fast cards in a *istDL2, worth it?

I'm currently using a generic "keymem" 1GB card from 7DayShop in my *istDL2. Its speed is not quoted but I doubt it's very quick.

Is the DL2 able to make use of the faster cards? or am I limited by the camera's capabilities?

I ask because I'll be buying at least one more 1GB card pretty soon and if the fast cards will make a difference I'll pay the extra, but if not I'll carry on with the cheapy ones.

Hi,

I have a SanDisk UltraII 512mb in my DL2. If that's considered "fast" then I've had no problems at all. I've had more problems with a "MyMemory" card and, in fact, have reverted to using the SanDisk.

Hope that helps.

Howard

thanks for your answer, I don't think I made my question quite clear

I wasn't asking if they will work (though it is reasuring to know that they do!), more if there is a benefit in terms of camera performance with the "faster" cards.

My "keymem" card has given me no trouble whatsoever (touch wood), and neither have 3 other cards my Dad has from the same brand, so reliability of these is not in question. My reason for looking at faster cards such as the Sandisk is that I'd like the buffer to flush a bit quicker. If that's not going to happen with a *istDL2, I'll just have to wait until I can afford a K10D but I might as well get as much performance out of the *ist as possible right?

AFAIK the speed of a card has more effect on the card-to-pc transfer than on the camera-to-card speed. All my cards of various speeds (up to x133) seem to take a similar length of time to recieve the image from the camera (DS) (judged by the length of time the little light remains on). It's a bit subjective as I have never actually bothered to time it!

the quicker cards do transfer the files to the PC much more rapidly though.

thanks Ammonyte, thats what I thought but I just wanted to be clear.

I wont bother with the super expencive ones then (I'm not mean to my cards so durability above what I have from cheap ones isn't worth the extra to me). I have just noticed that 7DayShop now have 80x cards for just under £11 though, I might get one of those instead of the rock bottom cheapest.

I think it is worth paying a little more for a "branded" card but not for an ultra fast one. Many of the unbranded ones are from the branded houses. They work on test but do not quite meet full spec. If I have spent half a day taking pictures, I don't want to find that I have lost a couple due to data corruption altough I don't mind making a cup of tea while they download to the PC.

Kim

I can't comment specifically on the *istDL2, but with my *istD I noticed a small but significant (for me) improvement on changing to an 80x card. When shooting RAW the buffer cleared about 25-30% faster. I did time it in various situations, but I forget the numbers now (I might even have posted them in another thread here). The DL2 should write faster anyway, so you may (or may not) get more of a boost.

I certainly notice a slowing down in RAW frame rate when I fill up my 80x Lexar WA and have to resort to my spare unbranded card.

Steve

http://www.siblingmedia.com/

true that would be annoying, it's never happened to me in 3800 frames on the cheapest card I could find though. Perhaps I've just been lucky.

I think I'm deffinitly going to try a slightly "better" card for my next addition if only to answer the question of weather or not it makes a difference. Not to mention if I ever do manage to upgrade to K10D I suspect it will make a difference.

if anyone is interested (as in, if anyone else here is even still shooting a *ist, you all seem to have K10s already!)

I've just taken delivery of my Dane-Elec 80x card (the cheapest "high speed" card on 7DayShop).

the simple answer is YES it does make a fairly large difference to the performance of the lowly *istDL2

I have just done a quick test

Set camera to manual, 250th shutter speed continuous drive, RAW mode.

Time to fire and record a 3 frame burst (that is, time from first pressing the button to orange write light going out)

Old slow card: 16 seconds
New 80x card: 11 seconds

Time to fire 10 frames

Old card: 48 seconds
new card: 28 seconds

The performance of a DL2 in continuous is never going to be world beating, but thats one hell of an improvement in my book, for an extra £3 per card its more than worth it!

As you say Mongoose, the Dl2's burst rate will never be a record holder but thats a pretty significant improvement. I use a kingston generic card in my dl2 (yes, some people still use them )which is even slower than your pre-upgrade times. I think a new card is in order Why didn't you go for the 133x - only another £3

simply put, I didn't want to waste too much money on an experiment, I wasn't sure there would be a difference with such a low end camera. My next card will either be a 133x from 7dayshop or I might even get myself a Sandisk Ultra II and see just how "fast" my DL2 is capable of going. Since the Extreme cards came out the Ultras are a lot cheaper.

I often shoot Fencing matches, and while 3 frames is just about enough for the average Sabre phrase, she just takes too long to write those frames to card.

If anybody is interested - I have just "googled" Sandisk UltraII and from the Sandisk site come the following figures

Minimum of 10MB/second** sequential read speed for ultra-fast image viewing and data transfer
Minimum 9MB/second** sequential write speed lets you capture large image files faster.

By the way I was beginning to think that I was the only one who did not have a K10D and still using an *ist DL2 (with which I am very happy)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mongoose

How did you get these times?

Regards

In case I don't write soon - Happy Christmas and I hope Santa is kind to you all.

Howard

Hi Howard,

it was a pretty simple test, not exactly a scientific study

All I did was set the camera to Manual, 1/250th (just wanted something fast to get full frame rate), RAW and continuous drive. Then I used a stopwatch to time from when I first hit the shutter button to fire a 3 frame burst (fill the buffer on a DL2) to when the red light on the back of the camera went out, indicating that the camera had finished writing the files to the card.

For the times to 10 frames I measured the time from first hitting the shutter button to the 10th frame going off.


Like I said, not exactly rocket science, but should be pretty repeatable.

merry christmas to you too, and of course to everyone