SD cards - Extreme III versus Ultra II

[TracyN]

I am buying a Canon A620 camera. Should I buy an Extreme III or Ultra II SD card? Will the A620 take advantage of the higher speeds?

Tracy

[David Metsky]

Neither will, a regular Sandisk card operates fast enough for that camera. The camera will not be able to take advantage of either "fast" cards as the basic Sandisk card is fairly fast as is.

The best reason for buying the Ultra-II would be that your next camera might be able to take advantage of the speed, and if you use a USB 2.0 card reader it will download faster with an Ultra-II card. Since the difference in price is pretty small these days, it's not an unreasonable purchase.

I think the Ultra-III doesn't make sense for this camera at this point unless you have some other need for a very fast memory card.

-dave-

[Seehund]

Neither will, a regular Sandisk card operates fast enough for that camera. The camera will not be able to take advantage of either "fast" cards as the basic Sandisk card is fairly fast as is.
Are you sure, i.e. you tested it yourself? I don't have an A620, but I'm planning to buy one.
The DCRP review (I think I've seen others too) recommends 60x cards to take full advantage of continuous shooting modes (when the camera's buffer "spills over") and high-res video.

Anyway, Tracy, the Extreme III doesn't seem to offer anything that the Ultra II can't give you with the A620, if the reviews are anything to go by. Canon also says the A620 can shoot some ~2 fps in best-quality mode, and I suppose that Canon would love to quote a higher number if the bottleneck was the SD card instead of the camera.

SanDisk's website claims that the Ultra II can be written to at 9 MB/s (i.e. 60x speeds). The file sizes of the DCRP test photos seem to max out at 4 MB, and the test video weighs in at less than 2 MB/s.

AFAIK, the "standard" Sandisk card can't get written to faster than ~1 MB/s.

Has anyone here made any actual measurements with cards faster than 60x? Please post! :)

[David Metsky]

I have the SD300, which has the exact same video modes as the A620, and my regular Sandisk card works fine in all modes. I don't think there is any problem with the video.

The regular Sandisk cards also are capable of handling the continuous shooting mode on the SD300 at maximum image size. Since the A620 has a larger image size it is possible that in continuous shooting mode that you could fill the buffer, but that isn't what people have reported. Since the A620 shoots at 1.9 fps vs the 2.6 fps in the SD300, I don't think that it is a problem. I haven't tested it myself, however.

Other brand's "regular" cards have been reported to be slower than the Sandisk, and will cause the camera to pause when shooting video or continuously.

If I were buying today I'd consider the Ultra-II, but for the download speed to the computer, and potential future camera use.

-dave-

[FLiPMaRC]

In terms of speed (i.e. 60x) ... what are the speed ratings on the Ultra II and III?

I just think that Sandisk cards are over priced (and maybe overrated).

I bought a Corsair 2GB 133x SD card for less than a Sandisk 1GB Ultra II.

[Turo]

In terms of speed (i.e. 60x) ... what are the speed ratings on the Ultra II and III?

I just think that Sandisk cards are over priced (and maybe overrated).

I bought a Corsair 2GB 133x SD card for less than a Sandisk 1GB Ultra II.
Ultra II:
Read at 10MB/sec
Write at 9MB/sec

Extreme III:
Read at 20MB/sec
Write at 20MB/sec

Corsair 133x:
Read at 21MB/sec
Write at 15MB/sec

Not sure how those translate in terms of 60X, 100x, etc. I always just look for the actual transfer rate, best way to compare :).

I use a 1GB Ultra II SD card on my D50 with absolutely no problems and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. I almost bought the Corsair card you mentioned, but in the long run I went with the SanDisk because I had used them before in the past and wanted to play it safe.

[FLiPMaRC]

Ultra II:
Read at 10MB/sec
Write at 9MB/sec

Extreme III:
Read at 20MB/sec
Write at 20MB/sec

Corsair 133x:
Read at 21MB/sec
Write at 15MB/sec

Not sure how those translate in terms of 60X, 100x, etc. I always just look for the actual transfer rate, best way to compare :).

I use a 1GB Ultra II SD card on my D50 with absolutely no problems and would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone. I almost bought the Corsair card you mentioned, but in the long run I went with the SanDisk because I had used them before in the past and wanted to play it safe.:cool: Cool ... thanks!