Camera Labs

Hello everyone,

A (stupid) question from a beginning DSLR-user. I'm waiting for the release of the Canon 650D to start my photograph career. I understood that you should get class 10 memory cards, and that Sandisk cards are about the best ones you can get at the moment. Now is my question, is there a minimum speed that the cards have to be able to handle in order to prevent unnecessary delays while taking pictures. I found several speed options for class 10 cards, from 30MB/s to 95MB/s. I can emagine that 95 MB/s is complete overkill, though I would hate to buy a card which causes me to have to wait when taking pictures. Again: Is there a minimum speed that I should look for? And what size should my first memory card be? Is 32 GB enough?

Thanks in advance,
Marco Cronenberg

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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." Albert Einstein

Anything that is rated Class 10 will be more than enough for the 650D! There a required speed for it to be classed as a Class 10 but I am not sure what it is. In terms of memory 32gb is a lot of space. I would probably say 16gb is enough unless you plan on shooting RAW or shooting for a week or so without transferring them to your computer. If you are going on holiday without taking a laptop 32gb might be the way to go. Also if your on a budget check out the Transcend Class 10 SD cards. I have a San Disk Extreme Pro card which cost me 4x as much as my Transcend Class 10 SD card and in all honesty I can't tell the difference

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Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

I've had a Transcend card before which died on me, and I heard they tend to do that often, so now I only use the Sandisk Extreme cards.

In a 550D I tried both class 6 and class 10 cards, and for taking photos there is very little difference.

When taking videos, if you're using a class 10 card you can take pictures "simultaneously". The video will freeze for 1-2 secs, but will resume after the picture is done taking. With a class 6 card, after 1-2 pictures the video would choke up and die. With the class 10 card, the video can handle you taking multiple pictures with no issues.

Another thing to consider is the transfer speed to your computer. Transfering a lot of files takes a lot of time. I think a 16gb class 10 30mb/sec card takes something like 8 minutes to copy, something like that. It depends how much of a hury you are into. I'm not a professional, so I don't care, but if I transfered 1000s of pictures a week, I'd start to care more.

The other important factor is durability. How often do they become unusable, and how well do they resist weird things such as falling in water, etc.

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Cameras: Canon EOS Rebel T2i, Canon S90
Lenses: Tamron: SP70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di VC USD, Canon: EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens, 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III, and EF 50mm f/1.8 II
Retired camera: Fujifilm Finepix s700

As already said, Class 10 (minimum write speed of 10MB/s) is ideal, especially for RAW + JPEG shooting but the ultra-fast (30MB/s, 45MB/s et al) cards become redundant when taking stills. It's when you shoot video that the faster write speed Class 10 cards are essential.

Is it not practical to buy four 8GB (or two 16GB) cards and swap them as you need to as opposed to a single 32GB card for the sake of argument? While a single large capacity card has obvious benefits, it makes damage limitation more difficult as I explained here.

viewtopic.php?p=235427#p235427

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Bodies: Canon EOS 550D w/ Magic Lantern
Lenses: Tokina AT-X 116 Pro DX f/2.8, Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
Accessories: YongNuo Speedlite YN-468 Flash, Neewer Macro LED Ring Light, Meike Battery Grip, YongNuo RF-602 Wireless Flash Trigger & Receiver YongNuo WR-128 Wireless Remote Control

Well I have had my Transcend for over a year now taken over 35K photos with and had no problems. I have also had no problems with my San Disk. A card dying on you could happen with a Transcend or San Disk class. Whilst San Disk cards may be slightly more reliable both brands are very reliable and you would be unlucky to get a card from either brand that fails.

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Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

I would also concur with the idea that one card is a bit of a liability. I would definitely go down the route of 2x cards of half your total desired capacity, in case something bad happens to one of them.

I also swear by Lexar Pro cards, as they've been nothing but amazingly fast and come bundled with a registration code for Lexar's ImageRescue software in the event of overwritten or corrupted cards. It's served me well in those few circumstances I've had to use it on other peoples' cards. My SD and CF cards have been rock-solid for years and I've never had a problem that wasn't my own doing.

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Canon EOS 5D MkII | Canon EOS 7D | Canon Digital Rebel XSi | EF 35mm f/1.4L | EF 50mm f/1.8 II | EF 85mm f/1.8 | EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM | EF 135mm f/2L | EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS | 580EX II | LumoPro LP-120

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I agree with Plymer multiple cards can be useful. If you loose or misplace a card at least you have a spare and can keep shooting. You could go with 2x8gb cards but I wouldn't go with anything smaller than 8gb or you might have to change cards quite often which can get annoying!

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Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin

I may have done things different, I run two 16gb SanDisk Extreme Pro's 95MB/s in my Nikon D7000.

One captures JPEGs, the other captures RAW files.

As already mentioned in the Canon forum discussions about sandisk memorycards, the prices of memorycards are dropping a lot! Apperently it has to do with a change that sandisk made. They used to have the Ultra line which had speeds of 15MB/s and the Extreme line which went to 30MB/s. Now they changed it around so that the speed of the Ultra line is 30MB/s and the Extreme went up to 45MB/s. According to representative I spoke of a Dutch webshop, this means that the prices of the 30MB/s cards went down considerably.

The Sandisk SDHC Ultra 16GB (30MB/s) goes for €16,00 including sending cost.
The Sandisk SDHC Ultra 32GB (30MB/s) goes for €30,00 including sending cost.
The Sandisk SDXC Ultra 64GB (30MB/s) goes for €52,00 including sending cost.

I'm considering taking 2x 16GB, for the reasons given above, to spread the risk. And to be honest, 16 euro's for a card with that speed is pretty good value for money (in my opinion).

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"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." Albert Einstein

32gb is a massive amount of storage. Unless you plan on going for about a week without emptying your card it might be a bit of a waste of money. Working on the basis that the average Jpeg is about 6mb you would be able to take roughly 5460 photos. You may find you would be better of spending your money on a smaller better card or something else like a filter or bags ect. If you do plan on going on regular holidays without a laptop though 32gb would be the way to go. The SanDisk Ultra is a pretty good SD card and more than fast enough for your camera. I don't know how much cheaper Transcend cards are but if its quite a lot I would definitely go with them.

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Camera: Canon 550D with battery grip
Lenses: Canon 24-105mm f/4L, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm,
Accessories: Manfrotto 055XPROB with 808RC4 head, Canon 430ex II speedlite, Lowepro Nova 180AW and Lowepro Pro Runner 450AW

Oh that is so lame, every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer -Stewie Griffin