Best SD card?

[jameswilby5]

I need to buy some more SD cards since I have decided to shoot RAW. I ordered a 8gb Class 10 Transcend card as a back up and want to buy a really good card.

So my question is what is the best SD card? I am currently looking at the new SanDisk Extreme Pro sd cards which look very good. Has anyone used them? If this is card for me I will either get it in 16gb or 2x8gb.

Any help would be appreciated!

[Jean-Pierre]

I personally use the SanDisk Extreme class 10 16Gb SD cards, and I absolutely love them. I've had a card from another company go bad on me, and since then I stay away from cheap cards. Also, class 10 enables me to take stills during my videos, and not have the video stop on me.

[Joris Van den Berghe]

I think at the moment, SanDisk's UHS-1 cards are the cards I would buy...

http://www.sandisk.com/microsites/Extre ... index.html

[crisdean]

I use SanDisk Extreme Pro 8GB cards as they currently match exactly my battery life for shooting RAW.

They're pretty fast as well

[Razvan]

It's interesting that Lexar cards aren't so popular,even though they're pro memory cards as well. In some speed tests I saw,the Sandisks always came on top,which is just a bit dissapointing for the Lexars,since they cost about the same. (of course,the speeds are almost indistinguishable for most people)

[dingo27mobile]

Well, i am kingston user, i bought class 10 32GB sd, which is not really that fast (only little bit faster than class 6)

but enough for HD video, and burst speed.

and if i compare it with sandisk ultra2 with 9mb read / write speed, and 70€ price tag, 50€ kingston seems a better performer.

[dieselpowered]

Using a SanDisk Extreme Pro 16gb.

Always have had good luck with SanDisk.

[dingo27mobile]

Well, i have a Pretec 32Gig 433x U1 Fulll HD video SD card, and it performs even better than my kingston one. It says it is class 16, but performs only 1-2MB faster write, still it is noticeable, and card is even cheaper than kingston. So i reccommend Pretec now.

[jameswilby5]

Thanks guys I did end up going with the Sandisk Extreme Pro and I have been using it for quite a while now. All I can say is it performs floorlessly and it is very quick. I have 2x16gb of these and plan on getting a 32gb and 16gb compact flash version when I buy the 5D2.

[Csaba]

I have a Canon 450D.

At present I’m using a Sandisk extreme card which has a 45MB/s read/write speed.

When I shoot on the highest quality jpeg setting I can fire off as many shots as I want provided I fire in bursts. When I switch to RAW + jpeg the camera locks after a couple of shots.

Would upgrading to a faster card resolve this issue? I was considering one of these cards.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[cujo]

I looked up the Canon 450D and the buffer is rated for 6 frames in RAW. While the faster card might help to clear the buffer faster it will still depend on the maximum speed the camera can write to the card. With a buffer of 6 frames in RAW format I doubt you'll see a big improvement.

How big are your RAW files? I believe your camera is 12MP so if the RAW files are 12Mb is size with a speed of 3.5 frames per second it would have to write 42Mb/sec which is close to the limit of your card. So the speed advantage of the faster card might not be very visible.

That's just my opinion of course.

[Maestro]

i just ran a test with my T4i (650D) and found no increase in performance between one of my SanDisk 45 MB/s cards and one of my 95 MB/s cards. Similar to your 450D, "continuous" shooting slowed (but didn't "lock") after just 2 RAW+L frames.

Mark

P.S. Interestingly, I do notice a difference when shooting hacked high-bitrate video on my GH2. So I'm guessing the bus speed of the GH2 is faster than the T4i.

[Csaba]

Thanks guys.

A quick google turned up this thread so it might be a problem with the settings I'm using. I'll have a play with it over the weekend.

[4xxxx]

Something to note when getting SanDisk's UHS-1 cards, will your camera read them? From what I understand the Nikon D7000 was the first camera that could use these cards. I have two SanDisk class 10 16MB in my camera.



Cheers

[dubaiphil]

The best SD card?

The one you have with you, of course...