[cardinal43]

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Not sure if this is the right section for this question. If not, I apologize in advance.

Noticed in today's paper that Office Depot has a SanDisk SDHC, 16gb, Class 4 card originally priced at $79.99 but is now on sale for $22.99 (savings of $57.00). I have never used SanDisk and wondered if this one is any good. I currently have a Lexar SDHC 4 gb class 6, 133x speed card, and I'm happy with it but would like to have a larger capacity card. I'm assuming the number in the circle (i.e. 4 or 6) is actually the class, and I'm also assuming that 6 is better than 4. Does this mean it writes faster? I have a K20D if that matters. TIA.

[Adam]

Yes, SanDisk is one of the better brands.

Class 6 means 6Mb/s, so yes, that's better than Class 4.

[GregK8]

Sandisk is a good brand, and i think class 4 are fast enough for the K20D. I used two class 4 cards with mine for some time and never had an issue. That seems to be a pretty good price based on what I see out there.

[SpecialK]

I recently used Class 4 card, and while it was fine when taking the shots (not in a high-speed burst) it was tedious to review them in the camera. I eventually used it in a digital frame...

For only a few bucks more you should be able to get a bump in Class-rating.

[ManuH]

Sandisk is one of the top brands so no worry here.

Class 4 or 6 doesn't matter, this has no interest for photographers. It's mostly a spec for video cameras. They have now Class 10.

For Sandisk, the best cards are the Extreme series which I recommend for their speed and reliability. If you fill your K20D buffer a lot, it's better to go with a fast card rather than trying to save a few bucks. B&H sells the 16Gb for around 30$ if you buy two of them.

[ptwist61]

I got this card and it works, it clears the buffer fast. Buy it!


Sandisk 8 GB Extreme III Secure Digital HC Memory Card | eBay

[Tom S.]

I got this card and it works, it clears the buffer fast. Buy it!


Sandisk 8 GB Extreme III Secure Digital HC Memory Card | eBay

Be VERY careful about buying cards from ebay because there are a lot of counterfeit cards being sold there! Personally, this is one item I would not buy from an ebay seller.

[ManuH]

Be VERY careful about buying cards from ebay because there are a lot of counterfeit cards being sold there! Personally, this is one item I would not buy from an ebay seller.

It's true you have to be careful with eBay but in this case it seems to be a legit vendor with good reputation. B&H has some specials on the Sandisk Extreme cards if you buy 2 of them. I got 2 8Gb Extreme III at 20$ each. At this price, I don't bother with lower spec'ed cards.

There are even faster cards, the new UHS-I. Right now the K-5 cannot take advantage of it. But they can help to download the pictures faster to the computer with a dedicated UHS-I reader. And of course the K-5 upgrade will probably able to use them to their fullest potential. They are still quite pricey though.

[cardinal43]

Thanks to everyone for your input/replies. I appreciate it.

I was just curious about the card as I have never used one from SanDisk. I'm not too concerned about high-speed burst, and I usually don't review my pics "in camera", except for the one I just took. I always download to my computer via a card reader, and always format in camera, but only after ensuring downloads were OK.

[RioRico]

I always download to my computer via a card reader, and always format in camera, but only after ensuring downloads were OK.

Do you reformat after every download? That's totally NOT necessary. I have used a couple dozen cards of various formats and brands over the last decade+. I have needed to reformat cards less than a half-dozen times, usually due to some user error (I f*cked up). I use a common directory structure with scripts on all my cards, so that automatically moving files to the desired target folders is easy; reformatting would destroy that.

If I was feeling paranoid, I might add a CHKDSK/F line to the scripts, to verify that the card is still good, but I haven't needed to yet. If I was feeling picky, I might run the ERASER utility on the cards, to overwrite old data and clean-up the directories; but I haven't needed to yet. And I certainly don't reformat.

ObTopic: SanDisck and Transcend are good.

[JinDesu]

Dunno if you are interested, but you can always check out the Transcend 16GB Class 10 SDHC card. From all reviews I've read, it's quite reliable (or at least, not less so than Sandisk) and is quite a bargain compared to many other cards. I used to have a class 4 card for my k-x (I think it was class 4), and when I switched to class 10, there was a big increase in FPS (maybe I'm at my rated 4.7 now).

[ManuH]

Do you reformat after every download? That's totally NOT necessary.

Not necessary but faster than deleting all the pictures.

[RioRico]

Not necessary but faster than deleting all the pictures.

The WinDoze MOVE command does just that: copies and deletes.

[JinDesu]

the windoze move command does just that: Copies and deletes.

ctrl+x.

[ManuH]

The WinDoze MOVE command does just that: copies and deletes.

I agree but I use LR to download the pictures. I do that then I put back the card in the camera and format the card. No big deal actually. It would of course be better if Lightroom would move instead of copy.