Are all SD cards created equal?

[topcat]

I've just ordered a new camera that takes SD cards, and I need to buy some memory for it. I have found a site that sells Sandisk standard 2GB for £6-99, "Ultra II 60x" for £11-50 and "Extreme III 133x" for £12-99. All have the same capacity, so I am wondering what difference I would notice in use - is it that the more expensive ones write to and access memory more quickly? Would others recommend the more expensive versions or am I going to be just fine with the standard ones?

(And equally, I notice that there are quite significant differences in price between e.g. Sandisk, Kingston and Lexar - which makes do people recommend?)

thanks in advance

[readingr]

Generally the higher the x number the faster the write speeds. However there is a limitation for the write speeds in the camera so its not always fastest write to the fast cards.

Since your buying a new camera I would probably look at the fastest speeds as new cameras always try to impove write speeds.

Roger

[SmartWombat]

It depends on the camera, defnintely.
My Canon G9 works much faster with Sandisk Ultra II than with Tevion "fast" cards from Aldi.
But it doesn't go faster with a Sandisk Extreme III card.

I only use Sandisk and Lexar in my 1D and 20D, and will use Ultra II now in the G9.

[topcat]

Thanks for that advice. I think I'll go for a medium to high spec and see how I get on with that.

[Franglais]

In the beginning there was SD. Manufacturers put 80x 133x on the cards but it is faily meaningless - the card has different speeds for reading small files, writing small files, reading large files, writing large files, etc.

Now there is SDHC and each card is in a speed category which means it can achieve a certain speed for reading, writing, etc. It makes more sense and the SDHC cards are generally more consistent across the whole range of operations than the SD ones. However older cameras and readers don't support the SDHC format.

Personally I go for the well-known but inexpensive brands like PNY, Kingston and Transcend and so far I have had no problems.

[fivish]

I have used many different SD cards as per sandisk extreme 3, Staples X60, Jessops, and Toshiba etc....they have different read/write speeds from 8MB/s to 18MB/s but in camera you will not notice any difference. Take them out the camera and transfer to PC will be faster on a fast card.

The more expensive cards will have greater reliability, but I have never had one fail in service; though I had a duff brand new Toshiba.