Memory card quality questions

I have seen different qualities of memory card, for example sandisk make the normal one, the Ultra II and the Extreme cards at seriously different prices.
My questions are, is it worth spending the extra money, is there really much difference and will the quality of memory card effect the quality of my pictures ?

Excuse me if these are dumb questions.

Thanks

Martin

The memory card is not going to effect the quality of your photos. Most of the differences in the memory cards is speed, assuming you are looking at the same size card. Some read/write faster than others. If this isn't a big issue for you, then you really don't need to spend the extra $ to get a really fast card.

Great stuff Mike, thanks for that.

Right, the quality really isn't any different between the cheap ones (assuming a known brand name like Lexar or Sandisk) and the expensive ones. Faster write speeds might be handy if you're shooting a lot of images sequentially, like you might with sports. Faster read (download) speeds might help if you're shooting a ton of images so the download to the computer is fast.

I generally buy one speed slower than the top of the line, which is about half price, but I really don't notice much of a difference in the real world (I'm not a pro and don't have thousands of images to deal with every time I pick up a camera!).

Yes to all the obove and I like to add one more thing to the list, make sure your camera write speed is adequate to the card itself too. Its like put a big V8 on a bicyle and expect it to go fast :D

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Originally Posted by JTcooper

Yes to all the obove and I like to add one more thing to the list, make sure your camera write speed is adequate to the card itself too. Its like put a big V8 on a bicyle and expect it to go fast :D

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Now you've gone and piqued my imagingation~

Another thing to remember: if the camera is an older one, it may not run the very fastest cards. They will be fine in a newer camera though, especially DSLRs. Check the manual.

Mike

One other thing you may want to consider is having more than one card, if you don't already have an extra one or two. I have seen too many postings in this forum and others over the years where people are lamenting the fact that their card broke, or wouldn't work while they were shooting something of importance. Personally, I carry three with me all the time and fortunately, I have had no problems yet.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

I found by trial and error that my Canon G9 goes faster with faster SD cards, up to the Sandisk Extreme III. I haven't tried an extreme IV yet.

Beware buying on the internet though, there are fake memory cards about and they are not as reliable as the real thing.

I buy mine from Costco.

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Originally Posted by JTcooper

Its like putting a big V8 on a bicyle and expect it to go fast :D

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That, I'd like to see. :eek:

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Originally Posted by WesternGuy

One other thing you may want to consider is having more than one card, if you don't already have an extra one or two. I have seen too many postings in this forum and others over the years where people are lamenting the fact that their card broke, or wouldn't work while they were shooting something of importance. Personally, I carry three with me all the time and fortunately, I have had no problems yet.

Cheers,

WesternGuy

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Along the same line, you may also think about pitching the cards before they break. Nothing is worse than coming back from a day of shooting and finding that the card went bad. We scrap ours about once a year as a precaution.

Memory card does have a maxim write count. The very first chips had a maxim write count something like 1000 writes per bit. Now the write cycles are now between 100,000 to 1,000,000 per bit. Only professional photographers could try to run the write cycles to this level in a year. To max out the write cycles, that would require the fill up the card and erase cycle 27 plus times a day 7 days week for a year including holidays for an older card using the 10,000 write cycle chips. The only way to find out is to disassemble the card and even then the chip may not have a number on it.

Freygr:
True - trying to "wearout" a memory card by reading and righting to it would be diffucult and I should have also included more details in my orginal comment.

We put our equipment through a very hard workout. They are loaded and unload everyday five to seven days a week. They also travel between 50 and 200 miles per day, are used in all weather conditions and generaly abused.

You also need to concider what is at risk. A full day of shooting can bring in between $1000 and $2000. A card failure can place that revenu at risk. Not to mention having to tell my clients we need to reshoot because of a bad memory card.

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Originally Posted by Nealrm

A card failure can place that revenu at risk. Not to mention having to tell my clients we need to reshoot because of a bad memory card.

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Pretty scary to think how much is at stake with a tiny, inexpensive memory card. Anything can fail at any time, but I think generally solid state memory cards can survive abuse pretty well.

How many people personally have experience with a card failing after a shoot, to the point that images were not recoverable with standard software applications (Lexar Image Rescue, etc)?

Me, none - even though I soaked a camera and it sat in a wet bag for an hour before I knew it. Card was fine (obviously the DSLR and f2.8 zoom were turned into ugly paperweights).

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Originally Posted by another view

Pretty scary to think how much is at stake with a tiny, inexpensive memory card. Anything can fail at any time, but I think generally solid state memory cards can survive abuse pretty well.

How many people personally have experience with a card failing after a shoot, to the point that images were not recoverable with standard software applications (Lexar Image Rescue, etc)?

Me, none - even though I soaked a camera and it sat in a wet bag for an hour before I knew it. Card was fine (obviously the DSLR and f2.8 zoom were turned into ugly paperweights).

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The only dead cards I've seen have been the Olympus Picture Cards. No programs I had could read, or recover anything from the those two cards. Also the card readers can be at fault as some of the older ones do not support the larger cards but for CF cards ( CF cards have always have had large sizes they had just cost a lot of money a long time ago ).

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Originally Posted by another view

... How many people personally have experience with a card failing after a shoot, to the point that images were not recoverable with standard software applications (Lexar Image Rescue, etc)? ....

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We have and it cost us a 1/2 day's worth of shots plus rescheduling time. (Fortunately, the agent understood that sometimes things happen). That maybe why I'm a little paranoid about the cards.

Ok, so now I'm really worried !!!

Only joking, after weighing up all the advice you guys supplied I went for an Extreme III 8gb. I have been using it for a couple of weeks now and it does seem to upload to the computer faster than my old Ultra II which is an issue when I shoot 500 or so shots in a morning. I have the old Ultra 4gb as a spare that I always carry but will certainly be investing in a few more 8gb as I fill the 4gb easily in one trip.
Thanks again guys for all the help.