[Graeme]

Hi all,
I need to know what kind of SD (SDHC) card to get for my new K20D.
I see all sorts of cards and speeds, but need to know what will suit my camera.
For example, you can get Class 2/4/6, or 60x or 133x, or 9/10Mbps or 20Mps... UltraII or ExtremeIII... the list goes on.
The problem is the price for me. An ExtremeIII card (4Mb) is about 10% of the price of the camera body that I haggled hard to get a good price on in the first place!
But lesser speed cards are 2/3 or even 1/2 price or less.

So, the question: Go for the very fastest? Or will a less fast one suffice?
eg. Buy a SanDisk UltraII at 9Mbps write speed for $50/2Gb, or an ExtremeIII 20Mbps for more than double the price?

What is the writing speed of the K20D to the card anyway??

Long question, I know... maybe it's been asked before, but I haven't picked up my camera from layby till next week, and want to buy the right card for the right price.

Cheers,
Graeme.

[ftpaddict]

Do you use your camera for photojournalism or sports photography? Do you use the continuous shooting mode often?

If the answers to the questions above are "yes", then you need to invest in a fast a card as you can find. Otherwise, you can very well go for the "no-class" SD cards... like I do. I don't need fast cards.

[Graeme]

Hi ftpaddict,
I will be doing nature and portrait mainly, no sports, probably jus tthe occasional continuous shooting. I want to capture RAW @ 14.6mpix, so am concerned about the transfer speed. It's possible that, although not continuous shooting, I want to take shots quickly. I have another digital camera (not dslr) that is a real slug when it comes to getting onto the next photo - all because of slow writing the the SD card. It's better with a 60x card in it.
Cheers,
Graeme.

[Ben_Edict]

The K20 makes full use of the speed the Class6 (app. 20 Mbits/s) cards provide. Anything slower will slow your shooting. Even if you don't do sports photography, 3 images/s are quite useful for portraits! Don't save money on an inferior card, because you sure will regret it soon. I used to use Ultra II cards with my K10 and am completely happy with my Extreme III cards in the K20 - and as you can see from these brand names, I nowadays (after some trials and errors) use Sandisk cards exclusively, they never failed...

Ben

[Graeme]

Thanks Ben. I thought that might be the case.

[Entropy]

You might want to go with a Class 6 that gets good reviews at newegg.com

NewEgg is a reputable dealer with great prices on flash memory.

I myself only have Class 2 and Class 4 cards and am happy with them even for airshow photography.

For portraits - I assume you are using strobes, in which case there is no need for a fast card as the strobe recycle time will limit your shooting speed.

[ftpaddict]

On a slightly offtopic note, I'd like to express my displeasure with the camera's lock-up while the buffer is flushing. I haven't had the chance of filling up other brands' buffers, but my K100D refuses to let me change any settings or access the menu before the buffer is completely empty. I find that just a tad annoying.

[drabina]

Make sure you skip the A-Data card. I had one for less than a year and its case just fall apart. I think newegg.com has reviews with similar experience. I have another Kingston card that is older than A-Data and still holding up just fine.

[JohnV3]

I had an Ultra Products card that looked similar to an Sandisk and it failed while taking photos in that it did not capture the images. Since I don't check the card after every shot, I didn't immediately notice the failure until later when it was too late. The card had an alleged lifetime warranty but I had to buy the relacement card before they would ship it and get a refund later. IMHO, it's just a hassle to discourage warranty claims. I threw the card away.

So, it's only Sandisk or Kingston from now on.

[drabina]

Yeah, it is a nice trick with the limited warranty. Everybody knows that flash based memory is good for limited number or read/write cycles. But in 5 years, when the card goes bad, the 1GB capacity is going to be worth the same as the 32MB (that was attached to all cameras few years back) is worth now.

[Entropy]

Make sure you skip the A-Data card. I had one for less than a year and its case just fall apart. I think newegg.com has reviews with similar experience. I have another Kingston card that is older than A-Data and still holding up just fine.

Yeah, I've been going with Kingston and OCZ from Newegg. Both are reputable brands.

[Geekybiker]

The transcend class 6 SDHC 8gb cards write at just over 12 mb/s and are very cheap.
I'm using them on my k10D and they outrun the camera.

[Geekybiker]

And FWIW take your jpeg file size, multiply by 3 and that the write speed you want as a mininum. It'll allow your full burst speed in jpeg. RAW you'll always run into buffer issues.

[PentaxScott]

DONT waste money on a cheap card. Period. Remember this, even though it may be twice as much, there is NOTHING worse than capturing a magnificant image, storing it on a cheap card, and then having the card fail because it was a cheap $6.99 special closeout by some brand youd never heard of. Youll never forgive yourself.

I personally use SanDisk cards. I have found them to be of high quality and have never had any of them fail on me. I stick with the Ultra II cards as I have never needed anything faster. The Extreme III cards are faster but the cost isnt justified for me. The Extreme IIIs have a 133x speed (20 MB/sec) while the old Ultra IIs are 66x (about 9/10 MB/sec). One thing to look for is that SanDisk has improved the Ultra II cards and many of them now write at 100x (15 MB/sec) which is much closer to the Extreme III speeds without the cost. I managed to pick up (2) 4 gig cards of the new Ultra II speeds WITH card readers each for $29 about a week ago at Circuit City (cheaper than most places online).

Hope that helps

[Geekybiker]

DONT waste money on a cheap card. Period. Remember this, even though it may be twice as much, there is NOTHING worse than capturing a magnificant image, storing it on a cheap card, and then having the card fail because it was a cheap $6.99 special closeout by some brand youd never heard of. Youll never forgive yourself.

Well the corollary of that is don't buy the big name cards! you can only afford half the space and when you run out and miss that one special shot because your cards are full, you'll never forgive yourself!

There are lots of cards out there made by companies with many many years of memory making experience, but just without Sandisk's advertizing budget.

Sure SanDisk extreme III cards are a safe bet, but they aren't the only game in town and far from the best price/performance/reliability ratio. (And the extreme II cards are slow.)