Best card for Nikon D40

[Lesanne]

I am looking to purchase a new sd card for my camera, can anyone recomend a card and size for the D40. I have a 4GB card at the moment but would like a 2nd card.

thanks

 

Les

[Jo and Rob]

I would recommend Sandisk as I have take over 100,000 images on these cards and never lost an image (touch wood) they also have a very high read and write speed, look for at least a class 4 SDHC card or above for the Nikon D40 if you intend to shoot RAW and expect the camera to keep up with a burst on the motor drive. As for memory size of card it depends if you shoot RAW or JPEG and how many pictures you take. These days even 16GB cards are very cheap.

[chipmaster]

I am looking to purchase a new sd card for my camera, can anyone recomend a card and size for the D40. I have a 4GB card at the moment but would like a 2nd card.

thanks

 

Les

 

The D40's slower frame rate means you don't need any of the premium cards that are advertised. Sure the faster cards will read and write faster to your PC thru a USB2 port, but your camera does 2.6 frames/second. For a 5 Meg camera that works out to about 2-3MBytes/picture so any card that tranfers 8-10 MBytes/second will be good.

 

Sandisk Ultra/Extreme III or equalvalent will be more than good enough, or other brand 133x.

 

Size, well the more the better, as size matters :) 4GB is going to be cheapest if you can even find them., with 8GB IMHO the best value, 16-32 are still priced a bit higher and you pay a premium for the higher density. One thing if you buy at OfficeDepot/Max, Bestbuy or other major chain make sure they are ON SALE. Their is a promo every other week where I live, when not on sale the price is never good.

 

I would say Sandisk, Lexar, PNY are all good.

[Jo and Rob]

The D40's slower frame rate means you don't need any of the premium cards that are advertised. Sure the faster cards will read and write faster to your PC thru a USB2 port, but your camera does 2.6 frames/second. For a 5 Meg camera that works out to about 2-3MBytes/picture so any card that tranfers 8-10 MBytes/second will be good.

 

This is not the case if the OP intends to shoot RAW as more and more photographers are now doing the D40's RAW files are between 17-18MB per picture where a class 4 SDHC card will be of use.

[pierces]

This is not the case if the OP intends to shoot RAW as more and more photographers are now doing the D40's RAW files are between 17-18MB per picture where a class 4 SDHC card will be of use.

 

18MB is the size of the RAW file when opened in a viewer or editor, the actual on-disk and therefore transfer size of a RAW file for a D40 is stated as 5.0MB in the Nikon brochure.

 

Since most people don't shoot RAW and the Large/Fine Jpeg is only about 3MB, the 15MB/s of an Ultea II SanDisk would be sufficient.

 

Dave

[Jo and Rob]

18MB is the size of the RAW file when opened in a viewer or editor, the actual on-disk and therefore transfer size of a RAW file for a D40 is stated as 5.0MB in the Nikon brochure.

 

The Nikon D40 set to RAW shoots at 6MB x 3 colour channels =18. I am not saying all photographers shoot RAW, however if you have a card capable of writing files faster after the buffer is full, this is of an advantage. It would be a great shame if a humpback whale jumped out of the water and you only managed to get off 5 frames because you hit the buffer all for the sake of an extra $10 for a better card! As a full time professional photographer I would always advise that you pick a card that can keep up with your camera when it is set to it's maximum quality settings. I would recommend the Sandisk SDHC Ultra range or above.

Ultra range of SDHC cards

[pierces]

The Nikon D40 set to RAW shoots at 6MB x 3 colour channels =18. I am not saying all photographers shoot RAW, however if you have a card capable of writing files faster after the buffer is full, this is of an advantage. It would be a great shame if a humpback whale jumped out of the water and you only managed to get off 5 frames because you hit the buffer all for the sake of an extra $10 for a better card! As a full time professional photographer I would always advise that you pick a card that can keep up with your camera when it is set to it's maximum quality settings. I would recommend the Sandisk SDHC Ultra range or above.

Ultra range of SDHC cards

 

Actually I did recommend the Ultra II as a minimum (with a slight mis-spelling). I have no arguement with getting a faster card, but the only advantage would be transfer speed to the computer. (Not inconsiderable when transferring a full 8GB card!)

 

The 6MP x 3 is true when the file is decoded and displayed in the viewer/editor's memory, but keep in mind that an .NEF file has a lossless compression that reduces the storage size of the file. That's why a D40 6MP RAW image is only about 5MB on the disk.

 

For an example, a Large/Fine JPEG from my A700 is usually about 7MB-10MB and a RAW file is 18MB on the disk (card). When either file type is opened in Photoshop or an image viewer such as IrfanView, they are always expanded to 34.8MB in memory (resolution X RGB). If I save the file as an uncompressed .TIF or .BMP, the resultant file is always 34.8MB on the disk.

 

When a file is written out of the camera's buffer to the card, it has already been compressed if it is a .NEF or processed and compressed if it is a JPG.

 

I hope this clears up my point.

 

Dave

[Lesanne]

Thanks for the replies, did not mean to cause a discussion on file size but you guys know what you are talking about.

 

On that I tend to transfer to computer and make a dvd so what is the best resolution etc to shoot at

I have D40 with the standard 18 - 55 lens and a AF-S DX VR Zoom 18 - 200 lens and SB400 flash.? :confused:

[pierces]

Thanks for the replies, did not mean to cause a discussion on file size but you guys know what you are talking about.

 

On that I tend to transfer to computer and make a dvd so what is the best resolution etc to shoot at

I have D40 with the standard 18 - 55 lens and a AF-S DX VR Zoom 18 - 200 lens and SB400 flash.? :confused:

 

ALWAYS shoot at the highest resolution!

 

You can crop or shrink later, but making a smaller image larger always loses quality.

 

I wrote an article on resolution and quality that has some good info and is newbie-friendly: http://www.pptphoto.com/ArticlePages/VivaLaResolution.htm

 

It may answer some questions.

 

Happy shooting!

 

Dave

[Jo and Rob]

but the only advantage would be transfer speed to the computer.

 

The write speed to camera does make a big difference between cards. The card performance database produced by Rob Galbraith may be of use to anybody wanting to buy a CF or SD card.

 

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

 

Cheers Rob