[old4570]

Yeah , I ordered a 85mb's card for my K5 ( Birthday Present )

But when you get to class 10 - Well , it just opens pandora's box ...

I mean from 20mb's write speed to 100mb's write speed .. Seriously , there is a plethora of cards out there , and who is full of it ( BS ) and who can deliver ?
More cards to chose from ( Brands ) and ever more speed claims .. ( Ive never mentioned size ) .. Also prices vary from around $20 to over $100 dollars for a SD card .
If you think there is little to talk about ? or compare ?

Lets try write speed ( very important for some ) , also read speed !
Size - as in true capacity .. ( not who's got the biggest - but it might come to that )
Price - Wow yes , how much $$ for performance ..
Price and performance comparisons ( each class or capacity of card )
If you like to shoot burst mode , or you like to motor along ( action shots ) , then card performance becomes integral with the camera and the SD card dictates the cameras performance capability ( to a great extent )

Hmmm , each has their own needs and perspective on things , but I see the SD card as being as important as the lens , or the batteries you chose .. It can be used to fine tune , or soup up you camera ..
I think or believe ( which ever ) that the SD card is important ..
Back in the 35mm days , half the reading material was about film , we have done away with it for the most part , now the SD card stores the image . Rather than taking it for granted , I think it should be , maybe , thought about - talked about - tested - reviewed - perhaps a little more .

Anyhow , everyone has an opinion , and that's mine ! ( is it worth 5c - I dont know ? )

[SpecialK]

I have a handful of cards - Lexar Pro, Transcend, SanDisk Ultras, Kingston. They range from Class 6 to Class 10. I think I gave away the 1-2 GB sizes I had accumulated from my P&S days, but I have 2 x 32's which are what I'm using now, a 16 or two somewhere, and a couple 8s and 4's. They were all $35 or less. None inhibit the camera speed, and none have had problems. I don't have much else interesting to say about them, so over and out :-)

[jogiba]

But when you get to class 10 - Well , it just opens pandora's box ...

I mean from 20mb's write speed to 100mb's write speed .. Seriously , there is a plethora of cards out there , and who is full of it ( BS ) and who can deliver ?

I mostly stick with Sandisk and their Extreme Pro SDHC/SDXC cards are rated 90MB/s write and 95MB/s read rate.

SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC and SDXC UHS-I Memory Cards by SanDisk

[old4570]

I have a handful of cards - Lexar Pro, Transcend, SanDisk Ultras, Kingston. They range from Class 6 to Class 10. I think I gave away the 1-2 GB sizes I had accumulated from my P&S days, but I have 2 x 32's which are what I'm using now, a 16 or two somewhere, and a couple 8s and 4's. They were all $35 or less. None inhibit the camera speed, and none have had problems. I don't have much else interesting to say about them, so over and out :-)

It very much depends on your needs ! If all you need is a card that will work @ say 1 picture every 10 seconds or so , then almost any card will do ..

If you enjoy shooting motor sport , then you might need to be on continuous mode ( shoots as long as you hold the button down ) , then any old card simply wont cut it , as would not ( maybe ) any old battery
So now your entering the realm of performance . So if you need to hold the button down for 10 seconds @ 5 to 7 frames per second , well thats some 50 to 70 shots , and maybe 500mb to 700mb of data that needs to be transferred .
Wow Imagine your camera stopped because it needed time to transfer files , and you missed that $15,000 photo that would have payed most of the bills for the year ? all because of the SD card .. ( Damn ! )
Same goes for the amateur crowd ( is that us ? ) What if you missed that million dollar shot because you were using a slow card

Question is = Do you need one , does it fit your requirements ? But here is the rub ! it wont hurt , in fact it could put $$ in your pocket if you could maybe squeeze out a few more frames ..

In fact a card that could be fast enough to transfer files continuously until the battery goes flat or the card is full , ok its a slim possibility you would need that , but if such a card was cheap enough , easily obtainable , and made your camera more user friendly , and gave the capability to get that $$ shot . You really would not want to know ? or have the capability ?

To each there own .

I just got my K5 today , and I have a old 1Gig card in it so I can use it , and that card is slow , take a picture and wait a second or two for the file transfer ! ( intolerable )
Anyhow , little left to say ...

Whats that old saying : You can lead them to water , but you cant make them drink .

[snake]

Wow Imagine your camera stopped because it needed time to transfer files , and you missed that $15,000 photo that would have payed most of the bills for the year ? all because of the SD card .. ( Damn ! ) Same goes for the amateur crowd ( is that us ? ) What if you missed that million dollar shot because you were using a slow card

To be fair, I don't think the OP is in the $15,000 per pic category and neither are most of us.

Again, where the card does matter, to me, is reliability. Especially after my 32gb class10 Samsung card took a crap some weeks ago. I'm very lucky I offloaded my pics of my first visit back to NYC in 5 years to an ext HD first. And luckily so, since several pics have sold, but not for $15k, I assure you.

Because of this, I simply went back to the Sandisk Extremes. Sure, for class 10 they are faster to write than the Samsung and others, but also I feel them to be more reliable. If Raw Steel was available here and I had the money, I'd consider getting one for critical shoots. They're very expensive, though. If I was big enough to expense it, no issue. This is what the $15k per pic photographer might actually do and how he/she is separated from the hobbyist and low dollar photographer. They're not going to sit on forums and fret this kind of stuff. They will use what's reliable and they are done.

[old4570]

I keep pitching , and for some reason , you guys keep missing ( the point ) .

Lets try this scenario ...

A baby is precariously perched on a balcony ( or window ) and you see it , start snapping photos just as the baby falls ..
Your powering away , and man rushes forward to catch the baby !

And just before the miraculous catch is made ............. Your camera stops working to write to the SD card !

You missed the money shot !
The shot that would have been on the cover of every magazine and paper in the world !

Now in no way am I saying your likely to get that shot , or one like it , but the possibility exists that something else might happen , Like the meteorite in Russia ... Now that would have been a money shot if you were in the right place ..

To the point : What do we know about SD cards ? do we know the minimum write speed for our SD card ( burst or Continuous ) so as not to lag ?
What about performance for price ? What do you get for $20 , or $50 , what does $100 buy you , is it worth investing top dollar ?
At what price point can you buy a decent card ?
What card is good , and what card is rubbish ?

This forum does it for lenses and ?? I thought SD cards were a important part of photography ...
Seems like Im in a minority ..

Some people spend thousands on tires , while others balk at a few hundred . They all work , but obviously there not the same ..
Oh well , Im burned out on this ... Time to unsubscribe ...

[Tippon]

You seem to be saying that there should be a section dedicated to reviewing SD cards so that you can go out and Spray and Pray, hoping to get lucky and get a good shot, rather than actually lining up and getting a good shot.

In your example, if you saw the baby falling (and didn't bother trying to help), Then you'd take one or two shots as the baby's falling, while tracking it with the camera, then take a short burst starting from a few feet above the floor. Even my old class 2 cards will cope with about half a dozen photos. You just have to take a picture, rather than trying for a stop motion movie and hoping for a lot of luck

[old4570]

Yeah Keep pitching , and people keep missing ! I blame myself ... Obviously the concept is to difficult to grasp for some .



Well , you guys keep on missing the point , and you create something from nothing , and I get the feeling Im ******* into the wind here ...

Some times you just got to know when to walk away !

Ignorance is bliss !

Be blissful !

[Anvh]

And just before the miraculous catch is made ............. Your camera stops working to write to the SD card !
...

Some pointers.
the write speed of the SD card interface of the camera goes about 25MB/s, sure you can fit in a faster card but the camera is simply not faster.

then the camera does not write to the SD card directly but it writes everything to the RAM and the RAM is super fast and depending the size can take up a lot of photos.

What happen is.
Sensor > RAM > image processor > RAM > different processor takes the info to the SD card.

So as you can see SD card does very little at all in this.
All the important stuff is done inside the camera, SD card is simply storage in the end and nothing more.
Getting a faster SD card depending on how slow the other one is, might get you 2 or 4 shots more into the buffer, it's just not a big deal.

[ihasa]

Well , you guys keep on missing the point , and you create something from nothing , and I get the feeling Im ****** into the wind here ...

I think the reason it's so hard to call whether brand X memory card really performs better than brand Y memory card, is that there are so many other variables in terms of capturing the shot that it makes it hard to judge - for example in the following scenario....

A baby is precariously perched on a balcony ( or window ) and you see it , start snapping photos just as the baby falls ..

.... I probably would have tried to rescue the baby rather than photograph it falling. But that's just me I suppose!

I suspect that the recognised brands perform reasonably close to the advertised spec, and that is good enough for most of us.

[Edit - I just noted a (admittedly mild) expletive in your post and have edited it. Please try and avoid such words in future].

[old4570]

Well , its much like a computer ... And with computers - well , everyone I know wants faster - biggest performance gain in the last few years has been from going to SSD ( solid state Drives ) , they are fast ! And have made more of a difference than CPU ( GHZ ) , RAM ( more is usually better ) ... And is anyone still interested in USB 2 ? ( it does the job - But its slow compared to USB 3 ) once you have tasted USB 3 , there is no going back .

But the SSD has made the largest difference ... Now most of the class 10 cards out there Im sure are plenty fast , and as already mentioned ( and given ) if you take a shot every 10 or 30 seconds card speed is not a factor ..

It would be some what extreme circumstances that you would require a Uber fast card - But those circumstances exist ..

Now there are other factors eveyone seems to be ignoring , why ?

How about reliability , longevity .
How about Price !
Look at the picture , some 40 different brands , and I probably missed quite a few ..
Have the SD cards outstripped DSLR performance ?

There is plenty of info to talk about ( share ) etc
But if most of you are saying you dont give a stuff about SD cards - well fair enough ! Just say that .. In fact if your going to be negative , is there really a need to post or say anything ?
For me - Im interested in everything , even the SD cards , and batteries , lenses , flashes , filters , etc
I take all sorts of photo's , and back in the 35mm days , it was everything from landscapes - to nature - insects - people - history - The Moon - to motor racing . Telephoto to Macro ...
And back then it was FILM , there were magazines dedicated to nothing but the film available on the market , Imagine a magazine or 5 dedicated to nothing but SD cards !

How things change ..

[snake]

Now there are other factors eveyone seems to be ignoring , why ? How about reliability , longevity .

I didn't ignore the subject. Even got flamed for it. You seem to be ignoring that. For what, I don't know.

I simply require cards that write to the potential of the hardware and are very reliable at a good price. Thus, I gave my recommendation.

After the speed of the hardware's limitation, the only perk to cards faster than that is when transferring files in the computer.

[old4570]

I think the reason it's so hard to call whether brand X memory card really performs better than brand Y memory card, is that there are so many other variables in terms of capturing the shot that it makes it hard to judge - for example in the following scenario....



.... I probably would have tried to rescue the baby rather than photograph it falling. But that's just me I suppose!

I suspect that the recognised brands perform reasonably close to the advertised spec, and that is good enough for most of us.

[Edit - I just noted a (admittedly mild) expletive in your post and have edited it. Please try and avoid such words in future].

Well , as for saving the baby , yeah if your the first cab of the rank - it goes without saying - But once again that need to step out of context .. Im obviously flogging a dead horse ..
But Im a hardcore Computer junkie ( Overclocker ) and nothing is ever fast enough !

As for testing scenarios - Oh that's easy , Just get a high performance camera ( 24MP or better ) , Shoot RAW , in continuous mode at the highest possible quality settings until the camera stops .... Easy !

@ 7FPS or better 10+ MB file size per image , yeah . Honestly a 20MBps (100x) Card is going to write for how long ? ( Not very long at all ) Seriously , a camera pushing out 70MBps (+) is not likely to be maintained by a SD card that writes at 20MBps .. At least the math sais so .. I only just got my K5 yesterday , and I have 75MBps card on order , so hopefully reasonably well matched to the cameras capability ( I hope ) unless the claims for the card are bogus .

Ive been testing stuff for over 15 years , reviewed computer hardware , and the last few years written about flashlights - batteries - chargers and learnt a fair bit along the way . The most important lesson , you never know everything , and things change constantly ..

Like I said , if you guys have no interest , then you have no interest , thats fair enough , and Im wasting my time talking about this ( obviously ) ..

But dont think for a second SD cards are the same , or not important .

[BrianR]

Why not suggest a "sticky" in the "Pentax Camera and Field Accessories" forum for memory card reviews? Speed tests for specific cards in specific Pentax cameras might be of interest for some, and having them in one location would be handy. Namely, how long does card X keep up with camera Y in a sustained burst? This would seem more useful to a Pentax forum than just testing the max speed of a card, which can sometimes be found on other websites.

Or you could always put card reviews in Miscellaneous - Pentax Camera Accessory Review Database and urge others to do the same (I counted two sd cards in there so far). Given enough entries, they might eventually split it into it's own review section.

[Anvh]

@ 7FPS or better 10+ MB file size per image , yeah . Honestly a 20MBps (100x) Card is going to write for how long ? ( Not very long at all ) Seriously , a camera pushing out 70MBps (+) is not likely to be maintained by a SD card that writes at 20MBps .. At least the math sais so .. I only just got my K5 yesterday , and I have 75MBps card on order , so hopefully reasonably well matched to the cameras capability ( I hope ) unless the claims for the card are bogus .

You missed my comment it seems.

The camera output to the SD card is only 25MBps so you can out in a faster card but that won't make it faster the SD card itself is not the bottleneck here.
As for the continues mode, that's all written into a RAM buffer.
The K5 has a large buffer, it can hold about 20 images with the slowest of cards you will get this value with a faster card you can do 23 images. A differnce no one would lay awake for.