do brands really matter all that much when it comes to memory cards?

[CameraNewbie]

like SD cards, does it matter these days? I figure if you rarely use your cam and want big storage for cheap, then why not right?

Ever heard of Centrios?

[cdifoto]

like SD cards, does it matter these days? I figure if you rarely use your cam and want big storage for cheap, then why not right?

Ever heard of Centrios?

It's not a major thing since the card is not a complex device. However, I tend to stick to the major names for warranty purposes. Kingston, Lexar, and SanDisk have lifetime warranties. I'm not sure about others. Kingston is generally the least expensive of the 3.

[ReF]

check reviews for reliability issues. avoid the ones that seems to have more failure complaints. amazon.com has quite a few reviews among other places.
i personally would stick to Lexar and sandisk. i have five sandisk cards (4 CF, 1 SD) with 28,000 pics on the four compact flash versions, and not a single problem. i haven't had the SD version for too long.

[Kenyada]

I guess it boils down to Value and Trust. The value that you place on the images you store on the memory card. And how much you trust the manufacturer of that memory card to protect that value. I use Lexar exclusively.

[cdifoto]

I have 2-512MB SanDisk CF cards, a Kingston 512MB, a Kingston 1GB CF card, and a Kingston Elite Pro 4GB CF card, all of which have proven to be fairly quick (even the standards) and reliable.

[tim11]

Depends on what you mean by BRAND. I don't restrict myself to Panasonic, Kodak, Sony, Fuji; etc memory cards but I will buy Lexar, SanDisk, Kingston and the likes anyday. I won't buy no brand memory cards from a $2 shop.

[akysiev]

Brands don't matter much to me as long as they're fairly well-known (I'm sure as hell not gonna buy a $200 CF card from some unknown manufacturer). Speed is pretty important though since I do lots of action and wildlife photography. With a Kingston 80x I can shoot up to 20 or 25 shot bursts on my 350D at times but with a 50x from some other brand, Corsair maybe, the max is 10 to 14. Real handy for taking photos of birds.

[cdifoto]

Brands don't matter much to me as long as they're fairly well-known (I'm sure as hell not gonna buy a $200 CF card from some unknown manufacturer). Speed is pretty important though since I do lots of action and wildlife photography. With a Kingston 80x I can shoot up to 20 or 25 shot bursts on my 350D at times but with a 50x from some other brand, Corsair maybe, the max is 10 to 14. Real handy for taking photos of birds.

Re: The Bold Part,

I actually got a 4GB CF by Kingston for just a hair over that, with free shipping. 45x which is quite fast. My standard Kingston acts like a high speed, and the 45x is even faster yet.

[akysiev]

Whoops, I mixed up the brand names in my post. My Lexar 80x and a Kingston 50x.

The 4GB Kingston is actually just about $200-$240 but my point was that I wouldn't buy something worth $200 normally from an obscure brand that would suffer a lot less from defects or a lack of QC than these larger brands would.

btw, very nice gallery you have there :)

[cdifoto]

Whoops, I mixed up the brand names in my post. My Lexar 80x and a Kingston 50x.

The 4GB Kingston is actually just about $200-$240 but my point was that I wouldn't buy something worth $200 normally from an obscure brand that would suffer a lot less from defects or a lack of QC than these larger brands would.

btw, very nice gallery you have there :)

Once I re-read your post I thought maybe that's what you meant. Basically, don't blow that much cash without knowing for sure what you're getting. :p

Thanks for the compliments. I'm improving daily. :D