Thursday, 3 September 2009

Digital Camera - sandisk, memory card


I'm using this card (with the associated reader) with my Canon XSI. While the speed of the card exceeds the requirements of the camera, the fast read speed is a real boon when I need to move hundreds of RAW image files to my PC. The included reader is required for this, as the SD reader in my PC cannot handle this SDHC card. Very happy, I love the fast read speed this card supports. SanDisk Extreme HD Video 8 GB Class 10 SDHC Flash Memory Card SDSDRX3-8192-A21

For the professional photographer or the serious (obsessed) amateur this card is a must buy. You really can't beat the price/value ratio here. This is a fully certified Class 6 card which ensures a data read/write of 20MB/s (Class 6 is the fastest type in the SDHC profile). In fact I like these cards so much this is my second one, I have a 4GB of the same kind. If you use it with a point-and-shoot camera this will definitely be overkill but you can rest assured that it won't let you down. Great product by SanDisk.



Note: Most of us know this is a SDHC card not a regular SD. Regular SD cards are limited to 2GB, if you see a SD card that states a higher capacity be aware that it is essentially a "hack" and the card will not be reliable. I've read horror stories of entire projects gone down the drain because of those cards. 4GB and above will always have to be SDHC; therefore they will be capable of working ONLY with SDHC compatible devices.

I have several other Extreme III cards and they are great. I use on in a Panasonic Lumix FZ-50 digital camaera, and it works great in burst mode shooting. Sice the card is SDHC format, you need the included card reader when using on a computer to copy files. Small price to pay for high capacity, fast write speeds. Excellent product.

I've waited for quite some time for this chip to come down in price! If you shoot much in raw mode then you need this! I originally bought the 2gb version of this when I bought my Pentax K10d 10megapixel. With the 2gb chip I didn't take too many photos in raw mode due to it only allowed a little over 100 shots. With the 8gb chip the camera shows room for almost 500 shots but that is not entirely accurate because not every shot is the max size of 16mb so you actually get more than what the camera says you will get. On top of all of this, this chip is the fastest I've been able to find that will keep up with the continuous shot feature. I usually get 8 or 9 shots without any delay before it slows down. My camera takes 3 hots per second so I get three seconds of fast action shooting. After a few seconds of saving all those I can start all over again. I use my 2gb for backup now just in case I fill the 8gb up. I have yet to need to use my backup chip!

Only SD cards I buy are from SanDisk as they're fast, reliable, good value as you often with the higher end and larger cards, you get a pouch, reader and retrieval software and the warranty is unbeatable. You don't get all of that with other brands even with brands such as Kingston which will undoubtedly be more expensive.

These are expensive but worth it if you need a true high speed card for trouble free HD video work. If you're just shooting still pics, or lower resolution video, this card is likely overkill and the SanDisk Ultra (Class 4) is plenty fast. The exception would be a D-SLR shooting rapid bursts of stills in RAW mode where this card would likely speed things up. But for shooting JPGs, or anything but full 1080HD video, you're unlikely to notice any difference between this card and the Ultra.



If you read the reviews here, and elsewhere, you'll find lots of frustrated people who got an error recording 1080HD several minutes into a video. Sometimes their card ended up corrupted, and in some cases, they even lost EVERYTHING on the card. That can happen when you use a card that can't keep up with your camera.



While it's rated Class 6, the Extreme is far faster in testing than even most Class 10 cards from other companies. Using ATTO-DISK, the same benchmark software some of the pros use, this card clocks in around 30MB/sec write speeds (class 6 cards only have to meet a minimum of 6MB/sec).



There are also some in-camera tests published that show SanDisk Ultra to be among the fastest. Plus you know SanDisk will honor the 30 year warranty unlike some of the no-name cards.



Most Class 6 cards I've tested, including those from Transcend, Lexar and Kingston, only manage 10MB/sec - 15MB/sec on the exact same benchmark. So this SanDisk Extreme card is 5X faster than the spec, and 2X - 3X faster than competing Class 6 cards. But it does cost more.



Also, for what it's worth, I've had cards from Transcend and A-Data fail. But I've never had a SanDisk or Kingston card fail despite getting heavier use. If you're shooting pics/video that are difficult (or impossible) to replace, it's worth spending more on a quality card.



WARNING: Anything you put this card in (camera, PC, card reader, etc.) has to be SDHC compatible (usually it will say SDHC on it). Most things made in the last few years are, but not all. If you have a cheaper or older device that doesn't support SDHC, you're limited to a maximum size of 2GB. If you put a larger SDHC card into an older SD-only device, you could corrupt the card and lose everything on it.



So it's best to experiment to make sure your device, PC, etc. are all SDHC compatible before you fill the card up with irreplaceable images/video only to lose everything by plugging this 8GB card into your 4 year old PC's 2GB reader.

I baselined one 8GB SDHC Extreme iii 20MB/s card against two of Transcend's 8GB SDHC class 6 cards and found the write speeds to be 3x as fast. I copied both 100MB and 600MB folders to the Extreme iii card in 8 sec and 41 sec respectively yielding roughly a 14MB/s write speed. Transcend's cards required 23 & 25 sec to write a 100MB folder yielding roughly a 4.5MB/s write speed. - 8gb - Sd Card - Memory Card - Sandisk'


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