Memory cards clarification

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Johnnypipe85

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Hello, I'm on the hunt for some new memory cards and have started to look around for prices and specs.

Up to now I thought that the class indicated the write speed of the memory card, but whilst looking at some sandisk ones that appears not to be the case. Eg. Sandisk ultra class 10 30mb/s,
sandisk ultra class 6 30mb/s,
sandisk extreme class 10 30mb/s,
sandisk extreme class 10 45mb/s

Not to talk about
Sandisk extreme hd video class 10 30mb/s

It's all rather confusing, why the differences in speed/class and why the distinction for hd video? Surely a 30mb/s card is the same regardless whether you use it for stills or video?! Is it just marketing faff?

Up to now I've only used transcend and they seem to stick to the class system. Any pointers would be appreciated.
 
I too have looked at the Video class cards, but what do they offer over a standard card?
 
c.grex said:
I too have looked at the Video class cards, but what do they offer over a standard card?
Click to expand...
Dunno. They may have optimised the Video cards for sustained write speed over burst speed, or it may just be marketing BS. There might be an explanation on the SanDisk website.
 
I use Duracell class 10 30mb/s on my 60D and shoot in JPEG and RAW and have had no problems shooting all day on flat out trigger finger, however some other make I had free with the camera have had nothing but issues with even though "apparently" they are the same spec.

Cant remember the make will look later, countless needed formatting and card errors...thankfully i only ever use them as a last resort
 
Just get the sandisk extreme pro's, 95mb/s - fast, reliable and not to expensive.
 
iancandler said:
Just get the sandisk extreme pro's, 95mb/s - fast, reliable and not to expensive.
Click to expand...

This is what I shoot with and the are epically good, as is the recovery software that comes with the card (y)

Amazon tend to be very good on these cards price wise (y)
 
I just can't help feel that sometimes it is all marketing BS.

I use a couple of integral SDHC Class 10 Memory Card 32GB, I've used them in 1080p Camcorder and in my 650d for video and pictures and never had a single issue. I paid less than £15 each for them. can't see why I would need to go to extreme pro card.
 
c.grex said:
I just can't help feel that sometimes it is all marketing BS.........

snip / I paid less than £15 each for them. can't see why I would need to go to extreme pro card.
Click to expand...

The point of getting the faster / larger cards is that when you fill them up (& you will) then transferring them to a pc / laptop will be a lot faster.

Just another reason to get a SSD hard drive too...:D
 
Diving Pete said:
The point of getting the faster / larger cards is that when you fill them up (& you will) then transferring them to a pc / laptop will be a lot faster.

Just another reason to get a SSD hard drive too...:D
Click to expand...

I can see the point in that. As for SSD, I have just had a hard drive fail on me and I had to have data recovered due to a back up issue. When talking about drives, I was surprised to here he has at least one SSD per week that has failed!

You can never back up enough....
 
I was speaking to a Dell engineer last week.
His words only 1 in 10 hard drive failures are a SSD..
 
iancandler said:
Just get the sandisk extreme pro's, 95mb/s - fast, reliable and not to expensive.
Click to expand...

If its to use on the D7000 - i think it only supports upto 45mb/s - anything faster and the camera wont benefit.
 
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Diving Pete said:
The point of getting the faster / larger cards is that when you fill them up (& you will) then transferring them to a pc / laptop will be a lot faster.

Just another reason to get a SSD hard drive too...:D
Click to expand...

Also USB3 makes a huge difference when transferring lot of large files over to a computer. I get about 50-80MB/s transfer speeds. This to me makes getting the very fast cards worth it, even if the camera's dont make full use of the speed.
 
It was one the first camera to support it, but the internal bus and buffer seems to be limiting its full potential.

http://www.photographybay.com/2011/01/27/sandisk-extreme-pro-uhs-i-sd-card-in-the-nikon-d7000/

http://sportsphotoguy.com/nikon-d7000-raw-burst-test/

I don't think you will see any performance gain by having 95mb card over a 45mb one, however if you decided to change your camera in a couple of years time, I think all new cameras will support 95mb, then at least you won't need to upgrade your cards.

Also, the max speed I got out of USB 3 on my of was peaking around 48MB/s on my windows 7 pc. Latest drivers are a must. I haven't seen any USB device yet which can read and write at full burst speed.
 
Sphinx said:
however if you decided to change your camera in a couple of years time, I think all new cameras will support 95mb, then at least you won't need to upgrade your cards.
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Then again in a couple of years time cards will be even cheaper and you could save now and pay less then. But who am I to give advice, I always love to have the latest tech!:)
 
Diving Pete said:
I was speaking to a Dell engineer last week.
His words only 1 in 10 hard drive failures are a SSD..
Click to expand...

But failures never the less! I have learnt from my latest failure. I didn't have much data, but some was import photos. I just got sloppy with backing up and thought it was and it wasn't!

What ever drive or memory you get, always kept a back up because you never know.
 
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