Canon A540 questions

[zuzanne]

I just got my new camera and in reading thru the book it says I can get one hour of video recording or 1 GB card whichever comes first. It recommends a fast card. Has anyone used this feature that can tell me how well it works and which card I should get? I have several 512MB SD cards but no 1 GB cards. I have no idea how to tell if one is fast or not. Help please. We will be in Disney for New Years Eve and I want to use the video for recording the fireworks display.

Suzanne

 

[Hochhauser]

There will be a label on the SD card that says Hi-Speed.
Here's a description from this site: http://www.steves-digicams.com/flash_memory.html#sd

The last line is prob. what you are interested in:
__________________________________

As of 2006 the most popular flash memory format for digital cameras is undoubtedly the Secure Digital (SD) card. And in just the first four months of this year we have seen drastic price reductions with the average 1GB SD card dropping from around ~$100 to $35 or less...
SD and MMC (MultiMediaCard) cards are nearly identical on the outside but technically different on the inside. Not all cameras that use SD can also use MMC cards, check your camera's user manual. SD cards are generally faster than MMC cards. Lately we have seen many new 2GB and 4GB size cards hit the market - most cameras, even the new ones, won't work with cards larger than 2GB unless specified by the manufacturer. SD cards currently range in size from 16MB up to 4GB (if your 4GB card has "SDHC" on it please see the next section.) SD cards come in different transfer speed ratings, SD cards not marked "High Speed" or "Ultra High Speed" are probably only ~2Mb/s capable. The latest cards are capable of transferring data at up to 20Mb/s such as the ATP 150x or Pretec 133x cards. Transfer speed is an important factor if you record high framerate motion video or high quality audio tracks. Many digital camera makers only certify their 30fps VGA motion video capability when using "high speed" SD cards.

 

[zuzanne]

Thank you. The information on his website was very helpful. There is two that fit my camera that are the fast speed ones. The Sandisk Ultra II SD or the PNY Optima SD High Speed. The PNY shows a 5 mb per sec. write speed, it did not give the read speed. The Sandisk 9 md per sec write and 10 MB sec. read speed. There is only $5 price difference between the two. I have the Sandisk SD 512 MBs now for photos. Which of the two fast speed ones do you think would be better for shooting short video with my camera?

Suzanne

 

[Work0rDie]

I am using one of the 1gb SD "fast" cards in my A540 and it seems to do quite well for video. This is my first underwater camera and I don't have anything to compare it to. However, I find that it takes a while for the card to record still images. I don't know whether to blame it on battery power, the camera or the card.

 

[Hochhauser]

I found it very slow when I first used it... then I found a setting called preview time. The default was something like 5 seconds. I put it down to the minimum and it dramatically speed up the camera.