SD Card for S90

Sorry for asking such novice questions... I have just bought an S90 which came with a free Sandisk SD card. Are SD cards generic - or are some SD cards better than other (and if so which ones and why)?

SanDisk is a pretty good brand. Only had one fail on me so far. And that SD card was subject to a lot of rough use.

The short, mostly true (in my experience) answer is yes, they're all pretty much the same. Unless you get a defective one.

The longer answer is that the slower the card, the longer it takes to write the image to it. In some cases that might matter, but I've never run into it with any of my pocketable digital cameras.

The tip: Newegg's Shell Shocker this afternoon is an 8GB SD card for $14 including shipping. http://www.newegg.com/Special/ShellShocker.aspx . Only good until the end of the day Nov. 23 or while supplies last.

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My travel photos: http://toolworks.com/bilofsky/trips/

I got a Sandisk Ultra 16 GB for my S90 and I am a little disappointed. I can only get 11 shots in 15 seconds and other people claim to get 15 shots. I'm thinking about getting a Sandisk Extreme.

The Sandisk Ultra is speed class 4 - the same as the cheap Newegg mentioned above. The Extreme is class 10.

(For class rating info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SD_Speed_Class_Ratings .)

Using a PNY Optima card (speed class 4), I got 7 RAW or 14 high quality JPEG in 15 seconds.

I have a DaneElec that looks to be the same as the Newegg one, except mine is 4 GB. That one got 10 RAW or 14 JPEG in 15 seconds.

All of this is interesting but I don't think it's important unless you're shooting rapid fire.

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My travel photos: http://toolworks.com/bilofsky/trips/

Does anyone know if the s90 is capable of using anything above a class 6 card?

The shot-to-shot time is rather large, worse with RAW than jpg. Would love to know if getting a faster card would actually make any sort of difference.

Not sure about using higher than class 6, but Canon support in the past has stated (in regards to their compact cams) that higher speed SD cards do not make any difference except in some rare situations. Canon said the write speed is limited by the camera and not the memory card and advised against spending extra money for fast cards. They did not specifically say how fast, but being that there is a lot of variation in the performance of different flash cards within the same speed class they are probably hesitant to give any hard figures.

I base my quality check on web feedback regarding card failures, and although Sandisk is now made in China it is apparently still high quality, with very few people on the net complaining about card failures.

PNY is usually made in Japan (check the packaging) and also apparently has a low failure rate.

Kingston appears to have increasing failure rates nowadays, which is not a surprise as their card prices have gotten really cheap.

Transcend is super popular due to their low prices, and many users have been using them without problems for years, but there are a lot of postings about card failures. This may just be because they sell so many, or it may actually be a higher failure rate.

IMHO most brands will give similar performance when working but you take your chances with some brands that (may) have higher failure rates.

Just my two cents, I've never done any scientific testing myself.

PaulRivers said:

Does anyone know if the s90 is capable of using anything above a class 6 card?

The shot-to-shot time is rather large, worse with RAW than jpg. Would love to know if getting a faster card would actually make any sort of difference.

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Thanks for all your comments - very interesting and helped me make an informed decision.

James, there lots of SD cards available. I've using a Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 6 card in my S90. Uploads of images to my computer and continious shooting are very fast. Got the card from Amazon for about $40. Enjoy your S90, it's a super camera.

James W said:

Sorry for asking such novice questions... I have just bought an S90 which came with a free Sandisk SD card. Are SD cards generic - or are some SD cards better than other (and if so which ones and why)?

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Kirk

Sandisk 4GB SDHC Memory Card $8 each at Walmart on Friday.

I'm using the S90 with a 8GB Sandisk Extreme (class 10) SD card and it's working fine. Unfortunately I don't have any other SD card against which I could compare it to know if the higher speed of the card makes a difference or not (but from what I read in the forum, a class 10 card might be unnecessary fast and not result in any performance gain)

There is a manufacturers trick: SanDisk or Panasonic Class 10 SDNC cards have the same speed as and older SanDisk Extreme III (Cl. 6, 150x). I have a few different brands 4GB Class 6. To provide enough "speed clearance" for shooting RAW recently I was shopping for faster and more GB card. I ended up with two 8 GB SanDisk Extreme III cards.
There are some rationales behind it:
1. S90 takes up to 16 GB cards

2. The greater capacity the slower the card (same type, brand, class, speed rating, etc.)

3. Extreme III looks faster than even needed, but extra speed might be handy for the future: newer cameras and such.

4. 8 GB Extreme III is approximately twice more expensive as regular Class 6 on sale or match the cost of 16 GB card.

5. The fastest 8-16 GB Extreme (300x) is a way more expensive. If I need it, I would buy it later

And finally more info about class/speed relationship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_card
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone
SG

What kind of speeds for continuous shooting and RAW writing are you getting with the Extreme III cards? For example, if you shoot an exposure bracket, is there a big difference between shooting 3 JPEGs and 3 RAW + JPEGs?

Honestly, I have no idea. There were a thread a couple weeks ago here with some timing and measurements.

I'd bet that's not a Class (6) card...
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Being blessed with sight,does not bestow seeing.
Sir,Hamington

And what difference does this make?

Ended up going with (2) Sandisk Ultra II 4GB.

hamx15 said:

I'd bet that's not a Class (6) card...
--
Being blessed with sight,does not bestow seeing.
Sir,Hamington

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I think that's a great choice. Sandisk Ultra cards are solid, proven reliable cards, and having two of them should cover all your storage needs.
If you start shooting RAW+JPG all the time you may want larger cards.

Also, you may want to mark them somehow so you can distinguish between the two when swapping cards and offloading pictures using card reader and whatnot.

Have fun.

snapshot09 said:

Ended up going with (2) Sandisk Ultra II 4GB.

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Bobarino said:

I got a Sandisk Ultra 16 GB for my S90 and I am a little disappointed. I can only get 11 shots in 15 seconds and other people claim to get 15 shots. I'm thinking about getting a Sandisk Extreme.

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Could that be because you chose a larger image size and higher compression ratio? That can change the file size and write time significantly.

I agree; have always liked the Sandisk cards, and the Ultra especially.

gadgets said:

I think that's a great choice. Sandisk Ultra cards are solid, proven reliable cards, and having two of them should cover all your storage needs.
If you start shooting RAW+JPG all the time you may want larger cards.

Also, you may want to mark them somehow so you can distinguish between the two when swapping cards and offloading pictures using card reader and whatnot.

Have fun.

snapshot09 said:

Ended up going with (2) Sandisk Ultra II 4GB.

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