Memory Cards

[billandsue]

There are a number of memory cards available with different speeds, capacities, etc.  What is your preferred memory card for photos and/or videos?

Edited March 15, 2019 by billandsue

[xlxo]

I'm a Sandisk lover.  I hate Lexar.

 

Can't believe how cheap 32gb cards are today.

Edited March 15, 2019 by xlxo

[broberts]

Be careful of cheap off brand cards, especially those bought online.

 

An acquaintance bought a few to record a wedding ceremony. In copying the recordings to a pc for editing it was discovered that the cards did not have the advertised capacity despite what they reported to the cameras and pc.

[mskaufman]

I use Sandisk and because they are inexpensive I buy smaller ones and when on a cruise where I am taking a lot of pictures change the cards regularly.  That way if something happens to my camera my pictures are still in the cabin safe.

[pierces]

Another long-time SanDisk fan. Used them for years and never had a failure. Recently, I have switched to Sony G-series UHS-II cards since my main camera can utilize the extra speed and they are backwards compatible. My shooting style seldom uses the extra speed since I don't shoot video or a lot of long bursts, but the download times on the PC are excellent. 

 

My 2¢:

• I use 32GB cards and seldom have to change then out on a cruise. I back up new shots daily, so no need for multiple small cards. This is what works for me. Your mileage may vary.
• More speed is better. Even if your camera can't use the speed, downloads are brisk and the inspection and tolerances on the faster cards are more stringent.
• Buy the best and cry once. Cheap cards are cheap cards. Known brands like SanDisk, Sony, Lexar, PNY and Transcend are more likely to be genuine when purchased from a known source (Sold by Amazon, B&H Photo, Adorama). If you find a great deal on a known brand on eBay, it WILL be a counterfeit.
• You can have too many cards with you, but the number is pretty high. Always travel with multiples of what you think you will need. If you think two 16GB cards will do, take four.

In response to a lot of questions like this, I wrote an article on resolution, image quality and how that affects memory requirements:

 

Viva la Resolution

 

Dave

 

 

[teknoge3k]

I did a lot of research on which memory cards worked best with my new Go Pro Hero 7 and for shooting 4k video it was the SanDisk Extreme Class 3 (U3) (V30). 

[mskaufman]

7 hours ago, mskaufman said:

I use Sandisk and because they are inexpensive I buy smaller ones and when on a cruise where I am taking a lot of pictures change the cards regularly.  That way if something happens to my camera my pictures are still in the cabin safe.

Would you believe that three hours after making this post my Facebook feed was filled with ads from people selling Sandisk cards.

[billandsue]

23 minutes ago, mskaufman said:

Would you believe that three hours after making this post my Facebook feed was filled with ads from people selling Sandisk cards.

The tracking is definitely out of control.  It is impossible to do a Google search of a product for pricing comparisons or reviews without being inundated with ads from Amazon, etc.  I tried to delete Cookies, but found that all of my auto sign ins were also deleted . . .

[spthealien]

Whatever card brand you select, remember that flash memory does not last forever. They have limited cycles. I shoot a bunch (weddings, time lapses, travel, etc)--and rotate my cards every 18 months. Once they exceed that time, they become less critical cards (nerdy stuff like Raspberry Pi's). I learned my lesson more than a couple times.

 

For what it's worth, I've got SanDisk cards go bad on me twice--they would no longer read--and they were new out of the box straight from them. You'll get a lemon every now and then. Samsungs for my drones--Sony's for my cameras now.

[Redrobo]

I use Komputerbay 128Gb cards, using for last 3 years without a problem. I transfer to WD portable storage after each day. I use WD 4TB to store all photos as a back up at home.

 

[Heidi13]

All cards are 16GB Scandisk or Lexar, depending on which brand is sold. Only purchase from local camera stores.

[peety3]

Another long-time (12 years and counting) SanDisk user.

 

Always buy the fastest cards you can stomach buying. Even if your camera/computer today can't take full advantage of that speed, it's quite possible tomorrow's camera/computer will. I mistakenly put one of my oldest SD cards, a 2GB 15MB/sec unit, into my "best" camera on a 2015 cruise, instead of my usual 16GB 95MB/sec. You can imagine my surprise when I could only take 1-2 shots every 8 seconds, but at 60MB/image (RAW) and 15MB/sec write speed it made perfect sense.

 

I also encourage you to not buy the biggest. Take a moment on Amazon or wherever (assuming you can quickly pick different sizes of the same model/speed card) and calculate the cost per GB - you'll find there's a point where that price starts going up. Buy at or below that crossover point, and buy more cards rather than giant cards. I'd much rather shoot with eight 16GB cards than one 128GB card: if you fill one 16GB, you've got seven more, and when you start getting past 50% of your stash you know how to pace yourself. If you shoot with one 128GB card and you fill it, now what?

[masterdrago]

On 3/15/2019 at 4:33 PM, teknoge3k said:

I did a lot of research on which memory cards worked best with my new Go Pro Hero 7 and for shooting 4k video it was the SanDisk Extreme Class 3 (U3) (V30). 

Ditto here on the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64gig micro SD for my recent 7 Black GoPro. I use their 32gig version SD for the Nikon DSLR. I also found some neat storage devices over at AMZN: https://www.amazon.com/DiMeCard-SD-microSD-Memory-Holder-writable/dp/B008TT7CXW

and https://www.amazon.com/HDE-Waterproof-Memory-Standard-Storage/dp/B01DWTYHCM

I'm planning on backing up to a WD My Passport 2TB HDD  https://www.amazon.com/Passport-Wireless-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B01F5LVTO4

[Buck1949]

I use San Disk. Purchased a bunch of 8gb and change them daily on a cruise.  (I number each with a Sharpie 1,2,3 etc). I was given this suggestion by a professional photographer from Getty’s images. I shoot in Raw and Jpg and get about 125-140 images per card.  This is just in case a card gets damaged or corrupted you only lose a portion of your pix.  I also carry several 32gb for Video if I know I’m going to be doing video. 

 

One other thing I found is a Pelican Flash card case that keeps them well protected. 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Buck1949

[Redrobo]

Taken from a magazine over here  in the UK

[Mr. Click]

I started doing digital for real in 2001.  In all of those years I have only had two card failures. One was  Lexar card that totally failed in the camera and I lost an sfternoon's work.  When I contacted Lexar they offered to send me a new card, northing more.  Work lost, money lost and switched to SanDisk.  All of the cards came with recovery software included and I used that to fix my own mistakes but so far in all of that time I have had one other failure with Sandisk and thankfully it happened when I went to format the card before using it.  Contacted Sandisk and new card was on the way quickly.  They also offered to help recover images but there was no need.  So, Sandisk and nothing else for me.  8GB is my favorite because I can't put a full day on one so if there ever is a problem I dont  lose the whole deal.  On vacation now I tend to use a 32GB Sandkisk card and download it daily and keep tabs on it while we are running around.  

[Crew News]

I have had only one camera memory card fail in many years and I was able to recover all of it with software, "EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard.

[CT Sean]

Probably a bit late, but I too have been using Sandisk cards for many years (18-20) - both SD cards and a brief stint with Compactflash. Never had one fail, including one that was in a camera I dumped in the ocean.  The camera was instantly ruined, as were the rechargeable batteries, but the card was fine - got my pics off it like nothing ever happened and I probably kept using it until it was replaced with a faster, higher capacity card.

[Tourist1292]

I am going to bring multiple SD cards with me on the cruise to Alaska. They are either SanDisk or Samsung with U1 or U3 rating. I will also bring a travel router and a portable SSD to do daily backup without a computer. I rarely reused an SD after it got filled. I just leave it as another backup copy.

[peety3]

6 minutes ago, Tourist1292 said:

I am going to bring multiple SD cards with me on the cruise to Alaska. They are either SanDisk or Samsung with U1 or U3 rating. I will also bring a travel router and a portable SSD to do daily backup without a computer. I rarely reused an SD after it got filled. I just leave it as another backup copy.

Remember that if you copy them to a portable SSD then reuse the card, the portable SSD is your only copy and you have no backup.

[Tourist1292]

1 hour ago, peety3 said:

Remember that if you copy them to a portable SSD then reuse the card, the portable SSD is your only copy and you have no backup.

Read again what I said. I'll bring multiple SD cards and I rarely reuse SD. I have all my photo and video in a memory database on NAS which is another copy I make at home through the program I got from Sony. I also have a second NAS to mirror on a daily base. An SD may only be reused after all these processes and if it is relatively new with large capacity and high speed. It may end up in one of my IP camera.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Tourist1292

[peety3]

8 minutes ago, Tourist1292 said:

1 hour ago, Tourist1292 said:

I am going to bring multiple SD cards with me on the cruise to Alaska. They are either SanDisk or Samsung with U1 or U3 rating. I will also bring a travel router and a portable SSD to do daily backup without a computer. I rarely reused an SD after it got filled. I just leave it as another backup copy.

 

9 minutes ago, Tourist1292 said:

Read again what I said. I bring multiple SD and I rarely reuse SD card. I have all my photo and video in a memory database on NAS which is another copy I make at home through the program I got from Sony. I also have a second NAS to mirror on a daily base. An SD may only be reused after all these processes and if it is relatively new with large capacity and high speed. It may end up in one of my IP camera.

How about you read it again? It's pretty safe for me to assume that neither of your NASen are onboard the cruise ship. So, in the context of "while you're on your cruise", the SD card is your primary copy and the portable SSD is your backup copy. Until you get home and download to your NASen, you've got only two copies. If you're out on the cruise and end up in a situation where you need to reuse a card, which is the context I was referring to (and also given that I hadn't been told that you had those NASen), you are therefore erasing your primary copy, making the portable SSD your only copy.

 

I shoot 1-2TB per year. There's no way I'm going to buy memory cards at that pace - I'm going to buy enough to either make it through a cruise, or more likely comfortably make it through a day for my wife and I. If you wish to buy SD cards at the pace you shoot and keep them forever, good for you. I for one would not want the indexing headache of that.
 

My point was simply that people often mistake primary copies as backups. People sometimes come up with on-cruise backup solutions that do not offer a means to validate that the data is copied properly (RAW images are rarely viewable on specialized portable backup gadgets). RAID (the technology often found inside a NAS) is not a backup either, just a means to survive a disk failure (fire, water, theft, controller failure, etc. are all ways that the NAS can get nuked). For anyone else reading the thread, simply remember that it's said that there are two kinds of people: those who have lost data, and those who will.

[Tourist1292]

57 minutes ago, peety3 said:

 

How about you read it again? It's pretty safe for me to assume that neither of your NASen are onboard the cruise ship. So, in the context of "while you're on your cruise", the SD card is your primary copy and the portable SSD is your backup copy. Until you get home and download to your NASen, you've got only two copies. If you're out on the cruise and end up in a situation where you need to reuse a card, which is the context I was referring to (and also given that I hadn't been told that you had those NASen), you are therefore erasing your primary copy, making the portable SSD your only copy.

 

I shoot 1-2TB per year. There's no way I'm going to buy memory cards at that pace - I'm going to buy enough to either make it through a cruise, or more likely comfortably make it through a day for my wife and I. If you wish to buy SD cards at the pace you shoot and keep them forever, good for you. I for one would not want the indexing headache of that.
 

My point was simply that people often mistake primary copies as backups. People sometimes come up with on-cruise backup solutions that do not offer a means to validate that the data is copied properly (RAW images are rarely viewable on specialized portable backup gadgets). RAID (the technology often found inside a NAS) is not a backup either, just a means to survive a disk failure (fire, water, theft, controller failure, etc. are all ways that the NAS can get nuked). For anyone else reading the thread, simply remember that it's said that there are two kinds of people: those who have lost data, and those who will.

I clearly said I rarely reused SD but leave it as another backup copy. So your original comment is basically pointless. By the way, I also have access to my NAS remotely if I want to. It is just not necessary.

Edited April 2, 2019 by Tourist1292

[peety3]

On 4/2/2019 at 11:58 AM, Tourist1292 said:

So your original comment is basically pointless.

No, it was not pointless. In the context of a cruise, it absolutely had merit, and you left out a bunch of useful information that only came to light in subsequent posts; regardless, your NASen have no use to you while at sea, and if you think that sitting at a hotspot in port to upload your photos is fun, enjoy your cruise. Your way is, undoubtedly, not the only way to do things.

[Tourist1292]

2 hours ago, peety3 said:

No, it was not pointless. In the context of a cruise, it absolutely had merit, and you left out a bunch of useful information that only came to light in subsequent posts; regardless, your NASen have no use to you while at sea, and if you think that sitting at a hotspot in port to upload your photos is fun, enjoy your cruise. Your way is, undoubtedly, not the only way to do things.

No. I was referring to what I said in post #19. I never said I will upload to my server during the trip. My home server backup is irrelevant to your original comment. It is clear what I said in #19. It is you that assume others would erase and reuse SD card after backup. There are certainly other ways to backup. Assuming others to keep a single copy of file while it is clearly said not to be the case is another thing. You are certainly not the only person knows how to backup files.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Tourist1292