complete newbie needs info

first up, g'day all from australia.

i recieved my first digital camera recently,and it came with a 16 mb sd card.its a "Canon Powershot A400"i dont know anything about memory cards but i am wondering [after looking on Ebay] what the differance in brands might be? there is "SAN DISK 1GB Secure Digital Memory Card ,New Lexar Compact Flash 1GB CF Memory Card " actually at the time i am writing this, there are over 850 different items listed under memory cards on Ebay - granted a fair few are repeated but the choice is unbelievable.does the brand or mb [over 16mb] really matter that much? could someone give me a laymans breakdown of what would be good to use and what to steer clear of ? and what my little camera can use and what it cant.
you can also reach me via email if you wish.

lonerider96@hotmail.com

thanks for any help,

muchly appreciate it ladies and gents.

Whole new world, isn't it! :)

Memory cards for digital cameras come in different formats or sizes - SD (Secure Digital) and CF (Compact Flash) being the most popular I'd say. There are actually two types of CF cards but it really isn't an issue anymore and I'll spare you the boring details. CF cards won't work if you need SD cards (won't fit), so you can rule all of those out right away. CF cards used to be most common and are still the standard for DSLR's but SD cards are smaller and I guess they fit into smaller cameras better.

The MB number stands for the number of megabytes the card can hold - how much storage it has. 16MB won't hold much. I use cards that are 256 or 512 in my compact digital - it's 5mp and gets about 100 of the highest quality jpegs on a 256mb card (or 200 on a 512). Your numbers should be fairly close to that because the resolution of the camera is the same (5mp, or 5 megapixels).

The other differences are less important, but worth mentioning. I prefer Lexar brand cards because their customer service is great. Had a problem once and they were all over it. They also have a lifetime warranty but I think most if not all of them do. I also hear good things about SanDisk cards though, but no personal experience (the only difference really being their service - if ever needed). The other difference is the write speed. Lexar cards will say 4X, 40X, 80X, etc. This relates to CDR write speeds - basically the higher number, the faster the card will write. I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you're shooting sports (in which case a camera like this is not ideal for anyway).

The price of all memory cards has come down a lot. I first bought a 256 with mine less than three years ago and it cost me almost $200. Now I could buy the same card for less than $50. They'll only get bigger, faster and cheaper in the future so I'd recommend buying what you need now and adding to it only when you need it. Bottom line - a 512 would be great!

[/quote]Whole new world, isn't it! [/quote]
your not wrong about that :)
great info mate,thanks very much.
the san disk cards looked pretty good price wise on ebay.i might spend a bit more time looking into them tomorrow.[its 10:20 pm here atm,and im part way threw a bottle of woodstock blue label] :D
looking forward to being an active member of this community.
i live in the outback community town of sapphire, queensland and hope to record the activities of the gem miners in and around my town.i myself have found some very nice gem stones and hope to find away of photographing the true colors of these magnificent world class preciuos gems.

Glad to have you around - it's a pretty good group here. Check out the other boards here too like Viewfinder and Photo Critique.

Sounds like you've got a project ahead of you - it's great that you already have an idea what you want to do with your skills, it could help you learn quicker. Any questions bring 'em up!