SD Card question

[Craky]

Recently purchased a new camera for the upcoming cruise, the Olympus Style Tough 8010. Did some research on here and elsewhere and finally decided on it.

 

Question; how big of an SD card does everybody seem to think is needed? I got an 8GB card and was told it 'ought' to be big enough. Yeah, we plan on taking pics of everything and want enough storage space, the camera also will take vids. How much space do vids eat up?

 

Any opinioins? What size is everybody using and how many pics are you getting on your cards?

[jayarrG7]

Your camera manual should indicate the amount of space that will be consumed on the SD card.

Video is a huge hog, and will put a big draw on the battery, so go prepared.

Also to be considered, what camera settings have you selected for your photos. For example, your camera can be set to record in 14, 8 or 5 megapixels per shot. Obviously, the higher settings will consume more space on the SD card. Go to low, and you won't get the same quality.

 

An extra SD card or two might be the ticket. I use one 4gig and a couple of 2 gig cards, but record all video by a dedicated video camera.

[mgm61]

Your camera manual should indicate the amount of space that will be consumed on the SD card.

Video is a huge hog, and will put a big draw on the battery, so go prepared.

Also to be considered, what camera settings have you selected for your photos. For example, your camera can be set to record in 14, 8 or 5 megapixels per shot. Obviously, the higher settings will consume more space on the SD card. Go to low, and you won't get the same quality.

 

An extra SD card or two might be the ticket. I use one 4gig and a couple of 2 gig cards, but record all video by a dedicated video camera.

 

 

but don't you feel like the ships photographer carrying 2 cameras around? You never know when you'll need the movie mode, like someone doing stupid things or great things.

[chipmaster]

Memory is just so cheap get a couple extra cards, 4GB and 8GB are pretty cheap. I'd recommend Extreme III at a minimum if you plan to do a lot of video 8GB second card for sure.

 

These very slim cameras also have weak batteries. If you think you'll take more than 100-150 pictures a day and 5-10" of video than get an extra battery. They are pricey but the having a dead camera at a kodak moment is the worst.

 

Recently purchased a new camera for the upcoming cruise, the Olympus Style Tough 8010. Did some research on here and elsewhere and finally decided on it.

 

Question; how big of an SD card does everybody seem to think is needed? I got an 8GB card and was told it 'ought' to be big enough. Yeah, we plan on taking pics of everything and want enough storage space, the camera also will take vids. How much space do vids eat up?

 

Any opinioins? What size is everybody using and how many pics are you getting on your cards?

[judynorth]

Keep in mind that cards do fail (it has happened to me) so I'd recommend that you have several cards so that if one fails or is damaged or lost, you don't loose all of your vacation pictures. Memory is cheap when compared to what you spent on your cruise. :eek: Having a second battery is also a good idea. I know that the battery on my camera seldom lasts for a full day of shooting so I always take a spare.

[Craky]

good points about memory being cheap and disc failing. I already bought a second battery and charger w/cig lighter adapter. From that perspective I'm covered. Looks like I'll pick up a second 8gb or bigger card. I have a couple old 1gb cards from my old camera but was going to let the kids have that one to use.

 

Good advice- thanks, what else do I need to consider? Shooting under water, any tricks or advice for that?

[chipmaster]

Card failure is extremely rare. IMHO the most common reason card/data gets corrupt is when reading/writing is going on and they turn off the camera/pull the card. The cards themselves have no moving parts. Buy a geniuine card that from a reputable brand and your probability of failure is miniscule. To have repeated failures one should look at what they are doing versus blame the equipment.

 

Another tip ALWAYS ALWAYS reformat your card IN THE CAMERA after dumping the pictures.

 

good points about memory being cheap and disc failing. I already bought a second battery and charger w/cig lighter adapter. From that perspective I'm covered. Looks like I'll pick up a second 8gb or bigger card. I have a couple old 1gb cards from my old camera but was going to let the kids have that one to use.

 

Good advice- thanks, what else do I need to consider? Shooting under water, any tricks or advice for that?

[oldmama]

I take thousands of pictures, so I have a separate SD card for each day, sometimes 2 when I take 2 excursions in the same day. It is better to have too many than run out.

[Turtles06]

Like oldmama above, I also like to use smaller cards and not have my whole vacation on one card, just in case something were to happen to the card or camera. I keep the other cards locked in the safe....

[Craky]

I think I'm set with memory cards. Went and picked two 4gb HC cards today, combined with my 8gb card and that should be plenty. I'll probably use one 4gb card in my old cannon sureshot that I'll let the two teenage boys use.

 

Not really impressed with the quality of video this thing shoots, I'm going to try it with the 4gb cards as they are the hc variety and see if that makes a difference. The 8gb is a garden variety bought off amazon for cheap. Still playing with the new camera. The quality of the pics seem pretty good.

[donaldsc]

.

 

Good advice- thanks, what else do I need to consider? Shooting under water, any tricks or advice for that?

 

You need something to back up your card data to. I do a download from the card each day to my netbook saving the pictures for each day in a separate directory. I then back up the day's pictures to an external drive. I also take a file recovery program with me that will let me recover photos from a card that has gone bad.

 

Call me paranoid but also call me protected.

 

DON

[ion-man]

Hey Don, you are not paranoid, better safe than sorry. I do everything you do except the data recovery option. What recovery program do you use for retrieval?

Thx.

[Turtles06]

You need something to back up your card data to. I do a download from the card each day to my netbook saving the pictures for each day in a separate directory. I then back up the day's pictures to an external drive. I also take a file recovery program with me that will let me recover photos from a card that has gone bad.

 

Call me paranoid but also call me protected.

 

DON

 

Happy to know I'm not the only person a bit "paranoid" here as well. I backup to a netbook....

 

Also, I recently bought a Nikon D7000. (Loving it so far, btw.) One of the "neat" features it has is a second memory card slot. (Not why I bought it, but neat nonetheless.) The second card can be used for several things as you direct, including pure duplication of the first card. I am thinking that on our next trip, I will get a big card or two for that purpose, and just let them serve as an additional backup.

[awboater]

For SD cards, I like 4gb and 8gb cards, as they are large enough to hold at least 100 RAW photos, and small enough that it doesn't take all day to scan the photos in your PC. And the price/capacity price point seems to favor this size - at least for now.

 

If you have a DSLR and plan on shooting RAW in continuous mode, buy a high-speed 10X card.

 

You will need the speed for the card to keep up with the camera. If you don't shoot RAW or in continuous mode, slower cards (2x) will work. DSLRs typically have an internal buffer that will keep up with your shooting speed yet not cause a delay in transferring the images to your SD cards.

 

But the combination of RAW and continuous shooting mode will overwhelm a slow card.

 

The 10x cards are a bit expensive, so I have a mix of them I have two of the x10 cards - reserved for the rare occasion when I want to shoot in rapid mode. The remainder of my cards are 2x or 4x.

[macca46]

Recently purchased a new camera for the upcoming cruise, the Olympus Style Tough 8010. Did some research on here and elsewhere and finally decided on it.

 

Question; how big of an SD card does everybody seem to think is needed? I got an 8GB card and was told it 'ought' to be big enough. Yeah, we plan on taking pics of everything and want enough storage space, the camera also will take vids. How much space do vids eat up?

 

Any opinioins? What size is everybody using and how many pics are you getting on your cards?

 

This may a bit late but I just bought a Camera that can shoot HD 720p and it uses 4 Gigabytes in 29 minutes and 4 Gigabytes is the maximum file size limit that Windows accepts in this file format.

I read that that the file transfer rate for HD video can be pretty demanding so I purchased 2 X 16Gig SDHC class 10 cards for around $29 Australian each.

The exchange rate is pretty well parity at the moment so you should be able to get a similar deal.

 

Hope this helps

[johneeo]

Recently purchased a new camera for the upcoming cruise, the Olympus Style Tough 8010. Did some research on here and elsewhere and finally decided on it.

 

Question; how big of an SD card does everybody seem to think is needed? I got an 8GB card and was told it 'ought' to be big enough. Yeah, we plan on taking pics of everything and want enough storage space, the camera also will take vids. How much space do vids eat up?

 

Any opinioins? What size is everybody using and how many pics are you getting on your cards?

 

Big enough depends on a number of things. First, how many megapixels are you shooting at? Will you be shooting RAW. My Nikon shoots in both RAW and JPG, meaning that when I take a picture, the camera stores 2 pictures.

 

But, when you put the memory card in the camera, the camera will tell almost exactly how many pictures you have left to put to the memory card.

[dileep]

Big enough depends on a number of things. First, how many megapixels are you shooting at? Will you be shooting RAW. My Nikon shoots in both RAW and JPG, meaning that when I take a picture, the camera stores 2 pictures.

 

But, when you put the memory card in the camera, the camera will tell almost exactly how many pictures you have left to put to the memory card.

 

You can select if you want the pictures to be stored in both formats. The RAW files are much bigger, but allow more editing. Does your camera give you a different number for the number of pictures left depending on the mode (JPEG vs JPEG+RAW) you are in currently? I will check my camera later today.

[pierces]

Does your camera give you a different number for the number of pictures left depending on the mode (JPEG vs JPEG+RAW) you are in currently?

 

Yes they do. The camera takes a pre-programmed or calculated (model-dependent) average size for the mode you're in and divides the remaining volume by that number. This can be occasionally confusing because of the sometimes wide variation in JPEG file sizes for any given mode. This can cause the remaining image count to actually increase if you shoot a series of images that compress poorly followed bu a series that compress well.

 

Ah, technology!

 

Dave

[dileep]

Yes they do. The camera takes a pre-programmed or calculated (model-dependent) average size for the mode you're in and divides the remaining volume by that number. This can be occasionally confusing because of the sometimes wide variation in JPEG file sizes for any given mode. This can cause the remaining image count to actually increase if you shoot a series of images that compress poorly followed bu a series that compress well.

 

Ah, technology!

 

Dave

 

yes, it is an easy calculation! Checked my Panasonic Lumix FZ28 and it adjusts the number based on the mode.

[donaldsc]

Hey Don, you are not paranoid, better safe than sorry. I do everything you do except the data recovery option. What recovery program do you use for retrieval?

Thx.

 

Not sure. It came free with on of my SanDisk cards and I upgraded it to the pro version.

 

I actually had to use it once and it did work.

 

DON

[pierces]

Not sure. It came free with on of my SanDisk cards and I upgraded it to the pro version.

 

I actually had to use it once and it did work.

 

DON

 

The higher-end SanDisk cards ship with a certificate for a free copy of Rescue Pro. As you said, it works. I've used it after one of those OS! moments to recover images from a inadvertently formatted card.

 

Dave

[hector21]

A bigger card is always worth while.

They are as cheap as chips nowadays.