[Pentaxor]

I ordered two 16GB Silicon Power cards(10) aprox. 2 months back and have been using them over the past few weeks. I've found them to be every bit as fast as my Sandisk Extreme's and so I decided to order two more. They are an excellent value and there performance is every bit as good as cards costing as much as two times the price.

PS. with a Patriot or Transcend card, I get aprox. 14 RAW, but with these latest(class 10) cards, I get aprox. 17 RAW in buffer before the system writes catch-up. I've also found the Sandisk Extreme and Silicon Power cards to have the shortest return from write times following live view or complete buffer purge.

this is the kind of performance that I'm looking for in a card. aside from reliability and durability.

[sniper29a]

everything is not marketing bullshit if that is something you believe in. otherwise there is no difference on CF cards being marketed as faster than SDHC cards and by your perception, it would be a BS statement as well.

point is, you are asking for some advice on how to get faster and additional RAW shots during burst, getting a Sandisk is one of the solutions for getting so and this is no fairytale. the general performance difference between a Sandisk 20MB/s and a Transcend C6 may not be that far from each other. bu you forgot to look at your reliable chart concerning the write speed evaluation. write speed is much more important than read speed during taking pictures. there are other people who actually done some tests with different kinds of cards and TOM is not the only one who knows how to. and would say a much more elaborate review and benchmarks than Tom did. tom didn't even specify which type of speed class or write speed is the Sandisk whether it's the 20MB or 30MB, but I would assume that it's the 20MB basing from the performance.

now, if you love your Transcend, I have no problem with that. but dissing out a product just because you don't like it's pricing is kinda ridiculous. people are more than happy of having such card and paying for it for it's performance. unless they are ripping people off.

all specification is in test. all you need is to read.

I wonder why you would sacrifice reliability for some 3 pictures gain? With speeds always come some tricks to achieve this speed. I would rather go for reliable above average card rather than speed devil which loses data anyway.

Transcend cards, despite seems to be bargain, they reflect real manufacturing price + decent profit. If you open most cards you will find same memory chips/electronics like in other cards + some "magic" from "manufacturer". SO why would pay more?

[Docrwm]

I should of mentioned all of my other cards are class (6)
The only class (10) cards I have are the Silicon Power ones.

That might explain the difference as the 10's for the major players do seem to be faster then their own 6's.

[Docrwm]

they would surely be a nice cheaper alternative. I just hope that their life expectancy/cycle, durability and reliability would be good as well.

the other concerns that we face are losing data or broken cards. I noticed that some cheaper cards dont last that long.

As I said, I'm new to dSLR phtoography so please pardon what might be an obvious question but: Is the life of a dSLR SD card that much harder than the life of a SD card in other devices that they are more prone to break? I've never had an SD card that worked right initially then break unless physically damaged by external force.

[Russell-Evans]

As I said, I'm new to dSLR phtoography so please pardon what might be an obvious question but: Is the life of a dSLR SD card that much harder than the life of a SD card in other devices that they are more prone to break? I've never had an SD card that worked right initially then break unless physically damaged by external force.

Well mine have ended up in the washer and dryer for some unknown reason Yeah, I mostly do my own laundry.

I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of the issues with SD cards has been with counterfeits, but not known to be counterfeit cards. Even legitimate stores have had issues with receiving counterfeits. With the prices having come down, and I'm sure margins being a lot less, the counterfeits probably aren't an issue any more. That said, I'm more wary of buying expensive cards than cards in the sweet spot because I figure there still might be enough profit in counterfeiting them. I can live without the best, fastest, cards for this little bit of caution. I usually buy new one card first, use it for a while to be sure, then buy more to just make sure I'm buying a somewhat know entity.

When, or if, I get a DSLR with video capabilities, I'll revise my actions, but probably, I will simply buy only a single known fast card, and just swap it in when I want need the speed. I just don't see the point of using expensive cards all the time, when probably 99% of the time I won't use the capability.

I am expecting at least one new DSLR body to have internal memory at this Photokina. The write and read speeds of SSD hard drives, even really slow ones, is so many times faster, it seems like at wow type of feature for someone to implement. 4Gb of SSD memory in a camera would do, I think, maybe 8Gb.

Thank you
Russell

[Pentaxor]

all specification is in test. all you need is to read.

I wonder why you would sacrifice reliability for some 3 pictures gain? With speeds always come some tricks to achieve this speed. I would rather go for reliable above average card rather than speed devil which loses data anyway.

Transcend cards, despite seems to be bargain, they reflect real manufacturing price + decent profit. If you open most cards you will find same memory chips/electronics like in other cards + some "magic" from "manufacturer". SO why would pay more?

it doesn't really sacrifice reliability because of speed. these are made exactly for the specification they are intended to perform at which tolerance speed. this is not like they are overclocking them. some cheaper cards do this and you end up with more corrupted files + they are still slower. 3 picture gain gives more time for the buffer to fill, thus giving you faster time to recharge and shoot again when after the buffer has been cleared. so in reality, you shoot more than just 3 images if you include the fast buffer purge. as I had noticed with other cards, after the buffer has been filled, I have to wait a long time (few seconds) for the buffer to clear. this is crucial for some users, especially on events which requires continuous shooting that go way past 14 RAWs.

this is as far as the old comparison between the older Sandisk Extreme and Transcend C10 is concerned. the new article this year (2-3 months ago) however as posted by another member, shows the performance difference between the new cards are not even that close for comparison.

truth is a few may actually be the same chip to a certain extent. but not entirely the same. just because it came from the same manufacturer, that one would automatically assume that they perform the same. this is a general wrong assumption without any consideration. mind you, you are paying for better performance + reliability and durability. before, I had the same notion of "why pay more if I can have something for less?" I ended up being disappointed. now, I'm vary wary of something cheaper and would look closely at it before even considering it. there is a reason why people would prefer buying branded products rather than buying generic ones. the "risk" factor.

I have nothing against Transcend and surely they are a very good taiwanese company, not japanese as you might have thought. the point is, they don't offer the performance that some people would want to have. I'm sure they have decent speed and reliability, but they aren't any faster or as fast of that of the leading or other card manufacturers as of the moment. if they offer something as fast, I'm sure there are people that would be interested, including myself.

this is as far a shooting pictures is concerned. but if we are going to include video recording performance as well, this is another reason why you pay for something more for video recording performance, for such demanding use.

[Pentaxor]

Well mine have ended up in the washer and dryer for some unknown reason Yeah, I mostly do my own laundry.

I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of the issues with SD cards has been with counterfeits, but not known to be counterfeit cards. Even legitimate stores have had issues with receiving counterfeits. With the prices having come down, and I'm sure margins being a lot less, the counterfeits probably aren't an issue any more. That said, I'm more wary of buying expensive cards than cards in the sweet spot because I figure there still might be enough profit in counterfeiting them. I can live without the best, fastest, cards for this little bit of caution. I usually buy new one card first, use it for a while to be sure, then buy more to just make sure I'm buying a somewhat know entity.

When, or if, I get a DSLR with video capabilities, I'll revise my actions, but probably, I will simply buy only a single known fast card, and just swap it in when I want need the speed. I just don't see the point of using expensive cards all the time, when probably 99% of the time I won't use the capability.

I am expecting at least one new DSLR body to have internal memory at this Photokina. The write and read speeds of SSD hard drives, even really slow ones, is so many times faster, it seems like at wow type of feature for someone to implement. 4Gb of SSD memory in a camera would do, I think, maybe 8Gb.

Thank you
Russell

Yes, the counterfeits have been really a scourge. I hope there is a way that they could solve this problem of counterfeiting.

[Docrwm]

I've dealt with counterfeit cards for my Sony P&S in the past. The main way to tell the difference that is easy is the size. Nearly every counterfeit around has a LOWER overall capacity than the real deal does. So, know what the capacity of the card you thought you were purchasing is (I mean the REAL capacity - not the one printed on the card) and then open your new card up in Explorer and see what its precise capacity is - if its lower 99/100 its a fake. The harder way is to clock the read and write speeds but that requires some extra software. Easier and nearly always accurate is the capacity size method.

As for SD and other flash cards breaking - again - with regular use (not involving a washing machine ) I know of none of my genuine name brand cards failing.

[Pentaxor]

I've dealt with counterfeit cards for my Sony P&S in the past. The main way to tell the difference that is easy is the size. Nearly every counterfeit around has a LOWER overall capacity than the real deal does. So, know what the capacity of the card you thought you were purchasing is (I mean the REAL capacity - not the one printed on the card) and then open your new card up in Explorer and see what its precise capacity is - if its lower 99/100 its a fake. The harder way is to clock the read and write speeds but that requires some extra software. Easier and nearly always accurate is the capacity size method.

As for SD and other flash cards breaking - again - with regular use (not involving a washing machine ) I know of none of my genuine name brand cards failing.

that is one of the problems. you can't simply open up the packaged merchandise and try the cards and see if they are genuine or not. most shops won't allow this and also the question of return policies in case of counterfeits. I dunno how it works with memory cards but I had experienced returning a defective music player, a dongle, and other electronic problems without much of a problem.

[Docrwm]

that is one of the problems. you can't simply open up the packaged merchandise and try the cards and see if they are genuine or not. most shops won't allow this and also the question of return policies in case of counterfeits. I dunno how it works with memory cards but I had experienced returning a defective music player, a dongle, and other electronic problems without much of a problem.

I have returned counterfeit Sony Duo cards through eBay by photographing the packaging and the card and escalating to a claim based on fraud. Sellers both resolved IMMEDIATELY making me think they knew they were fakes. eBay has been pretty good about acknowledging, after the fact, that things are counterfeits and there are even guides to ID'ing many items provided by users on the site now.

I have not gotten a counterfeit SD card from a genuine Bricks & Mortar location ever (and I do check them pretty completely each time I purchase one).