Memory Card Compatibility Issues

[tiborok]

Good Day!

I'm currently working in a retail store that sells digital cameras and been doing a bit of troubleshooting with the some of our customers. Recently we've been encountering some issues with customers complaining on some memory cards... saying that it's not compatible with the camera they got.

Can you guys help me and post some of the issues, problems, symptoms that you've encountered in the past that pinpointed you that the card is the culprit and not the camera itself?

Thanks in advance!

[freygr]

On the Nikon web site in the support section they have a FAQ web page which is searchable by camera (Nikon only) giving a list of all the tested and aproved memory cards.

Either the card works or not. If the card is too slow it will take longer to save the photos. I used an unapproved SD card in my daugthers D80 and it worked just fine (over 300 photos) Removing the memory card when the camera is writing to it can corrupt the card and cause image loss.

[another view]

The manual should say what cards the camera has been tested with, but it's probably out of date by the time even a brand new model is released. You shouldn't have a problem with a "good" card, so sticking with SanDisk and Lexar are probably the best choice. I've heard of some el-cheapo cards just not working with cameras but with the incredibly low price of cards these days (compared to a year or two ago), the price difference is very little. These cards aren't commodities...

[b2kshe]

has anyone had problesm with the XTi and CF cards freezing up, or the whole camera freezing up after several hundred pictures have been taken?

[SmartWombat]

Not the XTi no, but cards that worked fine in my 20D cause my 1DSmkIIN to lock up.
So it's possible that there are cards that don't work in faster cameras.

[yogestee]

I have a few "cheapy" memory cards,,CFand SD in my kit and have never had any problems with them...What I always do before use is format the card to my cameras..

Jurgen

[tiborok]

Thanks so much for your inputs... however would somebody post the problems that you've encounted with memory card incompatibility.

These are the sure possible symptoms i've gathered so far:

• flash not working with an incompatible memory card
• camera freezing after a few hundred images

[another view]

flash not working with an incompatible memory card

Never heard of that one. It doesn't make sense to me, the camera should either work or not. I'm not saying it's impossible because we all know how irrationally computers can act... But I'd say these are the rules with memory cards - feel free to add to the list:

1) Use a card that's compatible with the camera (approved by mfr, or Lexar, SanDisk, etc)
2) Always format the card in the camera before using and after downloading images.
3) Don't try to turn off the camera, or remove from camera or computer when it's accessing files.
4) Turn off camera before removing card from camera.
5) If using Windows XP, disconnect (see lower right corner of screen) before unplugging camera from computer or removing card from reader.

[Didache]

There is another issue which nobody has yet mentioned: the size of the card. Some cameras will not take cards over a certain capacity. For instance, I had a couple of older fuji cameras (now used by the kids) which simply did not recognise any card over 256K (or 512K. I forget). The manual even said this. I don't know if this is still the case with some compacts?

Mike

[another view]

Good point - true with some DSLR's too. My fairly old Fuji S2 has a limit of (I think) 2gb. Newer FAT32 standard DSLR's can use larger cards - but check the camera's manual, it should say the max. card size.

[westwoodprinters]

We've also seen some compatibility issues with certain P&S cameras. So far they've all been solved by using smaller memory cards. But when we encountered these problems, the cameras would not work at all. We were unable to format the cards in the cameras.

The problem with the flash is kind of strange and sounds more like a defect of the camera rather than the memory card. The problem with camera freezing after taking a few hundred shots could be an issue with the battery. We haven't seen the cameras freezing completely, just taking much much longer to save an image if the battery is low and the memory card is nearing its capacity. This happens a lot with Nikon Coolpix S5.

Hope this helps.
Gary

[WesternGuy]

Is this site of any value to folks. Not so much for compatibility, but for lots of other interesting noobie type things.

http://www.futureshop.ca/learnmore/B...ngid=EN&dept=2

Cheers,

WesternGuy

[another view]

Looks kinda like an about.com article. I scanned it quickly but it seems like a good primer. I don't know how new it is but it says XD cards only go up to 512mb, but I bought a 1gb last June...