Alteration in Card availability

Has anyone else noticed that 4GB cards are getting hard to find ?

Since I'm back to College next week I was looking at my spare card situation.

In the course I did in January to March I completely filled a 2GB card and had to start a 4GB one and had very little room left on it at the end - and remember I'm still shooting in JPEG.

OK so I need more cards - SDHC ones and I like Lexar or Sandisk - but my last purchases have been Lexar Professional 133 X Speed Class 10s. Mebbe for my use a tad overkill - but they have been flawless in use and once filled they are archived and not re-used.

Now in May/June I was able to buy these for about £17 each from 7 day shop including postage - Amazon was about £1 more as I had to pay postage to them [ what was interesting was that 7Day Shop's price through Amazon was more than going to 7 Day shop itself ]

So of course I looked first at Amazon --- NO SDHC Lexar Pro 4GB cards Tried 7 day shop - same result.

8GB cards - no problem but these are over £30 !!

So I took a look at Sandisk - now if you are lucky you might be able to find one .

There are plenty Class 2s around but I don't want them .

I had a moan at Photomonk about this [ well 'twas him that started me on the Lexars ] and his comment was that he had heard that the industry was standardising on 8GB cards - so the 4s were indeed becoming very hard to find.

Anyone else heard this ?

Tesco have some class4 cards. link

ISO - thanks for the link to Picstop - they have some Lexar 4GB Class 6 cards which should do me nicely I'd better get on and buy them whilst the going is good

Have just looked at Misco and they seem to have very few 4GB cards. Just a Kingston Class4 at 6.99 + VAT

I think with the move to more DSLRs providing a video option, people are realising that an 8gig card is preferable.

I used Picstop for ages. Very helpful, and if you get their Jersey based products they are legit VAT free

Isn't it VAT free only if it's below a certain amount.... £17 I think?

7Day have always been quick with anything I've ordered from them.

They have retail packed Toshiba Black 4GB for £7.49 or cheaper in bulk.

Tesco at Silverburn and Costco in Glasgow had 4GB cards last time I looked.

8Gb Sandisk Extreme 20Gb/s cards are 22.49 (free shipping) on Amazon.
They have been on and around this price for a while, there usually one or more sellers including Amazon themselves.
Good balance of size/speed and price.

Play.com are selling Samsung 4GB SDHC Plus Class 6 cards for £5.99 delivered.

Regards - Steve

I don't know what these are like the price is good...

Transcend SDHC
Transcend 16GB SD Card (SDHC) - Class 10
£21.99 inc. delivery
http://www.mymemory.co.uk/SDHC/Transcend/Transcend-16GB-SD-Card-(SDHC)---Class-10

Nolan

Transcend Class 10 have a very poor reputation. Plus a lot of
Class 6 cards are as fast/faster.
That's probably why the prices have been reduced.
Just search Google.

well - I've been and gone and done it .

Bitten the bullet I mean

Have ordered up two 8GB Lexar Pros 133 write speed from 7day shop.

Once these arrive they will be used solely in the K-x - I'll need them once I go to shooting in RAW.

My present 4GB cards will be used in the Optio

Why the Lexars when I could have got something cheaper - well my first one has given no problems at all . The K-x was supplied with a Lexar Card and if that was good enough for Adorama to include - then it's good enough for me

I would have considered Sandisk quite happily , but I've heard they have been having problems with not-very-good-clones recently and I don't want those sort of problems-thank-you-very-much.

Kingston - should be OK but why change brands when you know that something works well ?

I've used quite a lot of 2GB Lexar 133x and Lexar CF 133x and have had no problems with them at all. It's only the price that stops me buying the 8GB's. Having said that my last 8GB purchase was an ATP Promax 150x which cost £30 off Amazon.

A very good search engine for cards is:

http://www.thefind.co.uk/