K20 Question

What's the maximum size SD card that a K20 can take...is it 4mb or larger. Thanks

It is certainly a lot larger than the 4millibits that you ask about and remember a RAW image could be anywhere from 11 to 24 MB in size and a JPG from 400kB to 8MB (or more.

SD cards go up to 2GB - 2 GigaBytes and above that they become SDHC cards. The K20D will take 16GB cards and potentially 32GB but I do not know of anyone that has proved the larger size.

If you use SDHC cards then you need to either connect the camera direct to the PC or ensure te reader is SDHC compatible. SDHC readers will read SD cards but SD readers will not read SDHC.

hi there ray as far as im aware its 16gb as is the k200,

link

Since it carryies the SDHC logo it must support the standard thus so far as I understand 32GB shouldn't be a problem

I don't know if Pentax has limit the cap or else you can even go up to 2TB (2048GB). Does someone know if they have limit it?

Anvh - I agree that as it is SDHC compliant the camera should support 32GB devices but not above that.

When the camera was designed and tested there were no 16GB or 32 GB SDHC devices available. High speed, Sandisk Extreme III for example, are still only available at 16GB so it will still be a case of try it and see. If it fails, then I would guess that that the developers would be working on a firmware fix already.

Until a device is available and someone tries it out, we will not know.

But thats the wonder with a standard, 16GB is read and writed in the same way as a 32GB card from any brand.
SDHC has limit the size to 32GB but this way of writing and reading can support up to 2TB so aslong as Pentax has left the way it reads and write open and didn't limit it you should be able to reach 2TB but I don't know if they have done that.

Well normal SD goes to 4GB and not to 2GB.
4GB was a strange size because there are both normal and SDHC versions available.
SDHC theoretically goes to 2TB but there has just been introduced a new version of the SD standard which will go to 2TB.
They now say the following:
SD: to 4GB
SDHC: to 32GB
SDXC: to 2TB

SDHC is only limited to 32GB on paper by the SD Card Association. The was true for normal SD cards on paper it only supported 1GB with a later addition for larger sizes but not all cardreaders could read those larger SD cards.
Because they just introduced SDXC which will use the exFAT filesystem from Microsoft I think that the SDHC cards will stick to the 32GB paper maximum. Otherwise there is no use for SDXC cards except for real high speed devices like video camera's.

They allso fixed the *ist-DS firmware to be able to use SDHC cards so hopefully they thought about the future when designing the K20D as well. Allthough, as mentioned in a lot of threads, what is the use of a 32GB card in a camera. I still believe more in a couple of smaller cards an a image tank as a secondary backup. I take enough cards with me to get me through the holiday (if it is not enough and I am not in a remote area, everyone sells SD cards)

WRONG - the current SD specification states a maximum capacity of 2GB. Any card above that does not conform and as such it not an SD compliant device.

I strongly recommend to use several small cards rather than one very large one. If one card fails, less images to loose.

Personally, I use 2 GByte cards (SD), and they never fill up. After all, one transfers the images to a computer fairly regularly.

I agree with Terry - use several smaller capacity cards - it's all about not putting your eggs in one basket

I know, the SD spec dictated a maximum of 1GB with an addition to 2GB but anything larger then 1GB can cause problems in some devices which DO adhere to the SD spec.

The same goes for SDHC, the specification dictates 32GB as the maximum size but on paper it can go to 2TB. So if for example the K20D firmware would support 64GB SDHC cards it would perfectly work but it can be that your SDHC cardreader does not support it.

Thanks for all your help and the link...much appreciated