Digic II and High Speed SD cards

[emmis]

Has anyone noticed or done any tests to determine whether the high speed SD cards provide any benefit with this processor? If so, is the difference noted in how fast the camera cycles between pictures, writes movie footage or copies to the computer via sub? Or all the above?

[David Metsky]

It depends on the camera. My SD300 with a basic Sandisk 512M card can operate at full speed in all still and video modes. I doubt this is true for the SD550. The chip itself isn't the determining factor.

-dave-

[Donato777]

for the Canon S80?

[kimnkk]

Speed doesn't really matter. I have a 512MB 60x Kingmax and a 1GB 150x Adata.
I also have a 64MB Panasonic card - which i assume is standard speed.

When i tested them in my IXUS 700 (SD500), they could all do the same thing - take continuous photos until the card is full or take video untill the card is full. The only difference is afterwards - saving a video on the standard card took far longer than it does on the 60x, which also was a bit slower than the card.

I think this comes about because the IXUS 700 (or DIG!CII) has a big enough buffer to allow the use of normal cards.

From DPreview's IXUS 700 review they say that

"the buffering is so fast that you can shoot pretty much indefinitely, even at the top 7MP/Super Fine setting, as long as you have a fast enough SD card. It seems impossible to fill the buffer when using a fast card, meaning you can keep shooting for as long as you have the battery power and card capacity to do so."

I don't have a big enough standard SD card to test this, but from the 64MB worth of photos, it seems that i could hold in the button and shoot for as long as the card would hold without any slowdowns (except for afterwards - it has the "writing to card" or something message much longer than my other cards).