Is this a good deal?

[RonFrank]

Do you think a 40x card would be sufficient for the Canon A610, or should I go for a 60x card?

Maybe you can find some tests done with various cards and your camera. However if not, most cards these days are not slow, and they are cheap.

You may choose to purchase a fast card with the thought of upgrading someday.

My SanDisk Ultra II card I think is 80X, and was cheap ($60+$4 ship I think).

 

[Jamdiver]

EDIT - Just saw Ron's post.
Ok will do, thanks for the advice.

Bobf,

Well i'll most likely be shooting at the highest resolution with my A610 in the manufacturer housing using the internal flash.

I just wanted an idea to which memory card would be appropriate for this camera.
I'm just looking for a moderately priced SD card with good performance.

 

[RonFrank]

When discussing recycle times, what flash are you referring to? Unless you are referring to a full dump with a Sunpak or similar, card write times will most often always be longer, especially if shooting the highest jpeg option or RAW, regardless of write time speed.

Check out the speed of most any DSLR, they are blazing fast, and they can buffer a huge amount of data at the same time they are writing to a card.

The D2x can shoot at 5.3fps in full RAW mode for 17 continous shots at fill res. Jump that to 8fps in crop mode for 35 shots.

The D70 can do 3fps for 4 shots RAW 12 shots JPG, and then takes about 1 second to clear each shot in RAW. If you don't ever fill the buffer, the camera can do 1+fps as long as you want to shoot.

So is any flash going to keep up with that?

 

[justleesa]

My SanDisk Ultra II card I think is 80X, and was cheap ($60+$4 ship I think).

WOw, good deal Ron..do you remember from where?

 

[Dee]

Actually Dee, the 5050 can use up to a 2 gig card. I use one, and have a 512 xd card.

Really? When I was shopping for gig cards I read somewhere, probably DDN, that the 5050's would only take 1gs. That's why I didn't buy the 2g. Guess I need to pay attention to what I read!

 

[bobf]

Originally Posted by RonFrank

Remember you are limited by your SLOWEST component.

In the UW world that is ALWAYS going to be your FLASH, NOT your CF card speed, or Buffer in ANY DSLR.

Ron,

I did not read your statement above to indicate it was exclusively in reference to dSLRs. It was my assumption that your mention of the "UW world" included all cameras, and then when on to state "especially dSLR's". If I have misinterpreted your intent, my apologies.

I mentioned the recycle time of a DS 125 because of my assumption that you implied that the flash will always be the slowest component. I only tried to indicate that it is not always the case. There are point and shoot cameras out there that do not have the capabilities of the dSLR's that you refer to with your burst modes and buffer times (my digicam for instance). I agree that when a camera has the ability to shoot in bursts such as your examples (up to 5fps for instance), chances are no strobe above or below will keep up.

I went on to indicate other recycle times of popular strobes because Jamdiver had mentioned that he was shooting with a Canon A610 and not a dSLR. The recycle times of the strobes listed, especially the DS 125 but with the exception possibly the Sunpak as mentioned, could keep up a with the write times for a high quality .jpeg (or RAW if available) on a camera in normal shooting mode. The strobe recycle times listed again were for full dumps, which is not a typical power level for underwater use, meaning that faster times are more likely with fresh batteries.

I might also suggest that most point and shoot photographers do not shoot in continuous (burst) mode. Then again maybe it's because of the reason you correctly stated, the strobe would have difficulty keeping up. Although I think it's just as likely that the photographer is reviewing and learning from his prior image before the next shutter press occurs. If that were the case, then once again I believe that the strobe could keep up with the photographers skill level and other issues would therefore be the limiting factor prior to the next shutter press.

I guess the bottom line is that personally I've never been limited by my strobe's recycle speed............

Sorry again if I have misinterpreted your original statement to be all encompassing. I agree the performance specs indicate what you stated regarding dSLR's........

regards,
bobf

 

[RonFrank]

Ron,

I did not read your statement above to indicate it was exclusively in reference to dSLRs. It was my assumption that your mention of the "UW world" included all cameras, and then when on to state "especially dSLR's". If I have misinterpreted your intent, my apologies.

It's sometimes hard to read everything on this site word for work

And I did reference PnS camera's in the same post, so it's certainly understandable that there may be confusion!

Chow,