Best SD Card for Panasonic FZ20?

[ChrisBP]

Hi
I have had several digital cameras and still have a Pentax, but wanted something new, maybe a "big boys toy". Had an Olympus C700 UZ about 3 years ago and loved the 10x Zoom (but hated the low light performance), so sold it on.

So figured going for a big zoom was where I should start. After weeks researching the best all round camera to buy, I came up with the Panasonic FZ20 or the Canon S1 IS. The Canon is much cheaper, so ended up getting a mate bring me one back from the states (to the UK). Unpacked it, powered it up.......and hated it. Loads of little niggly things that I didnt like, but Focus in lowish (normal indoor light) was rubbish and the tiny screen was not nice. Played with it for a couple of hours, then packed it all up again and wacked it straight on E-Bay. Sold it same day as "used once only", got more than I paid for it and ordered an FZ20 from a UK supplier.... JOB DONE.

However the FZ20 only has the 16mb SD card. There are lots of 512mb's about on E-Bay, so I think thats what I will buy, but "What should I buy?" there are ordinary 512 Sandisk on for only £35. I have ordered a great camera in the FZ20 and what I originally wanted, I want the right SD card now....Anyone know best card at cheapest UK price.

Will write again once the FZ20 arrives...

OH, by the way, I chose the black one.....

[John_Reed]

However the FZ20 only has the 16mb SD card. There are lots of 512mb's about on E-Bay, so I think thats what I will buy, but "What should I buy?" there are ordinary 512 Sandisk on for only £35. I have ordered a great camera in the FZ20 and what I originally wanted, I want the right SD card now....Anyone know best card at cheapest UK price.

I think you'll be happier with a "high-speed" card. The "ordinary" Sandisk won't perform burst writes as quickly as will the Sandisk "UltraII" cards, or as fast as the 1GB PQI Card, which looks to be available in your country, at least per an eBay page, at £54. I have one of these, and have been well pleased with its performance, not to mention its humungous storage capacity! While I haven't made a quantitative speed comparison, I know that it writes bursts faster than my Panasonic 256MB card. (I'm shooting an FZ10, with 4MP images; you'll notice even more difference with the FZ20's 5MP images)

[judge9847]

The SanDisk Ultra certainly does write very quickly and in burst mode on an FZ10, the 5 (max) images get stored in rapid time. I've been using a brand new 256MB SanDisk UltraII card but .........

I'd been using it to take around 250 images (holiday snaps in truth) when out of the blue, having tried to take another photo, the camera told me there was a write error. However, there was apparently, room for about another 170 or so on the card. I was using it in 1280 x 960 mode. Then, when I tried to look at the images on the camera, all I could get was the message "Read Error".

Cutting a very long story short, it's just cost me an extra $35 (about £24) to buy some software that could get to the images on the card. I'd tried SanDisks own retrieval utility and Norton Disk Doctor and the only response I could get was a complete system crash - every time. About 20 times in all - and I'm not exaggerating!!

When I did manage to get my pictures off the card and on to the PC, one image was 111,459KB in size !!!

I've done some research and apparently there are lots of problems with these SanDisk UltraII cards. I won't tell you the Google search I did to research that because I went to one site it came up with to read what it had to say and got blasted by three, THREE!!, spyware/crapware programs which have now taken me hours to get rid of. And that's through an up-to-date firewall too!!

Anyway, at one stage I really did think that I'd lost all those 250 photos. I was, frankly, in some despair until I managed to get to them. I thought then that if I'd used my 128MB cards, one would have been full a while before I'd got to the 200 mark, if that card had caused problems such that I couldn't retrieve the images, or had lost the card completely or whatever, I would have been saying goodbye to far fewer images. Bad enough, but I reckon better to lose fewer images than the huge numbers that can be got on to a 512MB or even a 1GB card.

I'm not going to buy the UltraII cards again, that's for sure. And I'll be sticking to the 128MB cards which have never caused me a problem.

[buddhafinder]

I just bought a Kingmax 60x card at newegg.com. I tested it transfering a pile of pictures to and from my computer through a card reader (USB 2.0). I did the same with a Kingston 512 and a Sandisk 256 SD card.

The Kingmax transferred the pictures in under one second. The other cards each took 17 to 20 seconds. I had no idea that the difference would be so startling.

I got two fo the 512MB cards, but there's a 1GB adn 256MB both available. The prices are very good - $54 for the 512MB. It's called the KINGMAX 512MB Platinum 60X High Speed Secure Digital Card - Model SDC-512M3P.

Hope that helps! You can always try in Froogle for a better price, too.

[ChrisBP]

WEll I collect my new FZ20 on Friday (just 3 days away!)

Thanks to everyone for replying with information as to the best SD card to use. The Warning about the Ultra Card was especially important, because I had strongly considered that.

I have found a card made by OPIUMEX its billed as follows:-

FASTEST WRITE AND READ SPEED SECURE DIGITAL 512MB MEMORY CARD

WRITE SPEED

Sustained = 13.7MB/sec
Burst = 20MB/sec

READ SPEED
Sustained = 10MB/sec
Burst = 20MB/sec

These cards can be purchased on E-Bay for around £40 (UK) or $70 (US) and I have checked out the manufacturers web site and the company seem fairly good.

Anyone got any experience, or even an oppinion?

Cant wait until Friday !!

[MikeCamp]

simple


http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...155-264&depa=1

[DJB-30]

I can't believe no one has considered the Panasonic SD Cards. The Panasonic 256MB and 512MB Cards ensure write speeds (10MB/sec) faster than the Sandisk Ultra cards and to my knowledge, are not frought with the same reliability issues. Personally, I have some concern over all these new SD brands popping up. There are new factories in other countries (Taiwan, etc.) starting to show up, and no one really knows how reliable the cards are. Panasonic was a founding member of the SD Card Association, has been making them for years, has huge worldwide share, and even makes the cards for other brands. My feeling is that I store a lot of valuable images on these cards and I'd seriously consider paying a little more for the Pana cards - at least you know what you're getting.

[Jeff Keller]

Took a four-shot burst on the FZ20. Took 10 seconds to write on my Sandisk and Kingston SD cards and just 2 seconds on a SanDisk Extreme card.

[zookeeper]

I am fairly new at the high end digitals, but I do a lot of research before I jump into deep water. I did jump off the deep end with my FZ20. I ordered it the night before Jeff posted his review. I went to Circuit City the next morning to pick it up, brought it home and dove in head first. THEN, I signed onto DC Resource and saw Jeff's review. BOY am I glad Jeff got it right..LOL
Now as far as SD card speeds, there is definitely a difference. I borrowed a no-name SD card and tested it against the Panasonic card that came with the camera. In continuous shoot mode, the generic card slowed after about 2-3 frames and the Panasonic slowed down after about 8-10 frames. I bought a Lexar 256MB 32X (rated at 10mb read or write). This baby doesn't slow down at all. It just keeps on going until I lift my finger and the camera finishes the last frame almost instantly. In high or low burst modes, the writing finishes the last frame in a fraction of a second. This must be the result of the simultaneous processing of that Venus II processor. I was using 2048 pic size and fine mode. About BIG cards vs. smaller cards, I have a theory that if I have a problem with the memory card, I'd rather lose some of my pics rather than all of them. Besides, if you do lose a memory chip, electronically or physically, you would have backup if you worked off of 2 or 3 smaller cards rather than one BIG ONE. I am opting for 2 to 3 256MB cards rather than a really big one. This seems to make sense to me.
Enjoy that new FZ20...... ........Jerry G......the Zookeeper

[littledigitalartist]

Cutting a very long story short, it's just cost me an extra $35 (about £24) to buy some software that could get to the images on the card. I'd tried SanDisks own retrieval utility and Norton Disk Doctor and the only response I could get was a complete system crash - every time. About 20 times in all - and I'm not exaggerating!!

When I did manage to get my pictures off the card and on to the PC, one image was 111,459KB in size !!!

hi may i know what programm you use to recover your pics?? i had this problem too... and i've been saving my card till now... help!!!!