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75 of 76 found the following review helpful:
Fast Card for RAW SLR shootingMar 23, 2010
By Richard E. Roda I am upgrading from A-DATA 16GB Turbo 150X Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Class 6 Memory Card - Retail Package using a Pentax K200D 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera with Shake Reduction (Body Only). The increase in performance is obvious from the first picture taken. RAW pictures are written to the card in less than a second. The camera does not hesitate due to the card when taking photos in RAW mode unless they are truly "rapid fire" photographs. This card writes RAW images as fast as the old card wrote JPEG files. In JPEG mode, the card speed doesn't become an issue until many (8+) rapid fire pictures are taken. In both cases, the camera flushes all pictures in around 3 seconds. The old card would take 15 seconds to flush the camera.
This card isn't cheap, but I can totally recommend it. It is both fast and large (over 1900 RAW pics, I would guess 5,000 JPEG pics). I totally believe in RAW. What is the point of the $1500 zoom or $500 prime lens if the detail is never saved to memory? RAW gives you far more editing and photo recovery options than JPEG. Taking JPEG photos with a cheap card is like putting a cheap non-coated UV filter on your expensive lens. Take a laptop/netbook and something like HP SimpleSave 2 TB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive HPBAAD0020HBK-NHSN (Gloss Black) and you are all set to take as many RAW pictures as you want.
Update May 13, 2010: Upgraded to Pentax K-7 14.6 MP Digital SLR with Shake Reduction and 720p HD Video (Body Only) camera. This card provides benefits over the lesser A-data cards, namely an extended RAW burst mode. Camera can capture roughly 1300 RAW or roughly twice as many in the best JPEG mode. In raw mode, camera took 15 pictures in full burst mode, then took 5 pictures in roughly 3-4 fps, and then was able to take pictures continuously at 2 frames per second (in RAW, with full memory). Camera took 10 seconds to write the buffer to the card. In comparison, the A-data card took 14 pictures in full burst mode, and then slowed down to approximately 0.66 fps (or 2 frames in approximately 3 seconds). It took about 15 seconds to write the buffer to the card. If you take fast action photos, this card in the Pentax K7 essentially gives you an extended burst mode feature. When shooting video, this card gives a similar speed increase when flushing the recording due to pause, which can be essential if you need to rapidly start it back unexpectedly. I have a second one of these cards on order.
I also have a point and shoot class Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 12.1 MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3.0-Inch LCD (Black), and this card provides little benefit for this camera. The JPEG files it writes are less than 5MB so the extra speed isn't noticed. The AVCHD encoding removes the need for speed when shooting HD video. I use A-DATA 32 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card 32GSDHC6 (Blue) with this camera with no issues. You won't be happy if you put it in your SLR and try to shoot raw or record MPEG encoded HD video, as the K7 does. The A-Data 32GB card is actually slower than the 16GB A-data card referenced at the beginning of this review. For .JPEG cameras which have AVCHD capability, the A-DATA 32GB card is a cheap alternative with generous storage capacity (over 6000 pictures on largest and finest picture mode, or over 4 hours of HD video at maximum resolution and quality).
Tip for maintaining memory card speed: Once you have copied all the photos from your card to your computer or storage device, format the card in the camera you are going to use it in using the camera menus. This provides two benefits: all fragmentation is eliminated because you are starting out with a brand new file system with no data in it (filesystems with all files deleted can still suffer from directory and file allocation table fragmentation). Secondly, the camera will optimize the file system parameters (such a sector size) to work the most effectively for that camera. The SD card may take longer to copy to the computer, but that is OK: the important thing is to be able to have top performance in the camera. In-computer performance may be traded off for faster camera performance.
39 of 43 found the following review helpful:
doesn't work with canon vixia HFS100 in highest res modeApr 29, 2010
By rycir
"ryan"
i just got my new card and canon vixia HFS100. since all of the canon literature on this site and canon's site stated a 'class 4 or higher' SDHC card was needed for the highest quality video modes (FXP and MXP), i purchased this card intending to use the camera's highest quality 24 fps mode. when i put the card in, i was able to use it, but only at the lower video quality settings. when i went to canon's support page (not the product brochure but the tech support section) it was the first time i saw that the camera is specifically looking for a 'class 4 or class 6' message to be sent from the card to the camera. i can only guess that is why my new $200 class 10 card is being treated like a class 2. i put in a sandisk class 4 16 gb card i usually use for my still camera and it works on the highest quality video mode - go figure.
haven't heard yet from canon, but hopefully they have a fix for this glitch. can't say much about the card itself - i'm sure it's great - it works fine in my still camera - this is canon's problem for sure but since many folks might be looking at this card for that camera, it's something to look out for.
11 of 11 found the following review helpful:
Extremely fast SDHC card for Sony Nex 5Feb 13, 2011
By Ankur Puri When I was looking for a SDHC card, I wanted something fast enough to handle multiple shots per frame and 1080p video for my Sony Nex 5. This card delivers, period. There are other cards out there that are labelled as Class-6 or Class-10 but they don't deliver speeds of around 30MB/s, which this card does without a hiccup. Specifically, I'll mention- There are certain cards that say they're Class-10 but when you shoot 1080p video and view it on ur giant apple cinema display or your lcd hdtv, you find it's rather choppy..and thats because your card isn't fast enough to keep up with your camera while writing the video data to the card. I'll tell ya, if you're not planning on shooting 1080p video, or burst-mode-shooting for stills..then you're better off getting one of those inexpensive class6/10 cards. I knew from the beginning this card was a little pricier but for that much storage + speed, you just cant beat it. Actually at the time of writing (2/12/2011) there's no other card that delivers as reliable and speedy performance as this one. If you can afford it, this is the best card out there yet.
14 of 15 found the following review helpful:
Super StorageApr 23, 2010
By J. Gorton
"Chef J. Gorton"
Bought this to accommodate my new Canon T2i. This this is HUGE in storage and Lightning Fast. I can shoot full HD video with ease and take snapshots without pause. These little cards are super reliable but the price is a bit steep. If you can afford it, there's nothing better.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Reliable MemoryFeb 04, 2011
By S. Faulk I recently purchased a Canon T2i along with an underwater housing (Nauticam) for scuba diving vacations. When looking for a card it was important to have 3 things: high capacity, fast read/write speeds and reliability. The reason for wanting a large capacity card is because RAW files are fairly big and will eat up space in no time. The last thing you would want underwater is to run out of card space! There really is no reason for a Class 10 card for photography as the camera buffer will take care of any card speed issues but I did want to be secure not to have buffer over-runs when taking video. Shooting HD video pushes a great deal of data to the card and it must be ready to write it. Canon recommends no less then a Class 6 for the T2i. My final requirement is of course the most important, I also don't want to risk a card failure when that once in a lifetime photo is right in front of me. Knock on wood, I have never had a SanDisk card fail but I have used other brands that did. It is worth the extra money that SanDisk cards cost to know my photos and videos will make it from 100 feet underwater to my laptop in the hotel room without a glitch. I used this memory card for 10 days in Grand Cayman shooting hundreds of photos and videos per day with all expectations met. To me it is worth the money and is a lot less then I would have spent just 10 years ago on film and developing.
based on 56 reviews
( 56 customer reviews )
