Memory Card Discrepancies

[mongo]

can anyone tell mongo why when 2 cards have all the same specs say, 32gig and 90Mb/sec, the CP card always seems to be more expensive that the SD card. Is there something Mongo needs to know ??? MOngo's camera takes both CF and SD cards.

need to know this soon

thanks
Mongo

[ricktas]

Not sure about SD cards. but Samsung own the patent to the CF format. Samsung make fairly much all the CF cards available, or they are made under licence. Maybe the licencing fees to use/manufacture the CF format is higher, thus meaning end prices are higher.

[Mary Anne]

Mongo More about it Here

[mongo]

thanks guys.

Mary Anne , MOngo has read that article and others on that site specifically about SD cards too. It is getting a little clearer but not quite yet.

[arthurking83]

CF is the format of choice!! .. end of story.

For the same speed rating, CF will always beat SD. I think the speed difference(and most likely price difference) is in the chipset interface between memory modules and communication to the outside world .. be that PC camera, PDA .. etc

Is the SD card UHS-1 or greater compliant?

It has something to do with the way the SD card is instructed to operate.
Just had a quick squizz of the cards specs, but it's late at night.

I remember reading this stuff before .. but SD card speeds can be more reliant on the hardware it's operating on, more so than a CF card.

clock speeds and stuff like that .. the general gist of the info was that CF is faster than equivalent SD cards!
(this is why I much prefer the XQD format, rather than the SD format which Nikon had strangely chosen in the D800 as the spare slot!! )

[ameerat42]

I recently paid a "mere" $57 for an 8GB Sandisk, rated at 60MB/sec (it was the largest they had). "Mere" because the same card in three other stores was 50-100% more expensive.
And here I was using just-as-fast SDHCs and paying heaps less. I think it is also the quantity produced.
Am.

[mongo]

....Is the SD card UHS-1 or greater compliant?

Arthur its a ScanDisk Extreme Pro 32 gb SDHC UHS-1 class 10 - 95Mb/s (going for a good price of about $110)

an XQD card of 32 gig is about $500.

Despite the ScanDisk's lesser performance, it may be good value and still do a good job on Mongo's D800. Mongo will NOT be shooting bursts of 15 frames at a time at 5FPS and he is not in a hurry when transferring the data to his PC.

What do you think ?

[Kym]

Also 'oils ain't oils'...

http://www.ausphotography.net.au/for...y:Memory_Cards

Chips vary in quality, so the really cheap no-name brands can be worse.

[arthurking83]

....... Mongo will NOT be shooting bursts of 15 frames at a time at 5FPS and he is not in a hurry when transferring the data to his PC.

What do you think ?

in this situation, what I'd do(and have done) .. is go for a high capacity low cost option.

On the one or two occasions in 6 years of shooting where I needed speed, I purchased the most affordable speedy card.

So an option if you choose say a D800 in the immediate future is:

this 64G Sd card, which we know is not as fast a an equivalent CF card.
But if you can stretch it, maybe also acquire say a 4G fast(600x) CF card for when the need for speed ever arises.. eg video or 5fps or whatever.

This way you would have the ability to store lots of images on the SD card and while a 4G card can only store 94NEF images on a D800, if this fills up you can transfer them to the SD card.. which will still be in the camera too.

This would simply be an option for a cheap way to have access to speed(in a D800) if the need arises.

Of course you would have to preempt the need to use the speedier card if this is an option to Mongo, and set the camera to use the CF card slot before the actual shooting situation.

[mongo]

many thanks Arthur - wise advice and Mongo agrees with you and has gone down this very path today.

BTW - a 4gig CF card hold only 51 RAW (NEF) file on the D800, Mongo knows because he has tried it. This is useful info for doing calculations of cards and capacities. This is consistent with the 32 gig SD card Mongo purchased which hold 399 RAW files i.e about 12 to 13 per gig.

[arthurking83]

.....

BTW - a 4gig CF card hold only 51 RAW (NEF) file on the D800....

Aha! I only had a brief hour or less play, and I was close to stunned at the very low image count on the top LCD.
I checked the card to make sure it wasn't an old 128Mb card from the primordial soup of the pre Cambrian Archean era, but I found a 4 Gig card!

Couldn't remember the actual number tho, I thought it was 90 or so, but you are probably correct...

I never thought that the image file size was really going to become a point of contention .. until it hit me!!
(I'm over it now that I've actually seen it .. it's just seeing it for the first time that was freaky).

[mongo]

Aha! I only had a brief hour or less play, and I was close to stunned at the very low image count on the top LCD.
I checked the card to make sure it wasn't an old 128Mb card from the primordial soup of the pre Cambrian Archean era, but I found a 4 Gig card!

Couldn't remember the actual number tho, I thought it was 90 or so, but you are probably correct...

I never thought that the image file size was really going to become a point of contention .. until it hit me!!
(I'm over it now that I've actually seen it .. it's just seeing it for the first time that was freaky).

take it easy Arthur - not worth short circuiting yourself over this new info.

As far as pre Cambrian era goes, it wasn't bad but the best time Mongo ever had was in the Mesozoic era - it rocked !

[mpot]

can anyone tell mongo why when 2 cards have all the same specs say, 32gig and 90Mb/sec, the CP card always seems to be more expensive that the SD card.

I believe the key reason that CF cards are more expensive than SD cards is that the CF cards have more electronics on board, ie, the controller is on the CF card, while SD cards rely on controllers in the host device.