UDMA cards, such as Sandisk 45mb/sec or Transcend 300x, would be an overkill for my 50D soon to arrive. Would

anybody please enlighten me? I'd like to shoot with the fast continuous mode for sports, wildlife, etc. I gather there

are quite a number of factors, eg, the write speeds of the card & camera (50D), buffer, etc.

[seragram]

I think what has been recomended is

Sandisk Extreme IV or Lexar UDMA 300X

either 4 gig or 8 gig

[markonestudios]

I shudder at the thought of a 16GB card full of photos failing on me :) I prefer 'safety in numbers' so I would advise you invest in several 2GB cards and perhaps a couple of 4GBs for redundancy. I don't need to use Extreme IVs or UDMAs at present. I use Sandisk Ultra IIs and Extreme IIIs with no issues. I find them fast enough for my needs, even when I occasionally need to shoot a burst on my XTi. I'd say, unless you're capturing subjects that may require high burst rate e.g motorsport, absolute card speed is not necessary.

<p>As an aside, come back to this post in a few years, and we'll probably all be sporting 120GB UltraSuperExtremeVIIIs and cursing our ExtremeIV UDMA Plus cards ;-)

[g dan mitchell]

Rob wrote: "The issue of reliability was never raised here. The issue is of storage capacity and of data transfer rates per

an individuals needs. Faster cards allow the camera to flush from the buffer more quickly. How much one wants or

needs this is a matter of personal preference and/or job requirements."

 

Yes, but there are very fast cards available from these sources as well. The very fastest cards don't really produce any

difference in performance on most cameras anyway.

 

I disagree with the "multiple 2GB card" approach. Statistically, you are more likely to have a failed card if you have eight

times as many of them.

[phule]

[[The very fastest cards don't really produce any difference in performance on most cameras anyway. ]]

 

What is "most cameras" ? The database on Rob Galbraith's site shows differences between cards in the cameras

tested. Even on my 350D, which you might lump into "most cameras," there is a noticeable increase in buffer

flushing speed when using an Extreme III card vs an Ultra II.

[markonestudios]

"Statistically, you are more likely to have a failed card if you have eight times as many of them."

<p>That may be true, but I'd rather lose 2GB of data than 16GB :)