I am upgrading from A-DATA 16GB Turbo 150X Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Class 6 Memory Card - Retail Package using a Pentax K200D 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera with Shake Reduction (Body Only). The increase in performance is obvious from the first picture taken. RAW pictures are written to the card in less than a second. The camera does not hesitate due to the card when taking photos in RAW mode unless they are truly "rapid fire" photographs. This card writes RAW images as fast as the old card wrote JPEG files. In JPEG mode, the card speed doesn't become an issue until many (8+) rapid fire pictures are taken. In both cases, the camera flushes all pictures in around 3 seconds. The old card would take 15 seconds to flush the camera.
This card isn't cheap, but I can totally recommend it. It is both fast and large (over 1900 RAW pics, I would guess 5,000 JPEG pics). I totally believe in RAW. What is the point of the $1500 zoom or $500 prime lens if the detail is never saved to memory? RAW gives you far more editing and photo recovery options than JPEG. Taking JPEG photos with a cheap card is like putting a cheap non-coated UV filter on your expensive lens. Take a laptop/netbook and something like HP SimpleSave 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive HPBAAD0020HBK-NHSN (Gloss Black) and you are all set to take as many RAW pictures as you want.
Update May 13, 2010: Upgraded to Pentax K-7 14.6 MP Digital SLR with Shake Reduction and 720p HD Video (Body Only) camera. This card provides benefits over the lesser A-data cards, namely an extended RAW burst mode. Camera can capture roughly 1300 RAW or roughly twice as many in the best JPEG mode. In raw mode, camera took 15 pictures in full burst mode, then took 5 pictures in roughly 3-4 fps, and then was able to take pictures continuously at 2 frames per second (in RAW, with full memory). Camera took 10 seconds to write the buffer to the card. In comparison, the A-data card took 14 pictures in full burst mode, and then slowed down to approximately 0.66 fps (or 2 frames in approximately 3 seconds). It took about 15 seconds to write the buffer to the card. If you take fast action photos, this card in the Pentax K7 essentially gives you an extended burst mode feature. When shooting video, this card gives a similar speed increase when flushing the recording due to pause, which can be essential if you need to rapidly start it back unexpectedly. I have a second one of these cards on order.
I also have a point and shoot class Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Black), and this card provides little benefit for this camera. The JPEG files it writes are less than 5MB so the extra speed isn't noticed. The AVCHD encoding removes the need for speed when shooting HD video. I use A-DATA 32 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card 32GSDHC6 (Blue) with this camera with no issues. You won't be happy if you put it in your SLR and try to shoot raw or record MPEG encoded HD video, as the K7 does. The A-Data 32GB card is actually slower than the 16GB A-data card referenced at the beginning of this review. For .JPEG cameras which have AVCHD capability, the A-DATA 32GB card is a cheap alternative with generous storage capacity (over 6000 pictures on largest and finest picture mode, or over 4 hours of HD video at maximum resolution and quality).
Tip for maintaining memory card speed: Once you have copied all the photos from your card to your computer or storage device, format the card in the camera you are going to use it in using the camera menus. This provides two benefits: all fragmentation is eliminated because you are starting out with a brand new file system with no data in it (filesystems with all files deleted can still suffer from directory and file allocation table fragmentation). Secondly, the camera will optimize the file system parameters (such a sector size) to work the most effectively for that camera. The SD card may take longer to copy to the computer, but that is OK: the important thing is to be able to have top performance in the camera. In-computer performance may be traded off for faster camera performance. SanDisk Extreme III - Flash memory card - 32 GB - Class 10 - SDHC
i just got my new card and canon vixia HFS100. since all of the canon literature on this site and canon's site stated a 'class 4 or higher' SDHC card was needed for the highest quality video modes (FXP and MXP), i purchased this card intending to use the camera's highest quality 24 fps mode. when i put the card in, i was able to use it, but only at the lower video quality settings. when i went to canon's support page (not the product brochure but the tech support section) it was the first time i saw that the camera is specifically looking for a 'class 4 or class 6' message to be sent from the card to the camera. i can only guess that is why my new $200 class 10 card is being treated like a class 2. i put in a sandisk class 4 16 gb card i usually use for my still camera and it works on the highest quality video mode - go figure.
haven't heard yet from canon, but hopefully they have a fix for this glitch. can't say much about the card itself - i'm sure it's great - it works fine in my still camera - this is canon's problem for sure but since many folks might be looking at this card for that camera, it's something to look out for.
I tested this card in two ways. First, I used it on a Sony Alpha A550 digital SLR firing 7 frames a second. The camera dumps the jpeg files into a high-speed buffer and simultaneously siphons them out of the buffer onto the SD card. In theory, the faster the card, the more frames should be fired at full speed before the buffer tops out and the camera has to slow down. I got no measurable benefit at all over a Class 4 SD card rated at 15 MB/sec. Considering that the camera is only generating files at about 40 MB/sec, I should have easily seen a huge improvement.
My second test was simply draging and dropping about 250 MB onto the card with the card plugged directly into my computer. My (averaged) results were that it took 26.2 seconds with the 15 MB/sec card and it took 19.7 seconds with this 30 MB/sec card. The test-to-test variance was less than one half second. The computer in question has a quad core Intel CPU, but I have no clue about the data bus speeds.
There are two possible explanations: first, the computer and the camera may have internal transfer rates that are holding things back. Second, the card is overrated. Either way, the benefit to me of the extra speed is zero on the camera, and half of what it should be on the computer. The 15 MB/sec Class 4 card that I used was made by SanDisk also. I understand that other brands of Class 4 SD cards are as much as a factor of 2 slower than the SanDisk Class 4, BTW. The SanDisk Class 4 card is a very good buy.
In summary, on the equipment that I'm using, the speed of this card is not worth the price. SanDisk tends to be honest about the performance of their cards, so I'll blame my equipment, but bear in mind that the A550 camera is Sony's very latest.
It is well documented that some video cameras actually run slower with the faster cards because of incompatibility issues, so if you're considering one of these cards for video application, check with your camera manufacturer first.
In the future, I'll buy SanDisk Class 4 cards -- at least until I own some equipment that gets more of the full benefit from the added speed of this card. I should add that the card does hold roughly twice as much data as my 16 GB cards, as, of course, it should. - Class 10 - 32gb - Sdhc - Sandisk'
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