Blog: Making Memories with Memory Cards

by Steve Terlizzi

So when did photography become so complex? I don't mean the making of great photographs...I mean the act of photography. It used to be...take your camera, load the film, shoot it, rewind and develop. The move to digital has arguably made this process much more complex. For the casual user of cameras, one can argue that it’s a step backwards. However, even for the enthusiast and pros, it has introduced a new set of decisions. Today we will tackle one of them, Secure Digital (SD) cards.

Warning: Techie Stuff Ahead

An SD card is non-volatile memory card made by companies like by SanDisk, Lexar, and Toshiba to be used in your camera. There are other memory cards such as compact flash (CF) cards but we'll assume that you are using SD cards. All SD cards are common dimensions (32mmm x 24mm x 2.1mm); however all SD cards are not created equal.

There are three different formats for SD cards: Standard SD (1MB to 4GB), SDHC (4GB to 32GB) and SDXC (32GB to 2TB). Moreover, each SD card has an SD class from n/a to 45. This number corresponds to the minimum write speed so a Class 6 card is 6MBytes/sec. If that wasn't confusing enough, there are some incompatibilities between the standards that may prevent an SDHC card from being read by an older SD card reader. If that’s the case, then either tether your camera to the computer using a USB cable or invest in a new SD card reader.

What's Your SD Card Strategy?

We’re past all that techie stuff. Now the hard decision...what size card to buy and how many of them? The SD card is the memory of your camera...without it your camera has a permanent amnesic disorder - an inability to retain any memories. So I should get the biggest available, right? Well, a 32GB SD card could store very large number of JPEGs, but do you really want to spend the money for the latest and greatest? Also, everything on a single card is an invitation for Murphy to strike through either a card failure or having your camera stolen. While the hardware can be replaced, those images are gone forever.

What about speed? That depends on how fast your camera can burst photos and whether or not you can do video through your camera. The higher the SD class, the faster the card, but also the more expensive it is. So what's the recommendation?

I typically shoot with multiple smaller cards and rarely have more than a single days worth of pictures sitting solely on the SD card. More often than not, I migrate the pictures each day to my computer. My current 4GB SDHC card is pretty slow (Class 2), but my Nikon D40 isn't a terribly fast camera, either.

And what about these Eye-Fi cards with wireless capability built-it? Well, that's a topic for another day...it is time to go to the computer store and pick up another SD card.