So you spent $500, 600, 1200 on a camera and trust your photos to a $20 SD card?

Adam · 07-27-2010, 09:17 AM

Thread moved to the accessories section.

Adam
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GeneV · 07-27-2010, 12:09 PM

Originally posted by Entropy

I agree. You can get FAR better deals than SanDisk (the Monster Cable of flash memory brands). However you need to be careful.

newegg.com's "most reviews" function is usually a good way to evaluate products. If it has 4 or 5 eggs and has lots of reviews, it's likely to be a solid product. I have had great results with Transcend and Patriot memory. Sometimes they'll release a dud product line, but you'll see the duds indicated in their reviews.

Monster Cable is an interesting analogy--A good product with solid mechanical features, but marketed way beyond its actual performance. However, the entire audio cable industry is lubricated with a healthy amount of snake oil IMHO.

brecklundin · 07-28-2010, 09:51 PM

Originally posted by Peter Zack

A reason why cheap cards are a mistake.
I shot a wedding yesterday and used an 8GB Duracell branded SD card in one of the K20D's. I have 8 Extremes III's and should have known better. After quite a bit of shooting, I took a test exposure shot and looked at the histogram. To my horror, the LCD showed "Memory card error". I changed cards and continued working.

At home last night I put the card in the computer and sure enough. No images where there. I knew it had to have 300 shots on it. My recovery software was able to restore everything (311 RAW files) overnight.

The card is in the trash.
Normally I use 4 GB Sandisk Extreme III's only. But I lost a card case with 8 of them recently. The local shop does not carry these and in a pinch, I bought this card to tide me over until the replacements arrived.

This card is branded as Duracell Pro Photo class 6 8GB SDHC. I find out on Duracell's site that they make no mention of having memory cards as a product. Same for the P&G site (parent company). A company named Dane Electric makes them.

Anyway, it got me to thinking. There is a K-x post about a $40 card and if it's any good. You can see my cautionary reply there (before yesterday's incident) and a few members felt I was being overly cautious.

So lets look at this logically. You spent a small fortune to buy a nice camera and some lenses, flash etc. You could easily have a couple grand invested. Then you save a couple bucks on a cheap card vs a quality Sandisk Ultra or Extreme. Is there any logic in that whatsoever? IMO nope. I'm an idiot for even having this card in the case after the replacement Sandisk's arrived. Would you buy a K-7 and only buy a used Albinar lens to shoot with? Of course not. The lens is crap and you'll get crap shots from it.

If you are going to bother taking the picture, get a decent card to actually be able to see them. Anything else is foolish given the money spent on the gear.

I got lucky today because some brilliant software guy somewhere saved my a$$. it will never happen again!

Note: there's really no correct forum for this post and too many people steer clear of GT, so I'm going to leave it here.

I understand your reluctance and caution but here is the issue...I have NEVER ever had anything but ONE memory card fail on me and that was a counterfeit SanDisk CF card sold at a price which was in line with standard prices at the time, on the lower end but not so low as to be a concern...price means NOTHING if you stay with known brands. Storage media fails and that is a fact of life be it an over priced SanDisk card or a cheaper A-Data brand card Hell, I have old MemoryStick brand-x cards from my PDA that still work after nearly a decade...so price and in many cases even the brand mean nothing.

Without reading the thread all the way through I am also sure someone brought up shooting a whole roll or more of film to get NOTHING because a battery was just weak enough or the shutter did not work correctly and you did not catch it or you just hand a bad roll or two of film or that film had been mishandled...

Best idea, stick with what makes you feel safe and know eventually one of those cards is going to fail or get lost, stepped on have a beverage spilled on it, crushed in your bag or even get zorched in your card reader...it happens.

Brand name card makers are absolutely depending on your anxiety to spend 5x what the card should really cost because someone somewhere had a card fail...when one of your SanDisk cards fails you'll feel the same way...luckily there are ways around many failures which appear fatal but really are not...

Russell-Evans · 07-30-2010, 08:29 AM

Originally posted by Adam

...

How much does it cost to get an ad in your sig like the Adorama one?

Thank you
Russel

Peter Zack · 07-30-2010, 08:58 AM

Originally posted by Russell-Evans

How much does it cost to get an ad in your sig like the Adorama one?

Thank you
Russel

Whatever it would cost to start your own forums

Russell-Evans · 07-30-2010, 03:47 PM

Originally posted by Peter Zack

Whatever it would cost to start your own forums

Sorry I don't understand? I'm asking how much to get the ad space, if my post was confusing.

Thank you
Russell

Peter Zack · 07-30-2010, 03:51 PM

Russel I was having fun with you, there's no ad space available on Pentax Forums. The links on Adams signature are there for site support.

K7-2010 · 07-31-2010, 07:11 PM

I thought Transcend was a decent memory card manufacturer. I've successfully installed the update on a new K-7 which had firmware version 1.0 when originally used. Unfortunately, I was exploring updates because I encountered the following problem.

When the camera was first used i was using a Crucial 2GB SD card while waiting for (2) Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards to arrive. Alas, they arrived and in my haste did not perform the firmware upgrade but began using the new card(s). Day #1 approx 50 pics on the first card, no problems. Day #2 playing with my new toy trying various settings etc. Turned off cam turned it on again and received "Memory Card Error" message. Plugged card into my Transcend card reader and all my photos were there.

So I tested out Transcend card #2. Plugged it in & it responded, took a couple pics. I noticed it seemed that the number of remaining photos wasn't changing (although I could be wrong here) and I shut off the cam. When I turned the cam back on I got the same "Memory Card Error" message.

That's when I found this forum and the news of the firmware upgrade. I performed the upgrade but unfortunately going from version 1.0 to 1.10 I still have the same error message with respect to my new cards. My old Crucial SD 2.0 GB card still works fine.

I was wondering what others felt about whether I am experiencing a K-7 limitation or something peculiar to the Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards. I can't reformat them in the cam either. I've deleted the photos from the card via pc but before reformatting them on my pc i thought i would ask around. I most likely will return them ASAP and will want to get them replaced ASAP. Has anyone had a good experience with the full breadth of usage on the K-7 with the new SDHC class 10 cards? Any suggestions as to replacements or a next step I should attempt prior to returning them?

K7-2010 · 07-31-2010, 08:10 PM

Update: So I reformatted both cards in my pc (fat32). When I reinstalled them in the cam they appear to work again. Time will tell. After installing each in the camera i also reformatted them in the camera. Formatting worked again as well.

So perhaps on account of the firmware upgrade from v 1.0 to 1.1, perhaps I shouldn't experience this problem again? Is this valid reasoning?

Eigengrau · 08-01-2010, 10:09 AM

I've always purchased the best reviewed cheap cards on Amazon, class 6. This has usually meant Patriot or Transcend, and I've had very few problems with either. I had one card that started acting up and had a few corrupted files once, and stopped using it for pictures.

Memory is a commodity, and IMO it doesn't make sense to invest heavily in something that can be had cheaply and that will lose almost all of its value in a very short amount of time. Finding something inexpensive but reliable isn't tough, so that's the way to go. Sandisk Extreme cards are overpriced if you ask me.

However, I try to stay pretty current on the reviews and the relative standing of different manufacturers, and I wouldn't ever rely on something that didn't have a history of quality. A 'Duracell' branded card is asking for trouble, IMO.

**nater** · 08-01-2010, 04:24 PM

Relevant to this topic, and a highly recommend read from a respected source, is this:

On MicroSD Problems bunnie's blog

Entropy · 08-02-2010, 09:26 AM

Originally posted by K7-2010

I was wondering what others felt about whether I am experiencing a K-7 limitation or something peculiar to the Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards. I can't reformat them in the cam either. I've deleted the photos from the card via pc but before reformatting them on my pc i thought i would ask around. I most likely will return them ASAP and will want to get them replaced ASAP. Has anyone had a good experience with the full breadth of usage on the K-7 with the new SDHC class 10 cards? Any suggestions as to replacements or a next step I should attempt prior to returning them?

Class 10? There's your problem. I have consistently heard numerous bad things about Class 10 SDHCs from multiple manufacturers, even ones who produce what are considered to be solid, reliable Class 6 cards (like Transcend).

Class 10 seems to be on the bleeding edge and the cards seem to have lots of reliability and compatibility problems.

Photo · 08-02-2010, 08:24 PM

Olen myös sitä mieltä että laatu ei ole mitään tekemistä brändin.
www.tinydeal.com/memory-px2z2q-card-c-2.html
Ostin muistikortteja täällä. Erittäin hyvä.

brecklundin · 08-07-2010, 04:39 PM

Originally posted by Eigengrau

I've always purchased the best reviewed cheap cards on Amazon, class 6. This has usually meant Patriot or Transcend, and I've had very few problems with either. I had one card that started acting up and had a few corrupted files once, and stopped using it for pictures.

Memory is a commodity, and IMO it doesn't make sense to invest heavily in something that can be had cheaply and that will lose almost all of its value in a very short amount of time. Finding something inexpensive but reliable isn't tough, so that's the way to go. Sandisk Extreme cards are overpriced if you ask me.

However, I try to stay pretty current on the reviews and the relative standing of different manufacturers, and I wouldn't ever rely on something that didn't have a history of quality. A 'Duracell' branded card is asking for trouble, IMO.

Bingo...agree completely. But still were I earning a living or even doing serious work I would not step over dollars to pick up pennies buying those Brand-X cards... I use a couple Kingston 8GB Class 4...as well as have a 4-year old A-Data Calss 6 4GB card I have used daily in that time which seems fine still. but they all seem fine, until they aren't....

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07-27-2010, 09:17 AM	#61
Adam Administrator Site Webmaster Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Arizona Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 51,597	Thread moved to the accessories section. Adam PentaxForums.com Webmaster (Site Usage Guide \| Site Help \| My Photography) PentaxForums.com server and development costs are user-supported. You can help cover these costs by donating or purchasing one of our Pentax eBooks. Or, buy your photo gear from our affiliates, Adorama, B&H Photo, KEH, or Topaz Labs, and get FREE Marketplace access - click here to see how! Trusted Pentax retailers:

07-27-2010, 12:09 PM	#62
GeneV Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Albuquerque NM Photos: Albums Posts: 9,830	Originally posted by Entropy I agree. You can get FAR better deals than SanDisk (the Monster Cable of flash memory brands). However you need to be careful. newegg.com's "most reviews" function is usually a good way to evaluate products. If it has 4 or 5 eggs and has lots of reviews, it's likely to be a solid product. I have had great results with Transcend and Patriot memory. Sometimes they'll release a dud product line, but you'll see the duds indicated in their reviews. Monster Cable is an interesting analogy--A good product with solid mechanical features, but marketed way beyond its actual performance. However, the entire audio cable industry is lubricated with a healthy amount of snake oil IMHO.

07-28-2010, 09:51 PM	#63
brecklundin Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Photos: Albums Posts: 1,674	Originally posted by Peter Zack A reason why cheap cards are a mistake. I shot a wedding yesterday and used an 8GB Duracell branded SD card in one of the K20D's. I have 8 Extremes III's and should have known better. After quite a bit of shooting, I took a test exposure shot and looked at the histogram. To my horror, the LCD showed "Memory card error". I changed cards and continued working. At home last night I put the card in the computer and sure enough. No images where there. I knew it had to have 300 shots on it. My recovery software was able to restore everything (311 RAW files) overnight. The card is in the trash. Normally I use 4 GB Sandisk Extreme III's only. But I lost a card case with 8 of them recently. The local shop does not carry these and in a pinch, I bought this card to tide me over until the replacements arrived. This card is branded as Duracell Pro Photo class 6 8GB SDHC. I find out on Duracell's site that they make no mention of having memory cards as a product. Same for the P&G site (parent company). A company named Dane Electric makes them. Anyway, it got me to thinking. There is a K-x post about a $40 card and if it's any good. You can see my cautionary reply there (before yesterday's incident) and a few members felt I was being overly cautious. So lets look at this logically. You spent a small fortune to buy a nice camera and some lenses, flash etc. You could easily have a couple grand invested. Then you save a couple bucks on a cheap card vs a quality Sandisk Ultra or Extreme. Is there any logic in that whatsoever? IMO nope. I'm an idiot for even having this card in the case after the replacement Sandisk's arrived. Would you buy a K-7 and only buy a used Albinar lens to shoot with? Of course not. The lens is crap and you'll get crap shots from it. If you are going to bother taking the picture, get a decent card to actually be able to see them. Anything else is foolish given the money spent on the gear. I got lucky today because some brilliant software guy somewhere saved my a$$. *it will never happen again!* Note: there's really no correct forum for this post and too many people steer clear of GT, so I'm going to leave it here. I understand your reluctance and caution but here is the issue...I have NEVER ever had anything but ONE memory card fail on me and that was a counterfeit SanDisk CF card sold at a price which was in line with standard prices at the time, on the lower end but not so low as to be a concern...price means NOTHING if you stay with known brands. Storage media fails and that is a fact of life be it an over priced SanDisk card or a cheaper A-Data brand card Hell, I have old MemoryStick brand-x cards from my PDA that still work after nearly a decade...so price and in many cases even the brand mean nothing. Without reading the thread all the way through I am also sure someone brought up shooting a whole roll or more of film to get NOTHING because a battery was just weak enough or the shutter did not work correctly and you did not catch it or you just hand a bad roll or two of film or that film had been mishandled... Best idea, stick with what makes you feel safe and know eventually one of those cards is going to fail or get lost, stepped on have a beverage spilled on it, crushed in your bag or even get zorched in your card reader...it happens. Brand name card makers are absolutely depending on your anxiety to spend 5x what the card should really cost because someone somewhere had a card fail...when one of your SanDisk cards fails you'll feel the same way...luckily there are ways around many failures which appear fatal but really are not...

07-30-2010, 08:29 AM	#64
Russell-Evans Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 1,553	Originally posted by Adam ... How much does it cost to get an ad in your sig like the Adorama one? Thank you Russel

07-30-2010, 08:58 AM	#65
Peter Zack Pentaxian Moderator Emeritus Join Date: May 2007 Location: Edmonton Alberta, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 10,643 Original Poster	Originally posted by Russell-Evans How much does it cost to get an ad in your sig like the Adorama one? Thank you Russel Whatever it would cost to start your own forums

07-30-2010, 03:47 PM	#66
Russell-Evans Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 1,553	Originally posted by Peter Zack Whatever it would cost to start your own forums Sorry I don't understand? I'm asking how much to get the ad space, if my post was confusing. Thank you Russell

07-30-2010, 03:51 PM	#67
Peter Zack Pentaxian Moderator Emeritus Join Date: May 2007 Location: Edmonton Alberta, Canada Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 10,643 Original Poster	Russel I was having fun with you, there's no ad space available on Pentax Forums. The links on Adams signature are there for site support.

07-31-2010, 07:11 PM	#68
K7-2010 New Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Providence, RI Posts: 8	I thought Transcend was a decent memory card manufacturer. I've successfully installed the update on a new K-7 which had firmware version 1.0 when originally used. Unfortunately, I was exploring updates because I encountered the following problem. When the camera was first used i was using a Crucial 2GB SD card while waiting for (2) Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards to arrive. Alas, they arrived and in my haste did not perform the firmware upgrade but began using the new card(s). Day #1 approx 50 pics on the first card, no problems. Day #2 playing with my new toy trying various settings etc. Turned off cam turned it on again and received "Memory Card Error" message. Plugged card into my Transcend card reader and all my photos were there. So I tested out Transcend card #2. Plugged it in & it responded, took a couple pics. I noticed it seemed that the number of remaining photos wasn't changing (although I could be wrong here) and I shut off the cam. When I turned the cam back on I got the same "Memory Card Error" message. That's when I found this forum and the news of the firmware upgrade. I performed the upgrade but unfortunately going from version 1.0 to 1.10 I still have the same error message with respect to my new cards. My old Crucial SD 2.0 GB card still works fine. I was wondering what others felt about whether I am experiencing a K-7 limitation or something peculiar to the Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards. I can't reformat them in the cam either. I've deleted the photos from the card via pc but before reformatting them on my pc i thought i would ask around. I most likely will return them ASAP and will want to get them replaced ASAP. Has anyone had a good experience with the full breadth of usage on the K-7 with the new SDHC class 10 cards? Any suggestions as to replacements or a next step I should attempt prior to returning them?

07-31-2010, 08:10 PM	#69
K7-2010 New Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Providence, RI Posts: 8	Update: So I reformatted both cards in my pc (fat32). When I reinstalled them in the cam they appear to work again. Time will tell. After installing each in the camera i also reformatted them in the camera. Formatting worked again as well. So perhaps on account of the firmware upgrade from v 1.0 to 1.1, perhaps I shouldn't experience this problem again? Is this valid reasoning?

08-01-2010, 10:09 AM	#70
Eigengrau Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Colorado Photos: Albums Posts: 250	I've always purchased the best reviewed cheap cards on Amazon, class 6. This has usually meant Patriot or Transcend, and I've had very few problems with either. I had one card that started acting up and had a few corrupted files once, and stopped using it for pictures. Memory is a commodity, and IMO it doesn't make sense to invest heavily in something that can be had cheaply and that will lose almost all of its value in a very short amount of time. Finding something inexpensive but reliable isn't tough, so that's the way to go. Sandisk Extreme cards are overpriced if you ask me. However, I try to stay pretty current on the reviews and the relative standing of different manufacturers, and I wouldn't ever rely on something that didn't have a history of quality. A 'Duracell' branded card is asking for trouble, IMO.

08-01-2010, 04:24 PM	#71
nater Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: New England Photos: Albums Posts: 706	Relevant to this topic, and a highly recommend read from a respected source, is this: On MicroSD Problems bunnie's blog

08-02-2010, 09:26 AM	#72
Entropy Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Owego, NY Posts: 976	Originally posted by K7-2010 I was wondering what others felt about whether I am experiencing a K-7 limitation or something peculiar to the Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 cards. I can't reformat them in the cam either. I've deleted the photos from the card via pc but before reformatting them on my pc i thought i would ask around. I most likely will return them ASAP and will want to get them replaced ASAP. Has anyone had a good experience with the full breadth of usage on the K-7 with the new SDHC class 10 cards? Any suggestions as to replacements or a next step I should attempt prior to returning them? Class 10? There's your problem. I have consistently heard numerous bad things about Class 10 SDHCs from multiple manufacturers, even ones who produce what are considered to be solid, reliable Class 6 cards (like Transcend). Class 10 seems to be on the bleeding edge and the cards seem to have lots of reliability and compatibility problems.

08-02-2010, 08:24 PM	#73
Photo Inactive Account Join Date: Aug 2010 Posts: 1	Olen myös sitä mieltä että laatu ei ole mitään tekemistä brändin. www.tinydeal.com/memory-px2z2q-card-c-2.html Ostin muistikortteja täällä. Erittäin hyvä.

08-07-2010, 04:39 PM	#74
brecklundin Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2009 Photos: Albums Posts: 1,674	Originally posted by Eigengrau I've always purchased the best reviewed cheap cards on Amazon, class 6. This has usually meant Patriot or Transcend, and I've had very few problems with either. I had one card that started acting up and had a few corrupted files once, and stopped using it for pictures. Memory is a commodity, and IMO it doesn't make sense to invest heavily in something that can be had cheaply and that will lose almost all of its value in a very short amount of time. Finding something inexpensive but reliable isn't tough, so that's the way to go. Sandisk Extreme cards are overpriced if you ask me. However, I try to stay pretty current on the reviews and the relative standing of different manufacturers, and I wouldn't ever rely on something that didn't have a history of quality. A 'Duracell' branded card is asking for trouble, IMO. Bingo...agree completely. But still were I earning a living or even doing serious work I would not step over dollars to pick up pennies buying those Brand-X cards... I use a couple Kingston 8GB Class 4...as well as have a 4-year old A-Data Calss 6 4GB card I have used daily in that time which seems fine still. but they all seem fine, until they aren't....