SD cards

[marcantel]

<p>Does anyone notice any difference between different Brand names in SD cards in your image quality. </p>

[phule]

<p>[[Does anyone notice any difference between different Brand names in SD cards in your image quality.]]</p>

<p>A cheap no-name card may fail prematurely, in which case, you'd potentially notice a significant difference in image quality: you've have zero images.</p>

[kohanmike]

<p>Seems to me that the card itself has nothing to do with image quality, that comes from the camera and lens. If you're seeing something, you most likely have a bad card that's about to pass on.</p>

[rick_chen]

If u shoot for money u should at least get sandisk or lexar that's more reputable with lifetime warranty. Watch out for fake

ones on eBay only buy from trusted e tailers, lots of fake out there.

It affects speed and reliability shouldn't affect image quality at all

[don_cooper]

<p>No! All cards record the same data unless there is a card failure. </p>

[elliot1]

<p><em>"A cheap no-name card may fail prematurely"</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

While this may be true, any card can fail regardless of manufacturer or price. While a name brand card may have less likelihood of failing percentage wise (a guess), I would have to imagine that not all name brands cards are failure free. I have several 'cheap' cards that have been used often and have never failed.<br>

<br>

A more serious issue is counterfeits (fake cards that look like the real cards) of which name brands cards are typically counterfeited. They are copied so well it is almost impossible to tell them apart from the real thing. Buying from a reliable source is your best bet to avoid counterfeits.</p>

[grh]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"A cheap no-name card may fail prematurely"</em><br /><br />While this may be true, any card can fail regardless of manufacturer or price.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>Every</em> card <em>will</em> fail at some point. There is a limit to the number of write operations, period.<br>

No, the brand of card is irrelevant to image quality. A bit is a bit, and presuming that the card is functioning correctly and reliably, what goes in is what comes out.</p>

[phule]

<p>[[While this may be true, any card can fail regardless of manufacturer or price]]</p>

<p>I have not claimed otherwise. </p>

<p>[[i have several 'cheap' cards that have been used often and have never failed.]]</p>

<p>The plural of anecdote is not data. </p>

[Peter_in_PA]

<p>If you're shooting video, just get a name brand fast class 10 and be done with it.</p>

[bebu_lamar]

<p>It's digital so there no quality problems. Of course there are reliable and unreliable media but qualiy do not suffer.</p>

[marcantel]

<p>Thanks for the info.Very interesting.Don't know unless you ask ,it's what makes Photo.Net great!!!!</p>

[stephen_doldric]

<p>Quality of the image, no. Its digital, so the question is do you have your images or are they lost.</p>

<p>Write speed yes. I use Lexar and Sandisk and the Sandisk cards write faster. At least in my experience with two similarly priced cards (sandisk extreme III vs Lexar Pro).</p>

<p>These are the only two brands I use and only from a reputable retailer (In the US -- B&H or Adorma). The counterfeit problem is really bad, so use extreme caution on ebay or elsewhere.</p>

 

[joe c.]

<p>One other question to this experienced group: How noticeable have you found the speed difference between SD cards -- with all other things being equal -- between one with a 45MB/sec. and one with a 90MB/sec. speed? This would be for use with a Nikon FX camera.</p>

[don_cooper]

<p>You can see the speeds in some specific cameras here - <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/camera_wb_multi_paged527.html?cid=6007-9784">http://www.robgalbraith.com/camera_wb_multi_paged527.html?cid=6007-9784</a> It's not if it's FX or DX, it's the specific camera</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>One other question to this experienced group: How noticeable have you found the speed difference between SD cards -- with all other things being equal -- between one with a 45MB/sec. and one with a 90MB/sec. speed? This would be for use with a Nikon FX camera.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not sure which FX camera you have in mind, but on the D7100, which is DX but is UHS-1 compatible, it can write about 3 RAW files per second with a 90MB/sec SD card, namely the SanDisk Extreme Pro. It is considerably slower with a 45MB/sec card. Of course, you'll only notice the difference if you shoot at a high frame rate, and the D7100's shallow RAW buffer makes this difference more obvious.</p>

<p>The only Nikon FX bodies that accept SD cards are the D800 (including D800E) and D600. Those are not exactly sports cameras.</p>

<p>Additionally, if you use live view on the D800, the back LCD is totally blacked out until the image file is completely written onto the memory card. A 90MB/sec card will help the return of the image on the LCD. I have used some really slow SD cards on the D800 and the blackout can last up to 4 seconds (due to the huge 36MP RAW files). That is quite annoying and may cause you to miss the next shot in some situations.</p>

[joe c.]

<p>Thank you, Don and Shun. I always try to make my questions more universal, but I understand that the answer does depend on the specifics.<br>

I am considering pulling the trigger, er shutter release, on buying a Nikon D600.<br>

I currently have two SanDisk Extreme 32GB SD cards. Both are rated at 45MB/second.<br>

I could use those cards for the D600, but I am wondering what the advantages would be in upgrading to SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB SD cards. They are rated at 90MB/second. Am I handicapping myself if I do not upgrade?<br>

As I shoot film for the most part, I don't expect to hit the thresholds of the maximum frame rates all that often, but there will be some times, like photos of children playing sports, where this could be useful.<br>

If I am reading the chart correctly, and use 16GB cards for comparison, as they have both speeds on the chart, the 45MB/second cards will have a speed of 28.8 and 29.9, while the 90MB/second cards wil have a speed of 38.1 and 41.9, respectively for JPEG and RAW.<br>

As experienced digital shooters, what are the real world differences, given those rates; that is, how would affect the actual shooting experience as opposed to benchmark measurements?<br>

Thanks!</p>

[ShunCheung]

<blockquote>

<p>I currently have two SanDisk Extreme 32GB SD cards. Both are rated at 45MB/second.<br />I could use those cards for the D600, but I am wondering what the advantages would be in upgrading to SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB SD cards. They are rated at 90MB/second. Am I handicapping myself if I do not upgrade?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If I were you, I would buy the D600 first and use your current 45MB/sec cards on it. If you never/rarely run into buffer full situations, i.e. your current cards are fast enough, there is no point to get faster cards. (And I don't buy the argument that faster cards let you upload to the computer faster. I typicall start the upload and then do something else. Whether the upload takes 2 minutes, 20 minutes, or 40 minutes, it makes little difference to me.)</p>

<p>If you indeed run into buffer full situations so that you cannot capture any additional images and have to wait for the buffer to clear, that is an extremely annoying situation as you will miss shots. In that case you need to investigate whether a faster card can help. I used a D600 for a month last year; I captured some sports with it and never had any buffer full problem, but your shooting style may differ. I didn't test the D600 explicitely for buffer write speed, and I didn't have any Extreme Pro cards at that time. I got three Extreme Pros this year mainly for the D7100.</p>