"Extreme" cards...

So I picked up my nice new D7000 body tonight, and with a little luck, the Aquatica housing will arrive in a couple of days... (Right Jean???)

At the camera shop, the guy was trying to convince me I should be loading this camera up with "Extreme" media. He suggested 16GB cards with a write speed of up to 60mb/s. I currently have a bucked full of cards that are Class 4 and 8... which are obviously much slower.

I don't really expect to shoot much, if any video, but I think I'm going to need to get some bigger cards to accommodate the larger file sizes from the D7000. (I use a D90 now).

What are your thoughts? These cards are about 10x the price, but after dropping the "bling" for the body and housing, I don't want to cheap out... I'm inclined to got to Class 10 cards anyway...

Thanks!

I think that is called the up sell. IMHO it is better to have a bunch of moderate sized cards then a few big cards. Cards die and with them so do the photos that are on them. I would rather swap out a card, down load it, and then put it back into the rotation.

I'd agree with Allen with one potential exception. Where are you going to be shooting? Dolphins or sharks in the Bahamas? Sailfish off Mexico? If you plan to be any place where you may find yourself shooting a lot of images in a rapid fire mode the last thing you want to do is be waiting on the card to load. What are you going to do when the Manta starts circling you? By the way, I don't consider 16GB card to be that big anymore.

Congrats on the new rig!

Cheers,

Steve

Don't waste your money on these high priced cards.

I have a D7000 and a 16 gig 95 MBS Sandisk extreme card that is very slightly faster than my cheap Wintec Class 10 card that I bought at Newegg.

You can buy a 32 gig class 10 Wintec card at Newegg for less than $30, including free shipping in the USA. The Sandisk Extreme card was a waste of money, IMHO.

So I picked up my nice new D7000 body tonight, and with a little luck, the Aquatica housing will arrive in a couple of days... (Right Jean???)

 

At the camera shop, the guy was trying to convince me I should be loading this camera up with "Extreme" media. He suggested 16GB cards with a write speed of up to 60mb/s. I currently have a bucked full of cards that are Class 4 and 8... which are obviously much slower.

 

I don't really expect to shoot much, if any video, but I think I'm going to need to get some bigger cards to accommodate the larger file sizes from the D7000. (I use a D90 now).

 

What are your thoughts? These cards are about 10x the price, but after dropping the "bling" for the body and housing, I don't want to cheap out... I'm inclined to got to Class 10 cards anyway...

 

Thanks!

I wouldn't call this an upsell so quickly. I shoot the D7000 and in my opinion the weakest link in this camera is the substandard buffer size. If you use the motor drive at all (on continuous High) or ever decide you may want to shoot video (even though you don't at this moment) you will regret having slow cards. I started off using Sandisk Extreme sdhc card which are class 10 and 30mbps. I have only been able to get 9 raw frames before the camera chokes and needs to write to the buffer. My 6 year old D200 can shoot 22 raw before writing to the buffer. I use the motor drive a lot and the other day I just grabbed an old class 4 sandisk ultra sdhc card (15mbps) and was amazed at how much poorer the performance was from the extreme card....maybe 5 shots before it choked. Since then I have been looking for a good deal on a 60mbps sdhc card hoping to get more performance out of the motor drive. After all, the performance crashed when I used a slower card, shouldn't it improve if I get a faster card? I'll bet it does, and for what amounts to only a few dollars. After all, if you wouldn't put regular unleaded in the space shuttle. Card speed DOES make a difference. Now if you are a shooter that knows they will never shoot video or use the motor drive, you could get away with it. By the way, I got 2 32gb sdhc extreme cards for just over $100 at B&H on special. Keep your eye out for specials like that.

I am not sure I would buy some things at a camera shop. I do buy cameras locally from one place, even though it is pricier. But for accessories, I tend to look elsewhere. I do like SanDisk, but also buy some off brands to test the price performance. I got a couple of Transcend 32 and 16 gig Class 10s for travel to throw in my pocket to have due to the price. Shot about 3,000 photos and about 10 hours of video on a P&S and it worked fine. (Amazon US has 16 gigs Class 10 Transcends for under $17, 32 Gig $38) On my 40D, 50D and 5D Mark II (not SD) I DO see a difference when pushing the camera with rapid shooting and in some situations.

The one thing to note is that being one behind the largest offers a good price point. In other words, having 4 16 Gig Cards instead of 2 32 Gig cards is probably going to cover your shooting. (the 16 Gig should cover over 500 RAW+JPG) and 4 cards should not fail. Compared to the cost of what we used to pay for film and processing, would probably take 7 on a week trip, back them up and not even erase them until home

Bottom line, cards are going to fail at some point. Fortunately I have not had a card fail in about 9 years. But they will. Carry some of the "better" cards (whatever brand, I like my SanDisk) when you really need to get every bit out of the card, but carry other cards due to cost where performance may be slightly less. Have a good back-up/reader system with you.

Also, make sure to look here for some performance numbers.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_mu...p?cid=6007-9550

Thanks for your insights. Your points about what I'm shooting are good ones. I don't really expect to be shooting 6 fps, but then we can't always predict what's going to swim past, can we...? And I suppose that in the overall scheme of things, a couple of extra bucks for some faster cards is pretty much inconsequential. As for video, Keri Wilks (I think) posted a great little clip of some macro video he shot on this camera and it was pretty nice. I just don't know what I'd do with it when I get home!

I figured I would get some 16GB Class 10s. The D7000 will carry two of them, so that should be lots to get through a day. I tend to download to my Mac everyday, and then back up to a separate drive every night even when I am travelling.

Thanks again, and I think I will err on the side of "high test". I'd hate to miss the awesomest shot EVER 'cause my camera couldn't write to a card fast enough!

I'm still trying to find strobes that will recycle as quickly as any of my cards can write.

I'm still trying to find strobes that will recycle as quickly as any of my cards can write.

Do you use strobes????!

I'm still trying to find strobes that will recycle as quickly as any of my cards can write.

There is that... I guess I was thinking that if I was to get into some sort of "action sequence", it would very likely be a shallow, natural light thing.

Dolphins come to mind...

I just did a test today shooting 20 raw images and timing them start to finish. I tested them on a Canon T2i and NEX-5N. All cards were formatted in each camera before the test. Overall the Sony was 20% faster than the Canon.

The Sony camera shooting 20 RAW 16MP images.

Micro Center 16GB Class 10 was in 22.5 seconds

The Eye-Fi 8GB Pro 23 seconds

Transcend 8GB class 6 Class 4 8Gb 34 seconds

The buffer filled up on the fastest cards after 8 shots with the Transcend being noticeably slow. Even while it was slow shooting raw it recorded 1080p 60i video without a problem as the data rate is lower than RAW in burst mode.

As an FYI there is a new data transfer technology that is becoming available in cameras to increase their transfer speed. Its called UHS-i and the new OM-D is supposed to have it. If you look at the extreme cards some of them have UHS-i.

I would say if your camera supports UHS-i get the card and enjoy the difference. If you dont you might just want to get a class 10 for $16 now and pick up the UHS-i when you get a camera that supports it or the price drops by 50%.

One last item on the NEX-5N I can shoot continuous at 16MP fine JPJ setting and took 20 pictures in 6 seconds. While all cameras are different you always have the option to step down from RAW. I've done this at airshows and taken 500 shots in 60 minutes with some dumb luck amazing pictures to show for it.

I'm still trying to find strobes that will recycle as quickly as any of my cards can write.

John, check out Hartenbergers 250TTL hs. Fastest strobes around.

Do you use strobes????!

OK Udo, I know when we met I shot by natural light but that was a particular situation. Bloody good shots too, eh? They've been used as posters at Dive Shows and elsewhere. That is because I am very discerning. when choosing how to shoot something. However, I usually use a couple of those bright flashy things. Dank u wel.

John, check out Hartenbergers 250TTL hs. Fastest strobes around.

Thanks, I am already in conversation with Harald about swapping over when his latest model is ready.