Memory Cards...MB/PS important?
Discussion
Shooting today on an old 2GB 10MP/PS card i discovered...i filled it too fast! but had no delay issues. Not sure what the on board buffer is but i never filled it. Given that....may I as well get a £30 kingston 8Gb 20MB/PS card as a £40 Sandisk 60MB/PS one??? (down load to pc doesnt matter....i'm not that busy that I cant have a cuppa while it copies over data!)
It will matter if you start filling the buffer using your 8fps! at 20 to 25Mb per RAW frame you are generating up to 200Mb per second - far more than typical video rates although the demands of video as growing quite quickly.
Read speeds are mostly influenced by the read device. I have always use external readers. A new one otbained this week is at least 3 to 4 times faster than my previous CF card reader based on a quick test timing 14Gb download of about 1000 files.
The speed rating shown will typically be the read speed the card can offer (and the maximum value of that). In many cases the read speed will be higher - sometimes much higher - than the write speed.
The latest SanDisk Extreme 16Gb cards seem to be available at reasonable prices from at least one or two retailers most of the time and perform well. I'm not sure the Pro versions of these things (various designations from different manufacturers but always the same high speed concept) are worth considering unless you are really using the card heavily every day. Note that you still see the older Extreme III and IV cards advertised. Good cards, the IV being quite similar to the new card (Now just called Extreme). Worth considering of the price point is right. As I recall a 16Gb card gives about 14 and a bit Gb after formatting and so about 400 typical shots in RAW from a 7D.
Read speeds are mostly influenced by the read device. I have always use external readers. A new one otbained this week is at least 3 to 4 times faster than my previous CF card reader based on a quick test timing 14Gb download of about 1000 files.
The speed rating shown will typically be the read speed the card can offer (and the maximum value of that). In many cases the read speed will be higher - sometimes much higher - than the write speed.
The latest SanDisk Extreme 16Gb cards seem to be available at reasonable prices from at least one or two retailers most of the time and perform well. I'm not sure the Pro versions of these things (various designations from different manufacturers but always the same high speed concept) are worth considering unless you are really using the card heavily every day. Note that you still see the older Extreme III and IV cards advertised. Good cards, the IV being quite similar to the new card (Now just called Extreme). Worth considering of the price point is right. As I recall a 16Gb card gives about 14 and a bit Gb after formatting and so about 400 typical shots in RAW from a 7D.
As others have said unless you shoot rapid fire it doesn't matter. A bit of maths and you can work out what you want. File size x frames per second equals card bps you need.
Assume the camera buffer isn't the limiting factor.
Thus a 30mbs card would happily cope with 6mb file at 5 frames a sec or 3mb file at 10fps etc. It stands to reason that you can either reduce the file size or use faster cards for the same result - on the odd times I shoot rapid fire, 8fps on my D700 I shoot big jpegs instead of raw.
I have a mix of card speeds and never had a problem
Downloading I use an external FireWire connected reader and go make a coffee!
Assume the camera buffer isn't the limiting factor.
Thus a 30mbs card would happily cope with 6mb file at 5 frames a sec or 3mb file at 10fps etc. It stands to reason that you can either reduce the file size or use faster cards for the same result - on the odd times I shoot rapid fire, 8fps on my D700 I shoot big jpegs instead of raw.
I have a mix of card speeds and never had a problem
Edited by ian in lancs on Sunday 28th November 08:33
Downloading I use an external FireWire connected reader and go make a coffee!
Edited by ian in lancs on Sunday 28th November 08:34
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