Memory Cards - Talk to me.

[J-Tuner]

Hi All

With the impending arrival of my baby in Oct and a last minute holiday in Cyprus before fatherhood kicks in i decided to take the plunge and shell out on a Canon 500d from pixmania. Looks like a reasonable deal by all accounts. Comes with a 18-55mm IS lense, tripod, bag, spare battery, cleaning kit and a few other bits i think. Completely new to photography but i have a strong interest to capture some nice photos of the new addition.

Anyway - the camera takes HD footage, and a friend of mine who already owns a 500d has said the memory card speed can have an affect of the filming, and possibly rapid-fire shooting.

Since i am short of time - i went on ebay and picked up a 16gb Sandisk Ultra II. It states it has a 15mb /second transfer rate.

Is this going to be ok for general use and HD filming or have a made a error in my hasty purchase?

Cheers

Steve

Edited by J-Tuner on Monday 12th July 18:30

[mrmr96]

Sandisk is a good brand, but Ultra II is a bit slow these days.
Do note, though, that the (confusingly) went and re-branded all their speeds recently, which doesn't help!

[J-Tuner]

it was £30.99 delivered so not a huge amount given the amount of stills i can capture at 15mp (thousands i am guessing) - so even it its not used for HD or rapid fire shots its not the end of the world i suppose

Whats the fastest sandisk card out there these days then?

[GetCarter]

Sandisk Extreme 4 is I think the fastest they do.

[FasterFreddy]

We're talking SD card for this camera, correct? Extreme IV was Compact Flash but that's now discontinued.

Extreme III is still current for SD I believe and is 30MB/sec.

There is also an 'Extreme HD Video SDHC' which 20MB/sec. Don't pay too much attention to any cards which say they are specially for HD video, it's just a marketing ploy. Anything Class 4 or 15MB/sec and above should be fine for H.264 HD video.

Personally, I would say buy the fastest and biggest you can afford but the Ultra II will still work fine.

Edited by FasterFreddy on Monday 12th July 19:43

[z06tim]

Class 4 or higher will be fine. I actually have no probs with a slower speed 8Gb sandisk card on my 500D as well, but i generally only record 720p as the frame rate at 1080 makes movies a bit jerky on the 500D.

[Piersman2]

Hi, I'm a memory card... what do you want to talk about?

[J-Tuner]

Yeah i noticed that 1080p is only 20fps and i think its 30fps thats seen as the optimum to the eye? I have to say though i have seen some footage using a tripod filming some slow moving boats and it was spot on... i can imagine filming something like a trackday at 1080p wont really cut the mustard.

I'll let you know what my feedback is when i get the card in and running. It is a Class 4 SD so fingers crossed there wont be too much of a bottleneck

Edited by J-Tuner on Monday 12th July 21:05

[XG332]

GetCarter said:

Sandisk Extreme 4 is I think the fastest they do.

They have been re branded

Extreme III - Extreme
Extreme IIII - Extreme pro

[mrmr96]

XG332 said:

GetCarter said:

Sandisk Extreme 4 is I think the fastest they do.

They have been re branded

Extreme III - Extreme
Extreme IIII - Extreme pro

Correct.

Do you have a complete list of the 'before' and 'after' names? I looked for one just now but couldn't find it.

[XG332]

Nope these are just from memory.
See what i did there?

Is there any specific you want to know, just ask.

[FasterFreddy]

XG332 said:

GetCarter said:

Sandisk Extreme 4 is I think the fastest they do.

They have been re branded

Extreme III - Extreme
Extreme IIII - Extreme pro

These apply to CF cards only and the Extreme Pro is not just a re-branded Extreme IV. The Pro is 90MB/Sec, so it's a lot faster.

[eybic]

Pixmania customer svcs are terrible, the products are NOT uk products and come with poor quality adapters for the plug in bits.

[clonmult]

z06tim said:

Class 4 or higher will be fine. I actually have no probs with a slower speed 8Gb sandisk card on my 500D as well, but i generally only record 720p as the frame rate at 1080 makes movies a bit jerky on the 500D.

Wish I could remember what was in my Panasonic - sure thats either a class 2 or class 4, and that easily handles 720p AVCHD recording.

The faster cards will probably be more useful for doing burst mode.

[baz7175]

eybic said:

Pixmania customer svcs are terrible, the products are NOT uk products and come with poor quality adapters for the plug in bits.

I've never had a single problem with them over the years and have purchased kit from them on at least 5 occasions that I can remember off the top of my head, yes the gear is normally Eurozone spec, but it's easy to swap the plug on the end of a cable over from Euro to UK spec.

[J-Tuner]

Thats news to me - i thought it was UK gear i was buying. Pretty sure i didn't see anything on the website to indicate otherwise.

Are there any specification differences between UK/Euro Canon 500d's? Getting a UK kettle lead to replace a adaptor isnt a big deal however if i am getting less for my money thats a different matter !

[GetCarter]

I've also used Pixmania a few times and have never had any issues.

[baz7175]

J-Tuner said:

Thats news to me - i thought it was UK gear i was buying. Pretty sure i didn't see anything on the website to indicate otherwise.

Are there any specification differences between UK/Euro Canon 500d's? Getting a UK kettle lead to replace a adaptor isnt a big deal however if i am getting less for my money thats a different matter !

The spec you get in mainland Europe is the same as you get in the UK, it simply means you'll probably get the manual in several languages rather than ONLY english if you were to buy it in the UK.

Only real difference is the plug on the end of the cable, and even then they sometimes swap this to a UK plug or throw in the adapter...which is why I said earlier that worst case you just change the plug

[J-Tuner]

Cool cheers for the feedback. I just read a few horror stories on Money Saving Expert about pixmania so its good to hear a couple of PH'ers have used them with no issue.

Will report back how it was shipped

[eybic]

I bought a panasonic compact from them, the pikey adapter they sent me would not work properly as the shape of the canon plug would not let it sit flush. I tried explaining this to them on several occasions and they just couldn't understand and kept offering me a UK adapter which I already had. Price was good but I found their customer services not great.