Memory Cards

[msommers]

Need more memory and with so many different writing speeds out there, and UDMA enabled cards, I'm kinda lost on what I really need.

Are these going to reduce the transfer time from camera to computer? Bare in mind I don't have firewire and use USB. To take advantage of these high-end cards, am I going to have to be shooting 7fps at 14-bit RAW+Fine files, continuously?

[blitz]

I noticed a huge uptick in download speeds when I went to a high speed card. Also very noticeable when taking photos as well as just scrolling through photos on the camera.

I got a 16GB Photofast G-Monster 533X and it's been awesome, especially considering it was only $100.

[Mitsu3000gt]

Lexar 300X UDMA are my favorite. A comparable Sandisk will be about as good.

If the card is UDMA and the reader is UDMA, you will get faster transfer speeds to your computer even over USB 2.0. ~45MB/s transfer speed is max for those cards and I get that over USB no problem. Firewire is a bit faster but the difference is hardly noticeable IMO. My 4 gig cards transfer to my computer in about a minute with my cheap Lexar UDMA card reader.

As for the camera, your buffer will empty much faster with a UDMA card. The RAW buffer is good for 17 images (on D300 anyways) so it doesn't take long to fill up even at 5fps. If you have a decent card, the camera can dump those images much faster and the buffer will fill up much slower. You can kind of think of it like running up an escalator...faster card = faster escalator. You will still get to the top, but it will take you longer if the escalator is moving faster in the opposite direction. If you don't do a lot of continuous shooting, it won't matter to you as much. I do quite a bit of continuous shooting, and I've never filled the buffer once. If you do hit the maximum, your continuous shooting speed slows down to however fast your card is, so in that situation a fast card will benefit you as well.

To maximize your buffer space, turn OFF active D lighting, and turn OFF high ISO noise reduction. I think one or both of those defaults on, so you won't see 17 images remaining on the camera at half shutter press until you turn those off.

UDMA cards are pretty cheap these days, its a good investment IMO. Also if you ever get a portable hard drive/card reader, many of them support UDMA and being able to dump cards in the field really quick has been a huge plus for me while on vacation and such.

[msommers]

Sweet, thanks guys. Have you found ordering online is much cheaper?

My plan was to toss in a SD card to put the jpg's on, put it in my built-in card reader and just transfer the NEF's I want to work on later and then format the SD and CD when I'm done. I'm hoping this will cut down on space on my external HD and transfer time.

Also, a bit of searching let me here:
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/cam...?cid=6007-9254

[Mitsu3000gt]

Online is the way to go for flash memory.

Lexar 4GB 300X UDMA cards are $50 at newegg.ca For comparison, they are $70 at TCS locally. They are ~$50 at B&H too, if you have other stuff you need to buy from the states to make it worth it - otherwise just order from newegg.ca. 8GB are $70 at newegg.ca compared to $110 at TCS.

If you use Capture NX, its pointless to shoot anything but RAW because you can just run a batch process on the NEFs and it will apply your in-camera JPEG settings and save them all as JPEGS. Then, if you see one that needs more work, you have the NEF too. If you don't use Capture NX or don't want to, you may benefit from shooting RAW + JPEG but your buffer is going to fill up a lot faster if you shoot a lot of continuous. Also I have no idea how it affects things if the CF card is way faster than the SD card (SD cards don't use UDMA) - I assume it slows down to the weakest link?

[msommers]

I'm not terribly sure. NEFs are considerably larger than the JPGs. I'm not sure if it works like this, but if a NEF is 10mb and a JPG 2, it wouldn't really matter how fast the SD card was. Not sure on this one.

Anywho, I ended up ordering from here: http://flashmemory-store.stores.yahoo.net/

I got 2 Sandisk 4gb Extreme III SDHC, 1 Sandisk 4gb Extreme IV CF, shipping and insurance with USPS for 138USD. Probably end up around 160CDN when it's all said and done. And yes, holy god TCS is a ripoff for memory! I didn't opt for more memory as I don't like putting so many pictures on one card, just in case the unusual happens!

[dragonone]

can also try shopbot.ca before ordering
and NCIX PM's w/o shipping, maybe even memX

[blitz]

Check these out before ordering:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Photofast-16GB-5...item1c0e40a324

They get great reviews everywhere and are cheap as hell! I've been using mine for 6 months.

[Mitsu3000gt]

I prefer pricebat.ca to shopbot, as shopbot doesn't even pull from newegg.ca (at least on nothing I've searched that I know they carry). I still use both though just to make sure I'm getting everything.

Sounds like you got some good cards, you won't regret buying the fast ones.

[Go4Long]

I bought the new sandisk extreme 60 mb/s...ordered one and they shipped me two. so I have one in each slot on the S, love it. Then again with a 35 shot buffer in 14 bit raw I don't have to worry about it quite as much as the average

[msommers]

If I find the cards I bought aren't fast enough or I'm filling them up too fast, next purchase is going to be a G-monster plus. That's a lot of memory and speed for hella cheap!

[dragonone]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
I prefer pricebat.ca to shopbot, as shopbot doesn't even pull from newegg.ca (at least on nothing I've searched that I know they carry). I still use both though just to make sure I'm getting everything.

Sounds like you got some good cards, you won't regret buying the fast ones.

strange... it pulls from newegg.ca in every search i make

i.e. http://www.shopbot.ca/default.asp?kw...osition=search

http://www.shopbot.ca/default.asp?kw...osition=search

[Mitsu3000gt]

Originally posted by dragonone


strange... it pulls from newegg.ca in every search i make

i.e. http://www.shopbot.ca/default.asp?kw...osition=search

http://www.shopbot.ca/default.asp?kw...osition=search

It wouldn't find a Lexar card on newegg with what I typed in, but were top of the list on pricebat. Not really sure

[dragonone]

maybe try the model no. next time....
i.e. CF4GB-300-381

they both do the same things anyways