[gramps]

hi, I wish to know if it is necessary to use a sandisk extreme III card, or if any other class 6 sd card is sufficient for use in a k20d?
The reason I ask, is that the prices for these cards at my local camera store are mighty expensive (relative to any other sd card I have ever used), and I kinda feel like the salesman is trying to sell me rustproofing :}

It is difficult to push through the marketing garbage when purchasing one of these cards.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
-gramps

[kkoether]

I've got an Extreme III 4gig card and a no name 16gig class 6 card that I use in my K200D. The Extreme III is slightly faster than the class 6. I've also heard people say the Ultra II's work well and are as fast as the Extreme III's. I've never used and Ultra II so I can't say from experience.

Hope this helps,

[Parallax]

All of mine (1 8GB, and 4 4GB) are Lexar Platinum II, 60x which I believe translates to Class 4, and they work just fine.

[skydragoness]

When it comes to digital SLR's they DO make a difference. Plain cheapo cards are for point-and-shoots.
That said, I've always used San-disk cards with no problems. I have 2 or 3 Extreme 2-4gb SDHC cards for my K10D and since my older K100 doesn't have SDHC I can only get up to 2gb Ultras in Sandisk brand. The Ultra line is significantly cheaper and still decently fast. I can't make any comparisons to slower cards since that's all I've ever used.

What is great about these high speed cards is your camera writes to the card faster (important for sports shooting) and makes uploading them on your computer faster as well. Not to mention SDHC cards have a higher capacity which is good if you shoot a lot of RAW-file images. The Extremes, being the highest write speed, are supposedly shock and resistant to extreme temperatures. They also come with a cool retrieval cd in case you erase your card, and mini usb card reader (which I absolutely love).
Another good brand is Lexar. PNY is decent and Kingston is "ok" but I've had compatibility problems with that brand on a old Minolta D-SLR. I'd stay away from anything else as there's a lot of sketchy reviews out there for the other brands (A-data,Transcend,etc)

All in all, you got to think about what you'll be doing w/ the camera to justify shelling out the extra $ for the 'Extreme' or other higher-speed cards. IMO, they're so cheap online, I just get the best ones.

Go here for the best prices on cards:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Digital Camera Accessories,Flash Memory,SanDisk,Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC),)

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Last edited by skydragoness; 04-29-2009 at 03:15 PM.

[Wheatfield]

When it comes to digital SLR's they DO make a difference. Plain cheapo cards are for point-and-shoots.
That said, I've always used San-disk cards with no problems. I have 2 or 3 Extreme 2-4gb SDHC cards for my K10D and since my older K100 doesn't have SDHC I can only get up to 2gb Ultras in Sandisk brand. The Ultra line is significantly cheaper and still decently fast. I can't make any comparisons to slower cards since that's all I've ever used.

What is great about these high speed cards is your camera writes to the card faster (important for sports shooting) and makes uploading them on your computer faster as well. Not to mention SDHC cards have a higher capacity which is good if you shoot a lot of RAW-file images. The Extremes, being the highest write speed, are supposedly shock and resistant to extreme temperatures. They also come with a cool retrieval cd in case you erase your card, and mini usb card reader (which I absolutely love).
Another good brand is Lexar. PNY is decent and Kingston is "ok" but I've had compatibility problems with that brand on a old Minolta D-SLR. I'd stay away from anything else as there's a lot of sketchy reviews out there for the other brands (A-data,Transcend,etc)

All in all, you got to think about what you'll be doing w/ the camera to justify shelling out the extra $ for the 'Extreme' or other higher-speed cards. IMO, they're so cheap online, I just get the best ones.

Go here for the best prices on cards:
Newegg.com - Computer Hardware,Digital Camera Accessories,Flash Memory,SanDisk,Secure Digital High-Capacity (SDHC),)

+1 on this post. The only card failures I've had have been with some cheap patriot cards that just didn't perform up to what the camera was doing.
Do yourself a favour and stay with Sandisk or Lexar cards, and don't settle for anything slower than class 4 from them either.

[kkoether]

Yes, I usually stick with SanDisk myself. The no name 16gig class 6 card I have is from MicroCenter which is a chain of computer stores here in the US. It's their house brand with a lifetime warranty and their local store is 5 miles down the road from house. I figured I would give one a try. So far it's fine. Like I said it seems slightly slower than my Extreme III but very usable.

[Ben_Edict]

I use Sandisk Extreme III 8GB cards in the K20 exclusively. They are noticeably faster than the Ultra IIs, which were (and still are) good enough for the K10. I would not compromise here. When I switched to digital, I was under the wrong impression, that the cards would make no difference, but they do. Out of the three cheap cards, I bought initially two failed within a year. Since then I only used Sandisks and never had a single problem. You can probably apply this also to other brands like Lexar, but I have no first hand experience with those.

After all compared to film, which you have to buy and process continually, even the Extreme III cards are very cheap anyway.

Ben

[George Lama]

As tempting as it is to snag some 8GB or 16GB cards for the incredibly cheap prices they're going for these days, I just refuse to put that many photos in one card. Too risky for my taste.

The 11 cards I use for my photography are 4 GB (Class 4 or Class 6), and 2 GB cards (60x and 133x).

Where having the extra fast cards comes in handy is when you're machine-gunning your photos, let's say at a sports event. Otherwise, a Class 4/60x is more than fast enough to handle normal shooting, even if you fire 10 photos a minute.

I did splurge on a 16GB class 6 card for my laptop though - I use it as system cache it works great. All for $25 bucks.

[Jonathan Mac]

I need to get some faster / higher capacity SD cards for when I move to a DSLR. I had my eye on the Sandisk Extreme III 4gb which I can get for £15. But I've seen that the same site (play.com) have their own brand 4 gig, class 6 cards much cheaper & I could get 3 of them for £18. My only concern is quality, by which I mean reliability. Obviously I don't want to lose photos due to a card failure. I have read that there are only 3 or 4 manufacturers of SD cards so many are in fact exactly the same with different labels.

So am I likely to be running a higher risk of card failure & data loss if I opt for the play.com clss-6 rather than the Extreme III?

I should add that the on-site reviews of the cards are both very good.

[Ben_Edict]

I need to get some faster / higher capacity SD cards for when I move to a DSLR. I had my eye on the Sandisk Extreme III 4gb which I can get for £15. But I've seen that the same site (play.com) have their own brand 4 gig, class 6 cards much cheaper & I could get 3 of them for £18. My only concern is quality, by which I mean reliability. Obviously I don't want to lose photos due to a card failure. I have read that there are only 3 or 4 manufacturers of SD cards so many are in fact exactly the same with different labels.

So am I likely to be running a higher risk of card failure & data loss if I opt for the play.com clss-6 rather than the Extreme III?

I should add that the on-site reviews of the cards are both very good.

The question is, how much is the security of your images worth to you. If it is less than 9 Pouinds, then go for the cheap cards.

Ben

[ntx]

I also look for a SDHC card for my incoming K200D.
I would like to know how much difference there is from the SanDisk's Ultra II and the Extreme III (I'll buy a 8GB card). I'm really interested in a comparison on how fast the buffer is flushed while in continuous shooting... does this difference worth the money?

Thanks,
Jenner

[Ben_Edict]

I also look for a SDHC card for my incoming K200D.
I would like to know how much difference there is from the SanDisk's Ultra II and the Extreme III (I'll buy a 8GB card). I'm really interested in a comparison on how fast the buffer is flushed while in continuous shooting... does this difference worth the money?

Thanks,
Jenner

Jenner, I would simply answer: if you need the fastest continuos shooting performance, any improvement is worth the investment. I don't have a K200, but on my K20 the improvement of the Extreme III over the Ultra II was very marked. As I disposed my old Ultras, I cannot make any timed comparisson anymore, unfortunately.

Ben

[ntx]

Thank you for your answer Ben_Edict.
I asked about the performance cause I don't know if the camera itself is able to handle that transfer rate. Suppose the camera is able to transfer up to 15MB/sec... you would not have any benefit.

Bye
Jenner

[glanglois]

I have two Ultra IIs and perhaps a dozen Extreme IIIs. (Multiple cameras, for those who are wondering)

There is a noticeable difference in the speed at which the image is transferred to the card in shooting raw + JPEG. I'm not sure that the difference is significant shooting just JPEGs. Someone else can (or has) answered that. That's why I only buy Extreme III at this point.

Please note that the class six standard is slower than either of the above cards. The class six standard calls for a sustained (!!) transfer rate of at least 6 MBps. Many class six cards will do no more than that.

The Ultra II seems to be testing at 9-10 and the Extreme III at about 20 MBps, well in excess of class six.

The standards organization is working on one or more classes for the higher speeds but I don't think we'll see the formal docs and certifications until late this year. Until then, you may as well stick to the well-known and well-reviewed SanDisk, Lexar, etc.

I've seen no large or small failures on any of my SanDisk cards after about 10,000 images. I don't want to start now. I take few enough good photos that I cannot afford to lose any!

[ntx]

Thank you for your answer glanglois!
I read in the K200D manual that the camera never shot again until it finish to save the image into the card (is this true? a camera like the K200D never multitask?)... cause of this saving the image as fast as possible it's really important for me (I'll bet I get rid of this stupid thing - my S5500 never multitask - with a better camera... maybe it's a design problem).

Let's go for a 4GB Extreme III!

Bye
Jenner