Dumb Question?

[denni]

What is the difference between a Scandisk SD Card and a Scandisk SD Memory Card? The first is $6 and the second is $12.88. No one seems to know and yall were so much help when I was choosing camera that I was hoping you could answer. Thanks!!

[Coracii]

What is the difference between a Scandisk SD Card and a Scandisk SD Memory Card? The first is $6 and the second is $12.88. No one seems to know and yall were so much help when I was choosing camera that I was hoping you could answer. Thanks!!

 

SanDisk makes quite a few different levels of memory cards in SD format, with the more expensive cards having a faster read/write capability and (obviously) more capacity. They have their basic SD card which is blue, their Ultra which increases the speed to 15mb/sec, and their Extreme which is 30mb/sec as a few examples. There's also many varieties of SD, from the plain SD to SD-HC to SD-XC (increasing in cost each time).

[bobmacliberty]

My guess is that they are both SD memory cards, and the difference in wording is insignificant. The more expensive one is either faster or has more storage capacity. Storage capacity will be specified in Gigabytes (GB) and should be pretty prominantly displayed.

 

Faster cards are often needed to capture high-def video, minimize the wait time between being able to take pictures (while the previous picture is being recorded on the card), and they can download pictures to your computer faster (assuming that you have a fast enough card reader for your computer). The terminology used can be confusing. Sometimes, the speed of the card is specified by a class number (e.g. class 2). Higher class numbers are faster. Sometimes speed is specified as Megabits/second (Mbit/sec) or Megabytes/second (MB/sec). There's a table here that shows the standard definitions for speed, but what a vendor quotes for a particular card is often different from the actual standard, particularly cheaper "no name" vendors. SanDisk is a reputable vendor of memory cards.

[chipmaster]

Hopefully you are talking Sandisk, their website is here: http://www.sandisk.com/consumer-products/camera

 

Many companies now try and spin similar or same product 5 different ways to maximize price.

 

If you are talking any entry P&S that doesn't do video any card will likely be fine. Want to do HD video I would suggest class 6 card at a minimum. That in itself is confusion as it is shown in many different wasy

 

Class 6

40x

48MBits

6MBytes

 

The faster the card generally the more expensive and likely faster download to your computer not better or faster in your camera

[Turtles06]

Faster cards are often needed to capture high-def video, minimize the wait time between being able to take pictures (while the previous picture is being recorded on the card), and they can download pictures to your computer faster (assuming that you have a fast enough card reader for your computer). The terminology used can be confusing. Sometimes, the speed of the card is specified by a class number (e.g. class 2). Higher class numbers are faster. Sometimes speed is specified as Megabits/second (Mbit/sec) or Megabytes/second (MB/sec).

 

Interestingly, I happened to be talking to the wonderful tech support people at SanDisk the other day (and they really are wonderful and helpful) on another matter, and we got into a discussion of this very thing, as I was a bit confused about the "Class" rating (while I totally understand the read/write speed). They explained to me that the Class of the card (e.g., 2, 4, 6, 10) and the read/write speed (e.g., 15, 20, 20 Mb/sec) are two different things. The Class rating is the minimum sustained speed of the card (for example, a Class 4 card has a minimum sustained speed of 4Mb/sec). The read/write speed is a measurement of how fast your image can be "written" to the card, or read off it.

 

As others have noted, the Class rating is most important if you are shooting video, as too low a class for your particular camera, and your recording may stop or fail to capture certain data. For most video, you'll want a Class 6 card (though you might be successful with a Class 4 card. Check your owner's manual and/or talk to the camera mfr's own tech people or check their web site).

 

If you are not shooting video, a Class 4 card should be sufficient. I've had no problems using that in my Nikon D50. I've just replaced that with a D7000, and am going to upgrade my cards to Class 6, as the camera does have video capabilities.

 

Class 4 cards are pretty cheap. SanDisk Ultra is an excellent choice for that Class.

 

The Class 6 cards are pricey; Class 10 even more so.

[denni]

Thank you all so much for the clarification. They were both 4 GB cards. The blue one was more expensive than the red one. They were both same brand, Scandisk. So what I'm understanding is the cheaper (red one) one takes longer to record picture. I'm using in point & shoot that does have video so I will go with the faster one. :)

[bobmacliberty]

The faster the card generally the more expensive and likely faster download to your computer not better or faster in your camera

 

For the vast majority of people, you're right that speed in the camera won't matter. For those who short sports though, it can make a big difference. My camera (Canon 7D) shoots 8 frames per second, which is important if you're shooting something with high speed action like football or in my case, my daughter's dance competitions. Especially if you shoot RAW, the camera's buffer can fill up faster than it can be written to the memory card.

 

I ran into this a couple of times at a dance competition yesterday. I could get about 10-12 continuous shots before the buffer filled and I had to wait a few seconds before I could shot again. I lost one great shot where I pushed the shutter and nothing happened. That was using a Sandisk Ultra rated at 30MB/sec. Time to buy a faster memory card.

[chipmaster]

Agreed

 

Many things are important here, FPS, buffer size, camera settings, write speed, and lastly card speed.

 

Even within the limits of your camera and card what you choose to set the camera at; jpg quality, raw or raw+jpg, noise reduction and other settings can slow your camera down.

 

Card matters but only to the limit of your camera's interface limits. Even simlar "rated" cards IE the fasted CFs avaiable from Sandisk, Lexar, and others can have 2x difference in actual performance.

 

I too shoot a lot of action at maximum FPS but wouldn't ever dream of raw :D Almost everyone has too much card ( speed wise ) to their need. Me included, I likley only use that burst speed 5% of the time, but I'm luck my camera has a huge buffer so with discipline I'm almost good with any card

 

Happy shooting!

 

For the vast majority of people, you're right that speed in the camera won't matter. For those who short sports though, it can make a big difference. My camera (Canon 7D) shoots 8 frames per second, which is important if you're shooting something with high speed action like football or in my case, my daughter's dance competitions. Especially if you shoot RAW, the camera's buffer can fill up faster than it can be written to the memory card.

 

I ran into this a couple of times at a dance competition yesterday. I could get about 10-12 continuous shots before the buffer filled and I had to wait a few seconds before I could shot again. I lost one great shot where I pushed the shutter and nothing happened. That was using a Sandisk Ultra rated at 30MB/sec. Time to buy a faster memory card.