I am new to photography and using memory for cameras. When I was planning to buy SD memory, I saw so many choices and did some studies and the results I got were very surprising to me.

So in essence, the speed of SD/CF cards matter ONLY when you're reading from them, not for performance with the cameras.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/cf-sd.htm
http://www.bobatkins.com/photography...ory_cards.html

See the second link - Most cameras, even high end cannot write faster than 1.4 MB/s - so no point in buying the faster memory. And all cameras have sufficient internal buffer which is difficult to run out unless shooting RAW sports mode.

I think I made a wise decision buying a 2 GB Kingston SD for my Canon SD800 IS from Frys for $25 (Thanks ghettocowboy for letting me know the bargain) and not the $90 or so 'Ultra speed' elsewhere

Another gimmick forcing unknowing users to invest $$$ in something they dont need.

I suspect the faster write speeds, excelling the speed that of the camera read ability is for people who have a dedicated slot and like to save the precious few seconds when it comes to data transfer of those pics onto their PC's.

Also prob not a bad thing to have for possible future camera products that might take advantage of the higher read/write speeds.

I would buy it but only if the diff in price between them would be less than $10.

the random access time will increase the rate at which you can shot pictures i belive

The 'Ultra' speed cards were about twice the cost of the standard ones when I bought it yesterday. So I cannot justify paying $50 for a card that costs $25

As for future cameras, I will not retain my $25 card when I buy my new one in a few years. After all the new camera will have more features, higher file (megapixel) size which means more storage needed, so I will probably upgrade my storage card too and buy a better (higher storage) one.

Using a faster card for cameras seems like using USB 2.0 instead of 1.1 for using a mouse.

difference is 50bux.... whew ya I too would not go for it

For the first sentence to be valid, it also depends on the card itself. Many manufacturers rate their speeds by their read speed, ignoring the fact that their write speed may be far slower than their read speed even under optimal benchmarking conditions. In fact, I've tested non-speed-rated cards (e.g. a "Made In Japan" PNY 2GB SD card with no speed rating) which have higher read speeds than some speed-rated cards (60X SD cards from both Lexar and Sandisk that I've tested); however, the PNY can muster only slightly faster write speed than the plain "unrated" Sandisk SD card in benchmarks (both "unrated" cards can write at between 33X and 40X in my testing).

As for the second sentence, this is incorrect. A high-end digital SLR can write at up to about 8 MB/s. And many of the newer Canon cameras (both SLR and point-and-shoot) with the Digic II processing chip can write at 5 MB/s or faster. However, these cameras can take advantage of such higher-speed cards only under the most-stressful scenario: continuous rapid-sequence shooting at the cameras' maximum resolution and image quality settings and high ISO sensitivities.

In other words, the higher end your camera, the more likely you'll need a higher-speed card.

On the other hand, if the faster card is significantly more expensive than a "slower" non-rated card, then the faster card is not worth the extra cost, IMHO.

I did a further test on a modern low-end digital SLR camera (Nikon D50), and found that the 60x speed-rated (this refers to the write speed, not the read speed) cards are slightly faster than their non-speed-rated brandmates, but not by as much as the memory card manufacturers lead you to believe. With continuous shooting of six compressed RAW images, the 60x cards (from Lexar and Sandisk) took about 10 to 11 seconds (from first shutter release to the completion of the writing), while the slowest non-speed-rated cards (of those that I have on hand) took nearly 16 seconds. Two blue non-speed-rated SanDisk SD cards proved to be either "fast" or "slow," depending on the capacity of the card (the 1GB card, with a RAW shooting performance time of about 12 seconds, performed more like the 60x cards in my testing, while the 256MB card is more like the "slow" PNY 2GB card). What's more, the results show very little correlation to the TRT results with a card reader connected to a high-performance PC.

Please note that the above performance results are relative. The 60x SD cards are the fastest SD cards that are available from most big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Circuit City. You'll pretty much have to buy 133x-rated SD cards from a large camera store or an online reseller.

Read and/or write performance may also depend on the circuit that interfaces with the SD card, and unless you know for certain that it's not the culprit, you can't be sure what you measuring is the throughput of the card, or the circuit.

For all practical purposes, I agree. In addition, you may notice an increase in write performance with certain cards in a given camera because the camera's circuit works better with those particular cards, not because of whether that card is of high-speed or low-speed.

And I have checked the throughput of my particular card reader: It has a higher throughput than all of the SD cards in my possession. The fastest-writing card in my possession (a 60x Lexar Platinum II) tested out to have a write speed that exceeds the card manufacturer's 60x rating - about 83x.

That said, some ultra-high-megapixel cameras really need ultra-high-speed cards (133x or faster) in order to function properly.

One more thing about SD card speed:

Eventually, all SD cards manufactured beginning this year will have a speed rating; non-speed-rated SD cards and those with arbitrary speed ratings will become a thing of the past. There will be three speed classes of SD cards - SD Class 2, SD Class 4 and SD Class 6 - each corresponding to the guaranteed minimum transfer rate (in MB/s). For example, the current Toshiba standard SD cards (and also those manufactured by Toshiba for PNY) are graded SD Class 4, which means the cards have a guaranteed minimum transfer rate of 4 MB/s. SanDisk has three lines of SD cards, each with a different speed rating: The regular SanDisk cards are rated SD Class 2 (2 MB/s); the Ultra II, SD Class 4 (even though the Ultra II was bench-tested at 60x write/66x read); the Extreme III, SD Class 6 (6 MB/s). Lexar currently has no SD Class 4-rated cards; its regular line is SD Class 2-rated, while its current Platinum II 60x card line is SD Class 6-rated. The existing and other speed ratings, if used, will supplement the SD class ratings.

The bad thing? Because of this, some brands of SD Class 2 cards will sell for as much as some brands of SD Class 4 cards, while some brands of SD Class 6 cards will sell for the same price as or a lower price than some brands of SD Class 4 cards; for example, Lexar's consumer SD Class 6 card currently sells for the same price as SanDisk's SD Class 4 card.

That second sentence has now been updated - again. The newest DSLRs, such as the Canon 40D, 1D Mk III and 1Ds Mk III, and the Nikon D300 and D3, can write to many high-speed cards about as fast as the cards themselves can go. In fact, the 1Ds Mk III, the D300 and the D3 can write to the fastest CF cards at well over 20 MB/s (133x). For those three cameras, it does make sense to buy the very fastest CF cards if you're shooting a lot of action shots which require the use of the sequential (continuous) shooting mode, especially with the highest-quality JPEGs or RAW images. Currently, the Canon 1D Mk III and the Canon 1Ds Mk III are the only DSLRs which can take full advantage of any SD or SDHC card with a speed rating faster than 60x.