All memory cards are not the same

[Craigus]

Last year, we made the digital leap - both with our surface and our u/w cameras. We quickly learned that write speed is very important and that much of the lingo out there, particularly that used by some of the "leading" companies is pretty mis-leading. There is a good review of digital film in DP Review. Here's the link: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/. What they say is that some of the "off" brands are the best, in particular, Ridata, Pretec and Simpletech - while Lexar and Fuji, despite promoting advantages such as 40X write speeds, don't measure up. Does anyone have any information that is contrary to this? We're heading to Bali later this year and want to be sure we're well-equipped.

Let's get wet! almtree:
Eric.

 

[Dee]

I hear over and over that Ridata has proven to be one of, if not THE, best.

 

[Aardal]

Thanks for the info and the link.

 

[Saturation]

That's an incredible link and very helpful. My experience matches some of the posted r/w speeds as I own several of those brands.

I wonder if there is also production variation i.e., Sandisk made last year are worse or better than this year, etc..

However, I'm not sure speeds matter in the long run even for rapid fire photos.

For camera applications, and assuming CF cards are all made as reliable and well built as Sandisk, a fast write speed is good so you can take rapid fire photos.

However, there is still a camera's equivalent of its controller card response time, if its slower than the CF write speed, it won't matter as much then.

A good camera has a huge frame buffer, which allows no lag time in taking photo after photo, which then empty's into the card. If you have a good movie mode in your camera, chances are you have a good sized frame buffer.