Urgent - Srs Microsystem

The "normal" 4GB Kingston, Lexar, Sandisk (which one is better?) can be found at £5 or £6 at 7days.

If many says there is no big advantage in shooting, maybe they could be a good deal.

It may depend also on files dimensions.

At which image size do you shot? 4672 x 3104, 3872 x 2592, 1824 x 1216
How much are the file big in Mbyte?

Just looking at 7Day's site. I'm ordering one of these Fuji cards to see what they are like... 4GB Class 4 should be fast enough and at £9.49 delivered isn't too bad, although not as good as the Toshiba's that were only 6 quid. Some Fuji cards are made in Taiwan although the quality is usually good, all the Toshiba cards I've seen are made in Japan and are of very high quality. I've seen 2GB Panasonic's on another website quite cheap, but I've enough 2GB cards. Buy Class 4 or Class 6. The basic Class 2 is usable but slower.

With Jpegs it's best to shoot at the largest size (about 2.3MB file), you can always reduce it in the computer. PEF's can be 8-12MB each.

I shoot both PEF + JPG average about 12MB for the pair so that's over 300 shots on a 4GB card.

shim

Speed wise, I have Sandisk ultra III SD card 2Gb and a Ultra II SDHC 4GB on my K10D, and the Ultra II does feel to be fractioanlly slower at writing, although I couldn't say for definite.
Andy

Your right Andy.... On the K10D there does seem a difference. I got the original info from RiceHigh's Pentax Blog and I've just checked back link and he was using a K100D which is slower than a K10D. He got write speeds between 1.79 and 2.54 MB/s so the card did not make a lot of difference. And he concluded

"the old Lexar ordinary 1GB SD card (bought in early 2005) has really given me quite a big surprise. It is actually quite as fast as the latest Toshiba 2GB Class 6 card rated at 20MB/s write speed"

I've done some fairly rough tests with my camera (K10D) set to 1/1000th sec. at f/1.7 manual No screen display, shake on..... pressed the shutter quickly 6 times saved as JPG + RAW so 12 files = 78.2MB. Put the card in the computer and deducted the first file time from the last file time, so that gives me the time for 11 files. The fastest write speed seems to be about 10 MB/sec. The slowest 3.2 MB/sec.

The timings were as follows:

SD Cards

White Toshiba 1GB 8 secs
Lexar 133x Pro 2GB 7 secs
Sandisk Extreme 1GB 6 secs

SDHC Cards

Blue Toshiba Class 4 22 secs

It's not really a problem using the slower cards, because the buffer kept up with the 6 shots and I don't usually shoot more than that in a burst anyway. I'm more concerned with how long it takes to write the files to the computer from a card reader.

Copying to the computer from the cards (366 MB's JPG+RAW):

White Toshiba 1GB 12.2 MB/sec
Lexar 133x Pro 2GB 12.7 MB/sec
Sandisk Extreme 1GB 12.6 MB/sec

SDHC Cards

Blue Toshiba Class 4 = 10.7 MB/sec

At 6 quid the Blue Toshiba was worth buying because of the value for money, just wish I could get 4 GB White Toshiba's. Sandisk cards are no use to me because the camera doesn't always recognize them. I've found a site that have Fuji 4GB 133x Class 6 for 11 quid delivered. link

Verbatim are worth looking at... if their cards are as good as their DVD's they should be a very good buy, I've seen them for about 9 pounds.

One thing that never gets mentioned is where the refurbished cards go to... so be careful who you buy off. Fuji actually list refurbs on their site link

shim

Nice work shim.
I also wonderd if the ultra II somehow made the camera slower in generating the initial preview on the LCD - I know it shouldn't, but....

Andy

I've ordered one of the Fuji 4GB 133x Class 6 and will test it when it arrives.

I've just retested the Lexar 133x in the camera on just PEF files. This time I pressed the shutter 11 times and the filestamp time diff. was exactly 10 secs. so that will be the time for 10 files and the size of 10 files was 104MB so that's 10.4MB/sec. for PEF files on their own.

shim

Does anybody NOT shoot at full size?

G

Thank you for your clarity! You seem very expert in the field!
What about the Kingston? also the class 6 are very cheap! Any reliability issue?
To restrict the search field, which brands do you recommend and which ones do you advise against at all?

Yes with Jpeg it is convenient at the largest size if they are only 2.3MB (but are you sure? with my compact it was same size at 5 megapxl), even if I never print big prints

The Fuji arrived today and I'm not that impressed considering Fuji claim 133x The same test as the Lexar 133x came out at 8.1MB/sec and the copy to computer via a fast card reader was more or less the same as the others at 12.6MB/sec. Still a very usable card and 5 quid cheaper than the 4GB Lexar.

max11 Kingston memory is very good and I would expect their cards to be the same. I've only ever used one of their 60x 1GB SD's in a DAB Radio and it works perfectly which is more than a similar Samsung ever did.
As long as a card works it's worth having.... as woodworkers always say... "You can never have too many clamps"

shim