Lexar ships first 128GB SDXC card

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/communication-breakdown-10000030/lexar-ships-first-...

Well, I know what is now very high on my wish list, especially at those prices. A couple of them and I will never need another card (I hope).
But as other companies follow soon with their cards and there are indications that up to the 500GB cards are on the horizon soon prices will very soon come down even further soon.
So by the time I realistically will be able to get one (end of the year) my guess is that the price will have halved by then.
At least that is what I think will happen as prices for SSD HD's are starting by now to fall quickly and the overall price trend for SDHC Cards is on the slide down anyway (compared to 6month ago).
Thanks for the info.

Just to be contrary about those super-duper-high-capacity cards: How many of us really fill up, say, 16GB cards before we move them to our computers? Suppose you nearly fill up a 256GB card and something happens to it? Are the images recoverable -- and at what cost?

Wouldn't it be smarter to spread one's images among several smaller cards, thereby reducing the chances of something going wrong and rendering ALL of one's images irrecoverable?

I thought about getting a 32GB extra-high-speed card but decided to buy two equivalent 16GBers instead and rotate them in my camera. For insurance on longer trips I carry a couple of old 8 GBers in reserve. Never have needed to use them.

Of course, if one takes a lot of video, my ideas don't hold water.

I'm with you Henryk. In fact I have nothing bigger than 8gb, and rarely fill a card. If it looks like getting full I swiftly change for another card.

I guess though that more and more people use them for video and that eats cards so the bigger the better for them.
Plus they can be used in Satnav devices so they can load more, and more detailed, maps onto them, and in smart phones, and just for extra memory for tablets and netbooks. Lighter to carry than a spare hard drive .

I don't use anything bigger than 4gb and have just bought two 4gb Samsung Plus cards, rather than one 8gb.

But I suppose anyone adopting the 'machine gun approach' might quickly fill up a memory card

Well in my case I shoot in RAW= and do a lot of Time Lapse. A 16GB Card that I use now only gives me 326 pictures. Now I take a picture every 5 sec that limits me to 28 minuted before I have to change the card.
Lately I use PK_Tether to extend the memory. This requires my Netbook with my camera and the whole setup is just very complicated so a large card would make my life much easier.
I do agree that this cards may not be for the majority of users and that there may be a small chance of the card malfunction, but for ME the risk is worth it.
Video is another one where the card fills up very quickly also I do not use this option so far as I rather shoot my videos with a proper video camera.
Like I say, the large cards are not for everyone and there is a small risk of a card malfunctioning but for ME the card is just what I am looking for.

DRAM prices may well be affected by the japan earthquake.....

I personally find 32GB is acceptable and can understand the desire for larger. 500GB is a bit silly though.

Bret

Well I filled up TWO 16Gbcards yesterday. I had to stop shooting as I only took two cards out with me. That'll teach me


I would agree at current RAW sizes, but given Megapixal numbers are never going to go down, then the march of memory card evolution must happen too I guess.

Do you shoot RAW+ Smeggy? Or machine gun mode? If not how on earth do you find time to fill 32 Gb in one day?

Even in Norway taking photos from before 7 am until gone 11 pm I only managed 473 photos in a day.

Just RAWs. No machine gunning either. last time I went to London I took 2000 shots. I see a lot of things to snap and often take 2 or 3 of the same thing for 'perspective bracketing' for want of a better expression.

Crikey if I ever go back to Norway, I suspect I could easily rattle off 4,000 a day. beautiful place.

Did you get to Trollstigen?

The larger capacities are probably aimed at the video market. I imagine the ratio of current model still cameras that can shoot video v those that can't is very high.

Still cameras are also coming in greater and greater pixels and if you shoot in RAW+ like me the card fills up pretty quickly.
Like I say, taking Time Lapse pictures I have to change my card every 28 minutes.
Also remember that even with the K5 you will have to update the firmware as it natively does not support the SDXC format cards. So if you want to make use of the larger capacity you will need to update your firmware first.
Shame only is that the camera does not benefit from the faster read/write speed that the new cards are offer as this is hardware related.
None the less I am sure I will get a 128GB card as soon as I can afford one. Everything above that I would not know if I would make use of it.
I am pretty sure that the lower GB Cards will gradually disappear from the mass-marked as the larger cards become cheaper and with some special offers lately there was only £1 difference between a 8GB Class 10 Card and a 16GB Class 10 Card (micro direct was the seller).
Video will be a huge marked as soon as the readers in the cameras can accept those cards and this in return will mean that High Quality Video Cameras will become smaller and smaller.
I wonder how many minutes of full HD (1080p/30fps) you would get on one of the very large cards?
I know they are not cheap but neither where the Mini-DV or Full Size-DV Tapes.
It is just a normal progression in the marked, but when I think back not so long ago and a 10/20GB 3.5" HDD/5400RPM where well over a few hundreds of £££ and now you can hardly get one of them but get memory sticks and micro SD cards that are similar in size for just over a tenner and the access time is much faster and the data is more secure I just wonder where we will be when (and if) a K-3 is on the market?

Yup.

And it won't be that many years before DLSRs and eventually compacts will have 100MP sensors.

Remember the luddites at Intel who once said 640kB of ram was enough for anyone.

I can't see that with the present optical performance and I think that will be the limiting factor.
However... FullHD is 10MB/sec. 600MB/min at MotionJPEG / K5 rates.

Therefore - and remember, these cards will be limited by the filesystem next - it's still only 5.5min before you hit 4GB... which, multiplying up, implies 32x5.5 so around 2-3 hours of video on a 128GB card. Enough to flatten a battery.

Bret

That's why you got the Battery Grip!
No, honestly now, I would never dream of shooting Video with my K5. It is an extra that I could do without as I shoot video only with a proper video camera. However I do not know what is round the corner so I may have a situation one day where I may have to use the video function, but I guess that will be rather rare.
Like I stated I am more interested in Time Lapse and my usual interval is 5 seconds. At that rate I reach my limit with my present card (16GB) after only 28min.
I would like to shoot for 2-3 hours but that would require either the use of the Netbook and PK_Tether or a larger card.
Obviously the card would be preferred as I do not have to carry even more gear with me.
I know that I am a minority that would actually make use of a larger card and do accept that there is a small risk of a card failing but I am sure that some other people might want to make use of the larger cards as well and with cameras out that already hit more then 20MP (and I am not talking exclusively Pentax on this one) how long will it take for a Pentax to come up with a 20+MP Full Frame Sensor?
Having the speed and the large capacity now on SDXC format as well that used to be only available for CF Cards I can see some manufacturers going over to the system.
Next look at the small HD Camcorders that are not limited to the 29.59min. and you really open up the market.
Battery power is getting more and more by the day (for example I got 4 batteries for my PD150 that last for 9h each) and as you have less moving parts you also have less consumption of battery power.
Like I say, the cards may not be for everyone at this moment but I can see the future for them and I would welcome them for myself as well as I could make use of the extended storage capacity.