Ideas On Memory Cards For Your Digital Camera

Posted by vgevge

April 4, 2008

Doesn’t it drive you nuts that there are so many memory cards, formats, speeds and types in this field? It’s enough to make you want to go back to those old days. Well, maybe not. The primary difference between a regular SD (Secure Digital) and a SD/MMC card is that the MMC card lacks a locking tab and is short by one electrical connection on the back. The regular SD cards have 8 pin slots; the MMC card only has 7. Otherwise, they’re very similar and unless your equipment specifically calls for one or the other, they should be interchangeable.

I understand that the MMC cards are found in newer cell phones to keep their “personality” and allow you to move your phone book, settings and whatnot between phones. As for the high speed cards, let me simply state that I have had close up and personal experience with the difference and what I hate about it is that I lost a shot to it. By far, it is worth the 15-20% premiums placed on the faster cards. On some cameras, you might even run into problems with the camera not “seeing” the memory from time to time when you turn the camera on.

I went to Athens last year and decided to buy a second chip while I was wandering around in the Plaka by myself. Surrounded by truly memorable scenery, I figured I’d need the extra storage as I had plenty of batteries. But here’s where I messed up. It was really expensive in Athens and the exchange rate between Euros and the US dollar wasn’t in my favor, so I was feeling cheap.

I purchased a slow card and used it while wandering around. When I saw some local kids running toward me with a stick and hoop going downhill, I whipped out my camera, turned it on and started shooting. Only the camera wasn’t working - the memory card had produced an error.

A follow-up call with the manufacturer pretty much convinced me never to buy cheapo 3rd party slow flash card memory again. As for your choices on digital cams, although I’m quite a Nikon fan, between those two I’d choose the Kodak Z730. If you want to also consider another choice or two, try taking a gander at Cannon’s new S2 IS. According to the tests done by Digital Photography review, XD cards are faster than Compact Flash cards on S9000.

However, I can’t tell you if there’s going to be a significant difference in using a standard or fast card of the same format (either XD or CF) as I have never used this camera. As it’s a semi-pro model, I would assume it has an internal fast buffer. This buffer is a small but very fast memory where the camera stores the pictures temporarily while the flash card is busy writing the previous picture. This way you can take many pictures in a row until the buffer fills up and only then you’ll notice the difference between a fast and a regular card.

Once again, I don’t know if this model has a buffer and how big is it, but I think it does. I’m telling this based on the experience I have with my camera (Canon Rebel XT) that does have a buffer.

The buffer is only used while writing pictures not when reading them from the card. So you may notice a small difference when you review the shots you took or download them to your computer. One more point to consider is. If one manufacture sells a card as 20 xs and another one sells the card as 40x not necessarily it will take half the time the other will to do the same task.

There are many other factors involved as your camera speed (when reviewing pictures in camera) or your computer speed (when downloading). What I think is the most important thing when buying cards is to choose a known brand. Then pick any of their middle level cards and you’ll be very satisfied.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for http://www.BuyRAM.info/ , a computer memory Super Store. BuyRAM.info carries an excellent selection of computer memory, notebook memory, and digital camera memory for every type of computer, notebook, and digital camera on the market.

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