Are all Memory Cards equal ?

[blaze one]

I am looking for a 512MB SD card for my Canon A520 .
I have found a few different brands , and they range in price(on the same website) from $39 all the way to $79 ..... what's the difference ?
here is the site i am ordering from
http://accessories.dell.com/sna/productlisting.aspx?c=ca&l=en&cs=CADHS1&category_id=6303&first=true

 

[bigreen505]

Not really, some are better than others and some just don't work well with certain camera brands. If you shoot Canon you are always safe with Sandisk.

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

i have seen these at costco actually, really cheap!

1gb for like $59

 

[blaze one]

ok thanks guys sandisk it is then

 

[Scott Brady]

the biggest difference is read/write speed and operating temperature range.

 

[goodtimes]

the biggest difference is read/write speed and operating temperature range.

Scott, are these specs printed anywhere on packaging? How big of a difference is there? Is it something that will definately be noticable to a casual user who doesn't take rapid series of shots very often? Or is it really only going to be noticable to the "5%"?

 

[whitethaiger]

Scott, are these specs printed anywhere on packaging? How big of a difference is there? Is it something that will definately be noticable to a casual user who doesn't take rapid series of shots very often? Or is it really only going to be noticable to the "5%"?

With an digital SLR you probably have a buffer that can hold a few shots so that the camera won't have to slow down when you shoot a burst. The speed comes into play also when reading from the card to your computer. For an SLR you get into the Gb range and with a slow card & slow reader it can take forever.

I've used some of the more obscure 'brands' out there and haven't had a problem with reliability. From my experience I'd say for the casual user you can go with what's on sale.

 

[Scott Brady]

The big difference is read/write speed

Scandisk:

Standard- 4mbps
Ultra II- 9mbps
Ultra III- 20mbps


and temp range:

Ultra III
temperatures—from
-13º F to 185º F
-25º C to 85º C

 

[Ursidae69]

Test statistics for various cards are available. The pulldown list breaks it down for various cameras. This link is for the Rebel XT.

 

[Life_in_4Lo]

I use the Extreme 1G and it's the best of all the cards I have. I think it's well worth the bit of extra scratch since I take photos where I may never go again or will look very different in a year's time, etc.

I have other cards that I use but the Extreme is the best I've used. I have never used the Extreme 3 but would not hesitiate to get the best quality for storage.

Backing up to a iPod or hd on the trail would not hurt either:beer:

 

[goodtimes]

I see....didn't think about speed from the card to the computer....after certain trips, I have spend (literally) over an hour moving slightly less than one gig from a scandisk ultra II, through a USB 2.0 port, onto my laptop. Too much time if you ask me. Of course, the dRebel only puts 100 images per "folder", so you can't just tell it to transfer all the pics on the card and walk away...you have to tell it to move the first 100, then go back in and tell it to move the second 100 pics, then the 3rd 100 pics (300 is about all I can fit on the 1 gig card). But, following Chucks link (viewing the page for the dRebel, not the DrebelXT), the ultra II is only 5% slower than the fastest card tested in that camera...so I guess this is about as fast as it gets (with the camara I have...and we wont compare speeds with the XT, or the 20D).

 

[whitethaiger]

I see....didn't think about speed from the card to the computer....after certain trips, I have spend (literally) over an hour moving slightly less than one gig from a scandisk ultra II, through a USB 2.0 port, onto my laptop. Too much time if you ask me. Of course, the dRebel only puts 100 images per "folder", so you can't just tell it to transfer all the pics on the card and walk away...you have to tell it to move the first 100, then go back in and tell it to move the second 100 pics, then the 3rd 100 pics (300 is about all I can fit on the 1 gig card). But, following Chucks link (viewing the page for the dRebel, not the DrebelXT), the ultra II is only 5% slower than the fastest card tested in that camera...so I guess this is about as fast as it gets (with the camara I have...and we wont compare speeds with the XT, or the 20D).

That's too long, something is not right. Some things to look into:

How are you downloading: 1) Cable from camera to computer or 2) remove card and read from card reader?

I switched from cable-computer to card reader because the Canon software complains about low battery when downloading from the RebelXT even though the battery is still good for dozens of pictures. I also think it's faster this way.

You say your laptop port is 2.0, but is the camera/cable also 2.0?

A simple USB 2.0 CF reader costs < $10, I just got one for the truck and downloaded 1G in a few minutes.

I'm not sure where you get that 100 pic limit. The Canon software for our old A70 and RebelXT downloads everything.
When downloading via card reader you can just select all folders and also download everything at once.

 

[Ursidae69]

GT, get a card reader, the USB cable between your camera and PC is probably slowing things down a lot.

 

[bigreen505]

I see....didn't think about speed from the card to the computer....after certain trips, I have spend (literally) over an hour moving slightly less than one gig from a scandisk ultra II, through a USB 2.0 port, onto my laptop. Too much time if you ask me. Of course, the dRebel only puts 100 images per "folder", so you can't just tell it to transfer all the pics on the card and walk away...you have to tell it to move the first 100, then go back in and tell it to move the second 100 pics, then the 3rd 100 pics (300 is about all I can fit on the 1 gig card). But, following Chucks link (viewing the page for the dRebel, not the DrebelXT), the ultra II is only 5% slower than the fastest card tested in that camera...so I guess this is about as fast as it gets (with the camara I have...and we wont compare speeds with the XT, or the 20D).

USB 2.0 is not a reasonable way to move data on a mac, except for the new Mactels. Stick with Firewire. For whatever reason, macs are not efficient with USB 2.0 and it is not much faster than USB 1.0

 

[goodtimes]

No Mac....

Card readers are that cheap? Huh...I might have to try one. As for the 100 pics per folder deal....if I go and take 280 some odd pics, then read the card, it will have 3 folders ("canon 100", "canon 200", "canon300"). The first 100 pics are stored in "canon 100", etc. I have read a number of complaints about this on camera forums in the past. Maybe there is some way to change this?