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Thank you so much for your advice!
I have now got some idea about this issue.
Really appreciated your time, guys!

Kyoko

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As this wasn't really a Nikon specific discussion I've moved the thread over to the Storage section.

Bob.

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Citruspers - You may indeed be right - at least in theory. But as Bob rightly says - good quality cards will last a lot of cycles anyway.

Following the Canon advice in the Manual - what I'm doing seems to be "maintaining performance" of the cards rather well.

I have a camera - Fuji HS10 - that is "rather leisurely" about saving bursts to card - and if you're zapping-off bursts of RAWs or RAW+JPEGs at 8 or 5fps (the 12fps speed is too fast to be useful for most things) - in a second or so - the "Save time" to next burst/shot becomes critical.

There's a very noticeable difference when saving a burst of RAW+JPEGs can vary between 9-10 seconds and 23-24 seconds. And yes - I have a hand-held click-button electronic timer... That's the actual time difference - using my "fastest" card (don't laugh!) - a 4GB Sandisk Extreme HD Video one - supposedly 133x / 20 MB/sec - when it's been used 6-8 times with just the usual camera Std Formatting - and when that card is Low-Level formatted in the SX10 - then Std Formatted in the HS10

Sure - that might be wearing the card out a bit faster - but the difference is so large it's more than worth it for the purpose. I had it before I bought the HS10 - but it's been doing that in the HS10 for 10 months, now, too.

If it does eventually wreck the card - that 4GB one isn't very expensive - so I'll get another. It's the only card I have that gets those Save times down around 10-seconds.

And before anyone reminds me - yes, I am finally soon getting a "real" camera - I do need something to put my Takumar-etc M42s on...

Regards, Dave.

Interesting results Dave! I'm assuming the dlowdowns can be attributed to either fragmentation, or that the cells first need to be erased before they can be written to.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Citruspers - Indeed, and don't forget that my current cameras - Fuji S2000HD, now relegated to end-pocket of carry-bag camera, Canon SX10, and Fuji HS10 - are all small-sensor P&S, so don't have the fast processors and quick write-times of DSLRs.

I'm already thinking, for the Pentax K-R, of getting 2+ good - Sandisk, I think will be okay - 8GB SDHCs, and just keeping them for that camera. Mixing the cards used in the P&S devices, in the much faster DSLR, might not be too good an idea.

Dave.

Well if you properly format them it shouldn't be a problem. As for the SD cards I indeed recommend the Sandisks. In my testing, their class 4 Sandisks slightly outperformed the Class 10 Trancend cards (Sandisk=11 MB seq write, Transcend = 10 MB seq write)
The Sandisk was also quicker to access photos stored on the card, whilst writing to it at the same time (field testing, no concrete data).

Then again, in some cases the SD card speed is less important on a DSLR, because it has such a large buffer.

Going way off topic here, sorry original poster!

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

@Kyoko

i do admits that u can have only copy, but u can all way copy it to ur back up hard disk first and cut it out at ur last hard.

So far it work well for me and i don't like to format my card a lot, too.

Thank for info.

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Well, i never had a problem like that, i shot almost 6000 photos and multiple file transfer between PC with my 2GB kingston card (i like sd cards more than usb drives) and the card is ok.

But i do format always when i shoot more than half of card, because i want to be sure there is no things left. a couple of 100-200 photos dont really need to format, just to delete in PC.

if you have a problem with card, try to use some good card reader, usually big as credit card. I also had problems with reading and writing when i used kingston micro USB reader (looks like USB key). Card was ok but it got really hot when in that usb thing, i assume the key could not chance 5V to 3.3V properly

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I'm new to DSLR's, so please be patient and take my opinions with reserve. Thank you : ) Yes, i am Canon man.
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Cards dont need to be formated everytime but a quick format is good practice.

it is worth doing a quick format every now n then and a full format less often. eitherway a format will ussually rectify a card that appears to be faulty otherwise a replacement is in order.

transfering files via the the camera is slower than a card reader most of the time and will be affected by the lengh and quality of the cable.

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Bryan