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Memory card for D800?

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adamlambert

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I am in the market for either a 32 or 64gb memory card to go in D800. Choice is obviously CF or SD? What would you advise. I have never had a problem with sandisk other than dodgy eBay copy one time.

Adam
 
PHXAZCRAIG said:
Transcend all the way.
Sandisk / Lexar = overpriced.
Click to expand...
I would disagree... I am shooting weddings with SanDisk for at least 8 years... Never had problems... Last year tried Transcend 32GB Fast cards... Thank God I was shooting in Backup mode on my D3s bodies... One card failure... Another point - with those Transcend cards it takes a couple of seconds to preview picture just shot due to the architecture of the chips they use... To me - double failure. Returned them in favor of 32GB Sandisk Extreme UDMA cards. Lightning fast previews, no problems.

And BTW: I had 2 16GB Transcend SDs as well... Yea, they were cheap... But one ended up in trash...

Just my 2 cents... You don't want to spend 3k and save couple of bucks on the most important component... ;-)

--
Real photography - it's just the ability to see what was already created by God!
http://www.pbase.com/grig
 
I've got 12 Transcend SD and CF cards. None of them have given me a problem. The fast ones (UDMA, '600x') are quite fast. The cheaper (133x) ones are slow - but a nice cheap extra card solution for me on long vacations.

--
Craig
http://www.cjcphoto.net
 
I would highly recommend Sandisk as a brand. I have over 30 Sandisk cards and I have luckily never had an issue with any of them. I have however had friends have issues with Lexar, but that was a while back. It would be great to talk to a service centre to know how many of each card is sent back to get a better idea of their dependability.

As far as which speed of card, their 45mb/s cards are a great option for less expensive cards with great performance however everything depends on how you're going to use it.

Are you going to shoot HD video all the time? Then I would recommend getting at least one 60mb/s card, or even a 90mb/s card.

If you're shooting landscapes, even in HDR mode, you can stick to slower cards.
PHXAZCRAIG said:
I've got 12 Transcend SD and CF cards. None of them have given me a problem. The fast ones (UDMA, '600x') are quite fast. The cheaper (133x) ones are slow - but a nice cheap extra card solution for me on long vacations.
Click to expand...
Totally good info along with the poster above who had a band Transcend card. Honestly, cards are like people, you get a bad or temper-mental one once in a while, but unless you get a whole batch of bad ones, you can be pretty sure the brand is good. ;)

--
-Dan
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
'Cameras don't take pictures, people do.'
'No one sees your camera when they're looking at your pictures.'
http://www.danharperphotography.com/ -BLOG/stock site
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http://www.wpgphoto.com/ -My Winnipeg based photography community
 
adamlambert said:
I am in the market for either a 32 or 64gb memory card to go in D800. Choice is obviously CF or SD? What would you advise. I have never had a problem with sandisk other than dodgy eBay copy one time.
Click to expand...
Like the others, I've had good experiences with Sandisk Extreme, and Transcend in both CF and SD. I've also have a few Kingston cards that have been reliable, and are often on special. Because I shoot a lot of video, I usually try to buy Class 10 SD cards, and as fast as possible in CF.

Many people prefer using two smaller cards vs one bigger card. For example, 2 16 GB cards instead of one 32 GB card. If your one 32 GB fails, all your images are gone. If one of your 16 GB fails, ideally you still have half of your images on the other 16.
 
Silly logic. I suppose one could even get those 16MB CF cards for $1 each and put a picture on each card for reliability of course...
marike6 said:
adamlambert said:
I am in the market for either a 32 or 64gb memory card to go in D800. Choice is obviously CF or SD? What would you advise. I have never had a problem with sandisk other than dodgy eBay copy one time.
Click to expand...
Like the others, I've had good experiences with Sandisk Extreme, and Transcend in both CF and SD. I've also have a few Kingston cards that have been reliable, and are often on special. Because I shoot a lot of video, I usually try to buy Class 10 SD cards, and as fast as possible in CF.

Many people prefer using two smaller cards vs one bigger card. For example, 2 16 GB cards instead of one 32 GB card. If your one 32 GB fails, all your images are gone. If one of your 16 GB fails, ideally you still have half of your images on the other 16.
Click to expand...
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From my experience and what I read, use SD as primary and CF as backup. D800 seems to have serious CF issues.

My Kingston and Kingmax CF cards won't work on D800. They work pretty well on D3S and 5D mk2.

My sandisk SD cards work fine on d800 up to now.
 
adamlambert said:
I am in the market for either a 32 or 64gb memory card to go in D800. Choice is obviously CF or SD? What would you advise. I have never had a problem with sandisk other than dodgy eBay copy one time.
Click to expand...
I use Promaster due to their quality build, reliability and speed... although they are pricey.
http://www.amazon.com/Promaster-Speed-Secure-Digital-Memory/dp/B005FQMM6E

My other camera uses CF (same brand), but if given the choice I would go with SD.

I have used probably every other brand in one electronic component or another.
I know I have some Kingstons for back-up, maybe something else too.

The only complaints I find online from people saying theirs have malfunctioned, it has usually been Sandisk. That is of course MY experience in reading complaints... not making any claims. Sandisk worked fine for me, as does Kingston (although one of them bent very easily on me... still works though), but after some research went from Kingston to Promaster.

Sandisk is made in China... it's more the budget memory card. Slower cards sell for under $10 for 2GB, $15 for 4GB, and under $20 for 8GB.

Just be careful where you buy them because as a Sandisk engineer stated... 1/3 of all "Sandisk" cards, are counterfeit. I wouldn't even buy a branded Sandisk card online.

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2011/05/counterfeit-memory.html
 
What's "silly" about it?

With 1 huge capacity card like 32 or 64GB, you're putting all your eggs in 1 basket so to speak. If that one basket is lost or damaged along the way, you've lost everything. And if you're shooting on assignment & that happens? OUCH!!!

Or even on vacation. If your camera is lost or stolen with that 1 card, you've not only lost whatever the camera was, but everything you shot on that entire trip!
 
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