SDHC for Pentax K-x

Muse · 07-25-2010, 01:26 AM

A few things:

I'm new here (see my post count), and can't find a way to subscribe to a thread without posting in it. I imagine there's a way, so please, someone, let me know. Also, is there a better way to find your subscribed threads than going to "Manage Account?" That seems kind of weird.

Well, I've spent not inconsiderable time looking for a smart buy in an SDHC card for my new K-x (2 lens kit, including the 55-300mm), due to be delivered UPS tomorrow. Seems a pretty confusing arena, the SDHC scene. Murky and odd. The price range I'm seeing for a class 10 16GB card is anywhere from $32 to over $90. The Sandisk Extreme II 16GB I saw was priced at over $90. I saw the Panasonic ones selling for little more than 1/2 that. Seems to me that Panasonic (Matsushita) would have to be very high on the reliability curve. Matsushita have that reputation, AFAIK.

I read a post or two saying that class 10 is a good idea if you want good results using the HD 720p capture feature, and I'd like to do that some. I have no idea what the capacity figures are (i.e. how many megabytes of storage are necessary for X amount of capture time). Anybody?

I've also not seen any mention of how many shots people are getting on their cards. Of course, that will depend on what you're shooting, RAW, full resolution JPGs, etc. I can guestimate that but the video, I have no idea.

What are people's experience shooting video with the K-x with different media?

I haven't bought any memory cards yet specifically for the K-x. I have a couple of 2GB Kingston SD cards. Will the slowness of those cards impact various functions of the camera? Will I get the full continuous shooting speed in burst mode (I read in a review at Imaging-Resource.com that they measured it at 4.3 fps for the K-x, IIRC around 17 shots?)?

Last edited by Muse; 07-25-2010 at 01:45 AM.

Muse · 07-25-2010, 07:12 AM

Originally posted by shim

CrystalDiskMark is a free program if anyone wants to test their
cards and readers. And you should do some of the readers out there
are diabolical only managing 2 MB/s with 20 MB/s cards

shim

Hmm. My card reader was a freebie after MI rebate. It's from about 2004, probably designed earlier, is SD specific. I don't know if it would even work with an SDHC card, maybe if I can find an updated driver for it. In any case, based on what you say I suppose it's apt to be rather slow. I do have a laptop with a reader built in, and not too old (less than a year), so I imagine it will read info faster. I must do some testing today with my SD cards (don't have any SDHC yet)! Thanks for the detailed info.

Muse · 07-25-2010, 07:46 AM

Originally posted by leadfoot

Everything you wanted to know about SD cards, and probably alot you didn't want to know.

Secure Digital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I stick with Lexar and Sandisk cards for the K-x, and have had problems with PNY Optima 4G, class 4 cards. I couldn't find any recomendations for SD cards in the K-x manual, like speed class, etc.

I just downloaded and looked at the manual. Did a search on "SDHC" and just 3 hits. The only interesting one was charts (page 302) telling you how many pictures or minutes of video you can expect with various size cards at various quality levels of images.

Muse · 07-25-2010, 08:46 AM

Originally posted by boosted03gti

amazon has a patriot class 10 8gb sdhc for 25 bucks
Amazon.com: Patriot LX Series Class 10 SDHC Flash Memory Card: Electronics

i ordered one last week and paid 24 bucks.

or the transcend class 6 8gb for $18.60
Amazon.com: Transcend 8 GB Class 6 SDHC Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6E: Electronics

i would go with atleast a class 6 just to make sure you dont get any corrupted images.
i have a eye-fi 4gb class 2, i think, and one out of maybe 10 pics is not viewable. the card is cool with wifi and geotagging but i dont want to loose that 1 pic that could be the 1.

jorge

The prices at Amazon for those have jumped to $33.42 and $21.38 respectively. Is memory cost going up lately?

**interested_observer** · 07-25-2010, 10:37 AM

A lot has been written on the forums on the topic of memory cards, their speed, size reliability and manufacturer. What has not been addressed is that SD, SDHC, CF cards (and the like) are all based on flash memory, and flash memory does have a fixed lifetime. It is expressed in read write cycles...

"Flash drives use two primary types of flash memory. There is SLC and MLC memory. SLC is Single Level Cell memory and MLC is Multi Level Cell memory. GetUSB.info did an in-depth write-up about SLC and MLC flash memory if you’re interested, but for this article we have:
SLC memory is good for about 100,000 write cycles.

MLC memory is good for about 10,000 write cycles.

Most UFDs use MLC memory because it’s cheaper to make and allows manufacturers to offer more storage in a smaller space."

What is the Life Cycle of a USB Flash Drive?

So, if you use a card and unload it - once a day, followed by erasing it, that is 2 sets of R/W cycles. So a 10K R/W class card would be good for about 5 years (taking into consideration, that you may delete images on the fly, thus subjecting the directory to an increased amount of reading and writing).

So if you really want to be safe, only use it for 2.5 years. Date the card and after that crush it with a pair of pliers.

Also, have several and rotate them.

PointLookout · 07-25-2010, 05:44 PM

In my K-x, I rotate Kingston's 8GB, Class 4 SDHC cards and sometimes (depends on the computer I'm using) transfer image files with a Kingston MobileLiteG2 card reader that came bundled with one of the cards.

I haven't had any storage/transfer issues with the reader or the cards. Also, the Class 4 keeps up just fine when I'm in 'continuous shooting' mode.

Disclaimers: (a) I rarely shoot RAW and (b) I rarely shoot video

Muse · 07-26-2010, 06:39 AM

Can I get some comments on this?

Yesterday I ran a few speed tests with one of the 2 cards I presently have: Kingston 2GB SD. I was surprised at the results. I was using my Acer laptop, bought less than a year ago, with its built-in card reader. I transferred two MP3 files totaling 316MB to and from one of these SD cards. The card had only about 250MB of data on it, so the results would probably have not been as good if it was 1/2 full or more. Write time to the card was 35 seconds, equivalent to about 9MB/second. Write time back to the laptop's HD was 20 seconds, equivalent to 15.8MB/second. Isn't this rather fast? Maybe I'll be OK with these cards for a while (My K-x is due to arrive today. I hope to get good results in burst mode, maybe do some video too).

rRnt · 07-26-2010, 01:47 PM

I use a 8 GB Class 10 memory card in my K-x and I have had no problems. The guy in the photo shop informed me, that to use it I should update the firmware of my camera. As I did it the same day I got the camera in the first place, it was not an issue.

But make sure you got the firware update on your camera before trying these high capacity fast cards.

Muse · 07-29-2010, 01:08 PM

Originally posted by rRnt

I use a 8 GB Class 10 memory card in my K-x and I have had no problems. The guy in the photo shop informed me, that to use it I should update the firmware of my camera. As I did it the same day I got the camera in the first place, it was not an issue.

But make sure you got the firware update on your camera before trying these high capacity fast cards.

I did the firmware update before I attached any lens. This morning I made the plunge into SDHC hell.

Well, we'll see.

I have been researching SDHC cards since I bought my new Pentax K-x, which came a few days ago. The Kingston 2GB SD card I have now (actually 2 of them) had choppy 720p video in the 3 short clips I made, so I figured I need something better. I don't want to spring for the pricey stuff (Sandisk etc.) so have been looking to see what folks think of the cheaper stuff (e.g. Transcend, PQI, Adata, RiData, even Panasonic, etc.). Lots of people are saying that the class ratings on the cards don't tell the whole story. Some class 10 cards aren't outperforming class 6 cards, even from the same manufacturer.

On a hunch today, looking for deals, I hit FatWallet and looked for SDHC deals and found a code for $10 off on a PQI 8GB class 10 card. After tax it came to $18.65 (I'm in CA), free shipping. I've been looking enough to know that's a good deal, if it works OK. I saw one post in a forum saying PQI was pretty good. Seems from posts to be a cut above the lower quality stuff. Don't see any posts about their 8GB class 10 cards. I have an idea that maybe they do what the CPU manufacturers do (or used to do?) and test the stuff that comes out of production for speed and rate and designate them accordingly. Or, maybe they are actually manufactured differently. However, what people are saying in the reviews suggests the former methodology may be at play. Just guessing, really.

shim · 08-03-2010, 12:28 AM

Originally posted by Muse

Can I get some comments on this?

Yesterday I ran a few speed tests with one of the 2 cards I presently have: Kingston 2GB SD. I was surprised at the results. I was using my Acer laptop, bought less than a year ago, with its built-in card reader. I transferred two MP3 files totaling 316MB to and from one of these SD cards. The card had only about 250MB of data on it, so the results would probably have not been as good if it was 1/2 full or more. Write time to the card was 35 seconds, equivalent to about 9MB/second. Write time back to the laptop's HD was 20 seconds, equivalent to 15.8MB/second. Isn't this rather fast? Maybe I'll be OK with these cards for a while (My K-x is due to arrive today. I hope to get good results in burst mode, maybe do some video too).

That sounds highly usable, but different size files give different results. You would be better copying say 300MB of K-x photographs and timing that. At least you not getting 2-4MB/s which is common with a lot of cheap external USB readers.

rRnt · 08-03-2010, 04:28 AM

Built-in Card readers are faster than USB transfers.
I got a Pentax SD card reader free with my K-x. At start I thought I would not be using it, but then I realized that the built-in card reader can't read SDHC's, so I was stuck with using the significantly slower method.
Until the cheap plastic reader broke - which made me open up the K-x's box once again to look for the camera-USB cable...
There is one advantage using the direct cable though - Impossible to forget the card in the reader when going out shooting.

Xlusionist · 08-03-2010, 08:13 PM

Hi guys, i'm new here. Got a few questions to ask...

Between class 6 and 10, would class 10 be significantly better or 6 is sufficient?

For video recording, the usage of SDHC and SD makes a difference, what about just photo taking? Does the card affect the photo quality?

May i know roughly how many photos can i take with a 8G card?

thanks for reading.

rRnt · 08-04-2010, 07:45 AM

Card does not (or at least should not) affect image quality, but you benefit from faster card if your camera has high shooting speed - like that of the K-x (4,7 frames per second).

UnknownVT · 08-04-2010, 09:02 AM

Originally posted by Xlusionist

Between class 6 and 10, would class 10 be significantly better or 6 is sufficient?

For video recording, the usage of SDHC and SD makes a difference, what about just photo taking? Does the card affect the photo quality?

May i know roughly how many photos can i take with a 8G card?

There should be no harm in using the fastest card one can afford.
Whereas slow cards may cause problems with videos or faster shooting rates (the latter is not confirmed since the K-x uses a buffer for its continuous shooting and the a slower card may be slower to write but does NOT affect the buffer).

Not that long ago there were no class 10 cards - and we did not seem to have too many problems using class 6 - so I would say class 6 is adequate as long as it is a known brand purchased from a reputable vendor.

Any capacity >= 4Gb has to be SDHC. For video since it eats up capacity fast most likely one has to use >= 4Gb thus SDHC - and a class 6 is recommended - although I have heard some have used class 4 ......

As for capacity of an 8Gb SDHC card - it depends on what you shoot - it's actually in your manual on page 298 -

Usually Pentax is a bit conservative about it -
but simply putting the SD(HC) card into the K-x and turning it on -
would show the estimated remaining number of shots......

Xlusionist · 08-04-2010, 07:45 PM

Originally posted by rRnt

Card does not (or at least should not) affect image quality, but you benefit from faster card if your camera has high shooting speed - like that of the K-x (4,7 frames per second).

Originally posted by UnknownVT

There should be no harm in using the fastest card one can afford.
Whereas slow cards may cause problems with videos or faster shooting rates (the latter is not confirmed since the K-x uses a buffer for its continuous shooting and the a slower card may be slower to write but does NOT affect the buffer).

Not that long ago there were no class 10 cards - and we did not seem to have too many problems using class 6 - so I would say class 6 is adequate as long as it is a known brand purchased from a reputable vendor.

Any capacity >= 4Gb has to be SDHC. For video since it eats up capacity fast most likely one has to use >= 4Gb thus SDHC - and a class 6 is recommended - although I have heard some have used class 4 ......

As for capacity of an 8Gb SDHC card - it depends on what you shoot - it's actually in your manual on page 298 -

Usually Pentax is a bit conservative about it -
but simply putting the SD(HC) card into the K-x and turning it on -
would show the estimated remaining number of shots......

thank you very much guys!

07-25-2010, 10:37 AM	#50
interested_observer Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Tumbleweed, Arizona Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 5,707	A lot has been written on the forums on the topic of memory cards, their speed, size reliability and manufacturer. What has not been addressed is that SD, SDHC, CF cards (and the like) are all based on flash memory, and flash memory does have a fixed lifetime. It is expressed in read write cycles... "Flash drives use two primary types of flash memory. There is SLC and MLC memory. SLC is Single Level Cell memory and MLC is Multi Level Cell memory. GetUSB.info did an in-depth write-up about SLC and MLC flash memory if you’re interested, but for this article we have: SLC memory is good for about 100,000 write cycles. MLC memory is good for about 10,000 write cycles. Most UFDs use MLC memory because it’s cheaper to make and allows manufacturers to offer more storage in a smaller space." What is the Life Cycle of a USB Flash Drive? So, if you use a card and unload it - once a day, followed by erasing it, that is 2 sets of R/W cycles. So a 10K R/W class card would be good for about 5 years (taking into consideration, that you may delete images on the fly, thus subjecting the directory to an increased amount of reading and writing). So if you really want to be safe, only use it for 2.5 years. Date the card and after that crush it with a pair of pliers. Also, have several and rotate them.

07-25-2010, 05:44 PM	#51
PointLookout Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 33	Fwiw... In my K-x, I rotate Kingston's 8GB, Class 4 SDHC cards and sometimes (depends on the computer I'm using) transfer image files with a Kingston MobileLiteG2 card reader that came bundled with one of the cards. I haven't had any storage/transfer issues with the reader or the cards. Also, the Class 4 keeps up just fine when I'm in 'continuous shooting' mode. Disclaimers: (a) I rarely shoot RAW and (b) I rarely shoot video

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07-25-2010, 01:26 AM	#46
Muse Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: SF Bay Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 211	A few things: I'm new here (see my post count), and can't find a way to subscribe to a thread without posting in it. I imagine there's a way, so please, someone, let me know. Also, is there a better way to find your subscribed threads than going to "Manage Account?" That seems kind of weird. Well, I've spent not inconsiderable time looking for a smart buy in an SDHC card for my new K-x (2 lens kit, including the 55-300mm), due to be delivered UPS tomorrow. Seems a pretty confusing arena, the SDHC scene. Murky and odd. The price range I'm seeing for a class 10 16GB card is anywhere from $32 to over $90. The Sandisk Extreme II 16GB I saw was priced at over $90. I saw the Panasonic ones selling for little more than 1/2 that. Seems to me that Panasonic (Matsushita) would have to be very high on the reliability curve. Matsushita have that reputation, AFAIK. I read a post or two saying that class 10 is a good idea if you want good results using the HD 720p capture feature, and I'd like to do that some. I have no idea what the capacity figures are (i.e. how many megabytes of storage are necessary for X amount of capture time). Anybody? I've also not seen any mention of how many shots people are getting on their cards. Of course, that will depend on what you're shooting, RAW, full resolution JPGs, etc. I can guestimate that but the video, I have no idea. What are people's experience shooting video with the K-x with different media? I haven't bought any memory cards yet specifically for the K-x. I have a couple of 2GB Kingston SD cards. Will the slowness of those cards impact various functions of the camera? Will I get the full continuous shooting speed in burst mode (I read in a review at Imaging-Resource.com that they measured it at 4.3 fps for the K-x, IIRC around 17 shots?)? Last edited by Muse; 07-25-2010 at 01:45 AM.

07-25-2010, 07:12 AM	#47
Muse Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: SF Bay Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 211	Originally posted by shim CrystalDiskMark is a free program if anyone wants to test their cards and readers. And you should do some of the readers out there are diabolical only managing 2 MB/s with 20 MB/s cards shim Hmm. My card reader was a freebie after MI rebate. It's from about 2004, probably designed earlier, is SD specific. I don't know if it would even work with an SDHC card, maybe if I can find an updated driver for it. In any case, based on what you say I suppose it's apt to be rather slow. I do have a laptop with a reader built in, and not too old (less than a year), so I imagine it will read info faster. I must do some testing today with my SD cards (don't have any SDHC yet)! Thanks for the detailed info.

07-25-2010, 07:46 AM	#48
Muse Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: SF Bay Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 211	Originally posted by leadfoot Everything you wanted to know about SD cards, and probably alot you didn't want to know. Secure Digital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I stick with Lexar and Sandisk cards for the K-x, and have had problems with PNY Optima 4G, class 4 cards. I couldn't find any recomendations for SD cards in the K-x manual, like speed class, etc. I just downloaded and looked at the manual. Did a search on "SDHC" and just 3 hits. The only interesting one was charts (page 302) telling you how many pictures or minutes of video you can expect with various size cards at various quality levels of images.

07-25-2010, 08:46 AM	#49
Muse Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: SF Bay Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 211	Originally posted by boosted03gti amazon has a patriot class 10 8gb sdhc for 25 bucks Amazon.com: Patriot LX Series Class 10 SDHC Flash Memory Card: Electronics i ordered one last week and paid 24 bucks. or the transcend class 6 8gb for $18.60 Amazon.com: Transcend 8 GB Class 6 SDHC Flash Memory Card TS8GSDHC6E: Electronics i would go with atleast a class 6 just to make sure you dont get any corrupted images. i have a eye-fi 4gb class 2, i think, and one out of maybe 10 pics is not viewable. the card is cool with wifi and geotagging but i dont want to loose that 1 pic that could be the 1. jorge The prices at Amazon for those have jumped to $33.42 and $21.38 respectively. Is memory cost going up lately?

07-26-2010, 06:39 AM	#52
Muse Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: SF Bay Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 211	Can I get some comments on this? Yesterday I ran a few speed tests with one of the 2 cards I presently have: Kingston 2GB SD. I was surprised at the results. I was using my Acer laptop, bought less than a year ago, with its built-in card reader. I transferred two MP3 files totaling 316MB to and from one of these SD cards. The card had only about 250MB of data on it, so the results would probably have not been as good if it was 1/2 full or more. Write time to the card was 35 seconds, equivalent to about 9MB/second. Write time back to the laptop's HD was 20 seconds, equivalent to 15.8MB/second. Isn't this rather fast? Maybe I'll be OK with these cards for a while (My K-x is due to arrive today. I hope to get good results in burst mode, maybe do some video too).

07-26-2010, 01:47 PM	#53
rRnt Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 88	I use a 8 GB Class 10 memory card in my K-x and I have had no problems. The guy in the photo shop informed me, that to use it I should update the firmware of my camera. As I did it the same day I got the camera in the first place, it was not an issue. But make sure you got the firware update on your camera before trying these high capacity fast cards.

07-29-2010, 01:08 PM	#54
Muse Inactive Account Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: SF Bay Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 211	Originally posted by rRnt I use a 8 GB Class 10 memory card in my K-x and I have had no problems. The guy in the photo shop informed me, that to use it I should update the firmware of my camera. As I did it the same day I got the camera in the first place, it was not an issue. But make sure you got the firware update on your camera before trying these high capacity fast cards. I did the firmware update before I attached any lens. This morning I made the plunge into SDHC hell. Well, we'll see. I have been researching SDHC cards since I bought my new Pentax K-x, which came a few days ago. The Kingston 2GB SD card I have now (actually 2 of them) had choppy 720p video in the 3 short clips I made, so I figured I need something better. I don't want to spring for the pricey stuff (Sandisk etc.) so have been looking to see what folks think of the cheaper stuff (e.g. Transcend, PQI, Adata, RiData, even Panasonic, etc.). Lots of people are saying that the class ratings on the cards don't tell the whole story. Some class 10 cards aren't outperforming class 6 cards, even from the same manufacturer. On a hunch today, looking for deals, I hit FatWallet and looked for SDHC deals and found a code for $10 off on a PQI 8GB class 10 card. After tax it came to $18.65 (I'm in CA), free shipping. I've been looking enough to know that's a good deal, if it works OK. I saw one post in a forum saying PQI was pretty good. Seems from posts to be a cut above the lower quality stuff. Don't see any posts about their 8GB class 10 cards. I have an idea that maybe they do what the CPU manufacturers do (or used to do?) and test the stuff that comes out of production for speed and rate and designate them accordingly. Or, maybe they are actually manufactured differently. However, what people are saying in the reviews suggests the former methodology may be at play. Just guessing, really.

08-03-2010, 12:28 AM	#55
shim Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Merseyside UK Posts: 34	Originally posted by Muse Can I get some comments on this? Yesterday I ran a few speed tests with one of the 2 cards I presently have: Kingston 2GB SD. I was surprised at the results. I was using my Acer laptop, bought less than a year ago, with its built-in card reader. I transferred two MP3 files totaling 316MB to and from one of these SD cards. The card had only about 250MB of data on it, so the results would probably have not been as good if it was 1/2 full or more. Write time to the card was 35 seconds, equivalent to about 9MB/second. Write time back to the laptop's HD was 20 seconds, equivalent to 15.8MB/second. Isn't this rather fast? Maybe I'll be OK with these cards for a while (My K-x is due to arrive today. I hope to get good results in burst mode, maybe do some video too). That sounds highly usable, but different size files give different results. You would be better copying say 300MB of K-x photographs and timing that. At least you not getting 2-4MB/s which is common with a lot of cheap external USB readers.

08-03-2010, 04:28 AM	#56
rRnt Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 88	Built-in Card readers are faster than USB transfers. I got a Pentax SD card reader free with my K-x. At start I thought I would not be using it, but then I realized that the built-in card reader can't read SDHC's, so I was stuck with using the significantly slower method. Until the cheap plastic reader broke - which made me open up the K-x's box once again to look for the camera-USB cable... There is one advantage using the direct cable though - Impossible to forget the card in the reader when going out shooting.

08-03-2010, 08:13 PM	#57
Xlusionist Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Singapore Posts: 27	Hi guys, i'm new here. Got a few questions to ask... Between class 6 and 10, would class 10 be significantly better or 6 is sufficient? For video recording, the usage of SDHC and SD makes a difference, what about just photo taking? Does the card affect the photo quality? May i know roughly how many photos can i take with a 8G card? thanks for reading.

08-04-2010, 07:45 AM	#58
rRnt Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 88	Card does not (or at least should not) affect image quality, but you benefit from faster card if your camera has high shooting speed - like that of the K-x (4,7 frames per second).

08-04-2010, 09:02 AM	#59
UnknownVT Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: USA Posts: 1,812	Originally posted by Xlusionist Between class 6 and 10, would class 10 be significantly better or 6 is sufficient? For video recording, the usage of SDHC and SD makes a difference, what about just photo taking? Does the card affect the photo quality? May i know roughly how many photos can i take with a 8G card? There should be no harm in using the fastest card one can afford. Whereas slow cards may cause problems with videos or faster shooting rates (the latter is not confirmed since the K-x uses a buffer for its continuous shooting and the a slower card may be slower to write but does NOT affect the buffer). Not that long ago there were no class 10 cards - and we did not seem to have too many problems using class 6 - so I would say class 6 is adequate as long as it is a known brand purchased from a reputable vendor. Any capacity >= 4Gb has to be SDHC. For video since it eats up capacity fast most likely one has to use >= 4Gb thus SDHC - and a class 6 is recommended - although I have heard some have used class 4 ...... As for capacity of an 8Gb SDHC card - it depends on what you shoot - it's actually in your manual on page 298 - Usually Pentax is a bit conservative about it - but simply putting the SD(HC) card into the K-x and turning it on - would show the estimated remaining number of shots......

08-04-2010, 07:45 PM	#60
Xlusionist Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Singapore Posts: 27	Originally posted by rRnt Card does not (or at least should not) affect image quality, but you benefit from faster card if your camera has high shooting speed - like that of the K-x (4,7 frames per second). Originally posted by UnknownVT There should be no harm in using the fastest card one can afford. Whereas slow cards may cause problems with videos or faster shooting rates (the latter is not confirmed since the K-x uses a buffer for its continuous shooting and the a slower card may be slower to write but does NOT affect the buffer). Not that long ago there were no class 10 cards - and we did not seem to have too many problems using class 6 - so I would say class 6 is adequate as long as it is a known brand purchased from a reputable vendor. Any capacity >= 4Gb has to be SDHC. For video since it eats up capacity fast most likely one has to use >= 4Gb thus SDHC - and a class 6 is recommended - although I have heard some have used class 4 ...... As for capacity of an 8Gb SDHC card - it depends on what you shoot - it's actually in your manual on page 298 - Usually Pentax is a bit conservative about it - but simply putting the SD(HC) card into the K-x and turning it on - would show the estimated remaining number of shots...... thank you very much guys!