Does the make of an SD card matter?

[Deesknee]

Hi everyone, I am wondering if it matters which SD card you purchase, as far as manufacturer goes. eg: Sony vs Lexar

My husband just purchased a Sony video camera which needs HD SD card. (I know there are accurate initials, but can't think of them at the moment. ...sorry).

 

[cobright]

SDHC is what he's after.

For the first part of your question ... /sigh ... here goes.

Short answer is, yes. Better answer is, yes but maker is not the only thing. Look for chips labled 'class 10' and with a rated data transfer rate of 35mb/sec or higher.

 

[hakepb]

You will probably see UHS on SDHC cards that are at least class10 speed.

I've read a number of people say Transcend is actually a good card and can be found very affordable at Amazon (and may be as/more reliable than a top brand like SanDisk)

There are some speciality cards that are more moisture / shock resistant if you want to pay for that security.

 

[retiredteach]

Only yesterday I found out that I need to be using a Class 10 with my Nikon. I asked why m 8x10 seemed grainy and the card class was given as the reason.

 

[hakepb]

Only yesterday I found out that I need to be using a Class 10 with my Nikon. I asked why m 8x10 seemed grainy and the card class was given as the reason.

That doesn't quite sound right. Bits( 1's and 0's ) should be the same on any card unless your camera chooses a lower quality setting for slow cards? The closest I've seen is higher quality video modes might be disabled on slower than Class 4 cards. But otherwise slower cards should only mean longer buffer times between pictures.

But, Class 10 cards are cheap so there is no reason to not upgrade.

 

[cisobe]

Only yesterday I found out that I need to be using a Class 10 with my Nikon. I asked why m 8x10 seemed grainy and the card class was given as the reason.

That definitely does not sound Right. The speed of the card does not determine the quality of the images. It only determines the speed at which the images are written or transferred on to the card or copied off the card. For HD video, video quality maybe affected because data is streamed and recorded onto the cards, but for stills images go into à buffer first then get written to the card so image quality isn't affected, the buffer fills then your cameras burst rate will drop till the buffer empties.

I usually use sandisk SD and cf cards, typically ultra or extreme cards. I have one or two transcend cards which are cheap but seemed a bit slower than my sandisk cards. I also have an eye-fi card which isnt the fastest, but allows me to push pictures to my phone or tablet.

 

[OKW Lover]

Only yesterday I found out that I need to be using a Class 10 with my Nikon. I asked why m 8x10 seemed grainy and the card class was given as the reason.

Not sure where you got that explanation from but don't go back to that source for any other questions.

More than likely you've got a very high ISO setting on your camera (what model?) which produces the grainy pictures.

 

[cobright]

You will notice card speed when it takes a long time after clicking a shot before the camera is ready to shoot again.

If you have a camera that buffers for continuous shooting mode it may not be so noticable. But with high megapixel cameras, the picture being stored is large and the transfer of those 1s and 0s onto the SD card can take enough time to bottleneck.

It shouldn't cause problems with picture quality unless you are selecting lower resolution modes in order to get faster performance from the camera.

It sounds like a guy wanted ti sell you a new sd card. Markup on those is cuh-ray-zee.

 

[Deesknee]

SDHC is what he's after.

For the first part of your question ... /sigh ... here goes.

Short answer is, yes. Better answer is, yes but maker is not the only thing. Look for chips labled 'class 10' and with a rated data transfer rate of 35mb/sec or higher.

Thank you . I brought my phone showed the salesman your post. Walked out spending $30 for a 16

 

[Deesknee]

Thank you . I brought my phone showed the salesman your post. Walked out spending $30 for a 16

They are PNY. Both are class 10. 20MB. The 32GB one was $30 and the 16GB was $20.

Thank you everyone for the wonderful input.


Now how about another question.... actually I will open a new thread as it could be a complicated answer.

Thanks again.