[snaphappy]

I apologise if this topic has been on here before (I couldn't find it) but would like to know what sd cards you use. I have a PNY 32gb, Class 10, 8 hr HD video, 80Mb/s card and wondered whether a 64gb, 100mb/s card would be better for fast action photos such as smoke and bubbles, lightning etc. I have a lightning sensor that I have been trying out, but the camera seems to spend a long time being "busy". Is this the SD card not being quick enough, or am I doing something wrong. Any help would be very welcome.
Regards Jane

[EdMak]

Have a read here Jane. Ed.

http://www.alphr.com/features/380167/doe...st-sd-card

[GrahamS]

Jane, if you are taking night shots using "B" or a fairly long shutter speed and you have the camera's auto noise reduction set to "on", the camera will process each image for noise reduction before saving it to the card, and the LCD will display the message "Busy." This can slow things down considerably. I suggest that you switch the noise reduction off, and do your noise reduction later in post processing, if it is necessary.

[Eddy Canon]

Hi Jane
As Graham has eluded to,if you use Canon go into the menu and turn off the long exposure noise reduction that should help.

Pete

[snaphappy]

Thank you Ed, Graham and Pete. I shall read up on this and try to remember to turn off the noise reduction. Many thanks for replying.
Jane

[EnglishBob]

The speed of the card is only important if the ca,era you are using supports those high read/write speeds.... older Canon's make poor use of faster cards. Not sure what camera you are using.

[snaphappy]

The speed of the card is only important if the ca,era you are using supports those high read/write speeds.... older Canon's make poor use of faster cards. Not sure what camera you are using.

I use a canon eos 600d. I find I sometimes have to wait a while for the camera to catch up when shooting in continuous mode when photographing fast moving objects.
Jane

[delb0y]

Could be the camera buffer rather than the card. I know my D7100 is renown for having a poor buffer. I only shoot in single shot mode so it's never bothered me.

See:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos600d/9

The continuous shooting rate of the 600D is one of the biggest distinctions between it and the more expensive 60D (along with its smaller viewfinder and single dial control, etc). It attains a respectable, though not exactly blistering 3.6 fps in all its image modes, but can maintain this for just three frames in raw + jpeg mode, and 6 frames in raw only. Because it takes 8 seconds to fully clear its buffer in these modes, it's not terribly useful for shooting short bursts of action, since there's every chance the camera won't have recovered by the time you need another handful of shots. If you find yourself trying to shoot sports or action, you may find yourself better-off taking a metering and WB test shot then shooting JPEG, which gives a much more respectable 40 frame buffer.

[EnglishBob]

The 600D won't write faster than 45mb/s no matter how fast your card is, so as long as you have cards with 45mb/s you are going as fast as it can.

The only advantage of a faster card would be downloading to the computer using a card reader.

[dave1712]

There are xxx things that affect the recording potential of a camera:

* JPEG or RAW or JPEG+RAW - per frame, JPEG is always much smaller than RAW, and can be more so if you choose the lower resolution options. RAW is always much bigger, RAW + JPEG capture is the largest of them all Trade off: potential image quality from RAW vs. image size from JPEG
* sensor resolution (not size) - a 20Mpx sensor has 4x as many pixels to record as a 10Mpx sensor (inverse square law it you want to know why) Trade off: at typical 300 to 360 dpi printer resolution, ability to enlarge and / or crop an image to a size you want to view. More pixels. more crop or enlargement potential (that pesky inverse square law again.)
* single or continuous shooting: with a single frame, the exposed image is saved to the high speed camera body memory, then transferred to the card. If you shoot a lot of continuous frames, the buffer fills, the camera stops shooting, the red light comes on while the buffer is emptied to the card.
* the inbuilt 'speed' of the camera record hardware to card. With an SD card it appears that most current cameras use relatively modest transfer hardware - on the bodies I've tested it looks similar to USB2.0 (hardly rigorous testing but I can copy stuff on my USB3.0 laptop much faster than the same volume on a camera.
* the memory card performance. Check the write performance - who cares if it takes X minutes longer to transfer to the PC, its how quick it copies from the camera to the card.

There are other things of course but these are the major ones that affect my use - I have an EOS 6D, 20 Mpx senso, shoot RAW only, often continuous shooting (birds, aniimals, and grand-children (same characteristics - won't pose, highly mobile, etc etc )

I have tested loads of cards over the years and like most people don't want to waste money - although it never ceases to amaze me the number of people who buy a body and lenses costing £100's to £1000's then use cheap generic cards.

I have also tried to standardise and 'future proof' - stndardise cos I don't want a collection of cards for differnt uses such as phone, GPS, tablet camera. Future proof in that every time I buy a new one it is the best and most flexible at that time for size, performance, and function. And I test every one from end to end when I get it.

So what does that mean? I standardised on micro SD cards - with an adapter it fits every SD/ CF device I own. I only used branded cards, from reputable suppliers, that have clearly stated performance characteristics.

On A PC with USB3.0 interface, I test each card end to end for Read and Write with H2testW using a branded high speed SD card reader (the difference between cheap and branded can be significant.) Again on the PC, I test for writing performance for file sizes of RAW files that are typical for a Canon EOS 6D (25 to 30 Mbs) using ATTO DiskBench mark. Finally to get and idea of camera buffer capacity, I set to continous shooting, and shoot a watch face second hand until the camera skips a shot.

I recently needed to get some new cards and decided on 64GB with the advent of 4k video (don't do it, but who knows) so tested 3 of those I have used in the past. Of those I tested - FOR MY TYPE OF USE in camera and other devices - the Sandisk Extreme Pro was fastest with 100Mb/s write. The Extreme Plus was 80Mbps, the Lexar x633 30Mb/s, and Samsung Pro 28Mbs. All of them miles faster than the EOS 6D buffer because they all recorded 18-20 frames before they skipped a frame (at just under 6 frames a sec quoted by Canon BTW.) And any of them will be just fine, or slower cards still if you typically shoot single frames in JPEG. I got the Sandisk extrem plus because the price difference of the extreme pro was not justified for my typical usage.

To finish this long note off: I'm not obsessive about this - it only takes a short time to check on the occasions I buy cards and I have never had a failure since doing this. Don't buy cheap cards, test the ones you buy end to end, if you do something more demanding - RAW, continuous shooting, then test write speed for size of files your camera will create, and perhaps the size of the camera buffer.

In closing, I must give credit to the now unknown writers of numerous articles on memory performance I have read over time to do this testing.

[tomjlowe]

Hi Jane,

I am assuming that the comments and advice already given will be more relevant for you.

However, I have the same SD card which also started to slow down when using the camera but much more when downloading files. I thought you might like to be aware that in my case, it was a sign that the card was failing.

Another thought: do you reformat the card in camera before you use it? I have been advised that this does keep the card spritely. If not, and especially if you have a large number of images stored on the card, this too can slow down the speed of the card.

Hope this helps

[Jocko]

Every time I transfer images from my camera to my laptop, I reformat the card. On my Nikon it is just two buttons together. Dead easy. I just do it as a matter of course.

[snaphappy]

A big thank you to all who has answered my question. I am digesting all the information, and being fairly new to the workings of my camera, I have learned a lot.
Craig - thank you for the link
delbOy - thank you also for the link
dave1712 - thank you for all your information. It will take me some time to understand how to test my card, but I will persevere.
tomjlowe and Jocko - yes I do format my card every time I load them on my computer.

Again a big thank you
Jane

[EdMak]

Must be fortunate, only have one camera card, used it for years, only formatted it when I bought it. Ed.

[GrahamS]

Must be fortunate, only have one camera card, used it for years, only formatted it when I bought it. Ed.

Ed, you are walking on thin ice!

[tomjlowe]

tomjlowe and Jocko - yes I do format my card every time I load them on my computer.

Hi Jane, Just to clarify: you are best to reformat the sd card in the camera not the computer.

[JohnF]

It might be useful to know that only Lexar, Samsung, SanDisk and Toshiba manufacture their sd card chips. It is deplorable that sd card marketing tells read speeds but not tested write speeds (at standardized error rates).

[snaphappy]

tomjlowe and Jocko - yes I do format my card every time I load them on my computer.

Hi Jane, Just to clarify: you are best to reformat the sd card in the camera not the computer.

Yes, that is what I meant. I load the photos on my computer, then put the card back in camera and format
Jane

[Jocko]

Personally, I never remove a card from my camera, phone, or any other device. I just feel it is safer to connect using a USB cable. Maybe I am ultra cautious, maybe I am wrong, but I just feel there is a risk in damage or data loss by constantly handling the card.

[GrahamS]

I download everything from a Lexar Pro card reader to a folder on the desktop before importing into Lightroom. I neeed the speeed!

[Jocko]

My transfers never take more than a minute or so. It takes me longer to get my USB cable out of my gadget bag! To have more than 100 raw images to transfer is extremely rare for me, but I realise that some photographers, with huge downloads to do, would find speed an issue. Even 5 minutes out of MY day is neither here nor there.

[EnglishBob]

Don't know that I have ever connected my camera to the PC, My desktop has a built in card reader that is USB 2 transfer speeds and supports both my CF and SD cards. I carry a sandisk card reader if I am on the road and need to transfer to the laptop.

[dave1712]

It might be useful to know that only Lexar, Samsung, SanDisk and Toshiba manufacture their sd card chips. It is deplorable that sd card marketing tells read speeds but not tested write speeds (at standardized error rates).

given the popularity of SD/CF media I was surprised it is so few - but then again a few machines can turn out millions every 24 hrs or so, so not room for too many! Glad I only use 3 of those 4
When I worked in data management a few years ago the same problem arose. And OEM archival media was 2 or 3x the price of 'everyday' stuff - no real difference today I think as OEM quality media is 2 or 3x the price of the generic / unknown origin stuff. Still peanuts compared to even a modest DSLR/ Lens setup though.