SDHC cards??

[elgerber]

I just got a new point and shoot that takes SD cards. My Rebel uses CF, so I haven't looked into SD in quite awhile. My owners manual says it accepts SDHC cards also, can someone tell me if these are better than regular SD and what the difference is???

Also, where are you guys finding the best prices on memory cards? I need to get CF, SD and Xd (the store will love me)!

 

[Experiment_626]

My owners manual says it accepts SDHC cards also, can someone tell me if these are better than regular SD and what the difference is???

As far as I know, the primary difference is one of capacity. I believe anything above 2GB is an SDHC card -- IIRC, SDHC stands for "Secure Digital High Capacity."

SSB

 

[dr_zero]

Also, where are you guys finding the best prices on memory cards? I need to get CF, SD and Xd (the store will love me)!

I like Newegg for their prices and service.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=1053107930&Order=PRICE

 

[Groucho]

Right, SDHC are generally higher capacity. (Though technically it is possible to find a 4g non-SDHC card but they're rare enough to be ignored.)

The big difference is that most SD cards are formatted with the FAT file system, which is a big long in the tooth and can only have 2 gigs in a single partition. The SDHC cards are formatted with FAT32 which can go quite a bit larger. However, the device you're using (in this case, your camera) has to know how to talk to FAT. Most older cameras can't. Some older cameras do have firmware upgrades to get them to work with SDHC, but not all.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not all card readers can handle SDHC. (Yet I haven't have a problem with 4g Memory Stick cards in a reader than can't do SDHC, strange.) SuperMediaStore has, last time I checked, little $7 (free shipping) USB readers that do SDHC - I have a couple, they work very well.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

Another difference between SD and SDHC is speed.

SDHC cards come in three classes:

SDHC Class 2: 2MB/sec
SDHC Class 4: 4MB/sec
SDHC Class 6: 6MB/sec

For most point and shoot cameras, a Class 2 is fast enough. For some bridge cameras that can go faster than 2fps, a Class 4 is enough.

IIRC, a Class 4 is about the same speed as a Sandisk UltraII, which can keep up with my 2.3fps Canon Powershot S3 IS until the card fills.

 

[Groucho]

Another difference between SD and SDHC is speed.

SDHC cards come in three classes:

SDHC Class 2: 2MB/sec
SDHC Class 4: 4MB/sec
SDHC Class 6: 6MB/sec

For most point and shoot cameras, a Class 2 is fast enough. For some bridge cameras that can go faster than 2fps, a Class 4 is enough.

IIRC, a Class 4 is about the same speed as a Sandisk UltraII, which can keep up with my 2.3fps Canon Powershot S3 IS until the card fills.

Welllllllllllllllllllllllllllll.......................... not exactly.

The difference between SD and SDHC is not speed, it's that SDHC has some ratings for speed. But it doesn't mean that they'll generally be any faster or slower than SD cards.

Sandisk Ultra 2 cards are 10m read/write per sec, so they're a good amount faster than the class 6 rating. The problem with the speed rating system is that it's limited to 2/4/6. Anything faster than that is going to still be called class 6, even the just-announce 30m/s Sandisk cards. This makes it hard to choose a really fast card without doing some research (especially as some manufacturers don't list the write speed)... I have two Class 6 8meg SDHC cards and one is very noticeably faster than the other.

I also have some 150x 2meg SD cards that read at somewhere around 23m/sec IIRC and write about 13m/s, which is quite a bit faster than the Class 6 rating.

 

[My2Girls66]

Best Buy and Circuit City sometimes have good sale prices- keep an eye out in the weekly ads. Buy.com usually has some good deals, too.