SD Camera Memory Cards

SD Camera Memory Cards

SD memory cards are important for storing images and videos in your camera. The technology used to make these devices has improved drastically over the years. This guide will help you choose an SD card for your camera to suit your needs.

What aspects of SD memory cards should you consider?

• Physical size: Digital cameras are designed to fit miniSD cards, microSD cards, or normal-sized SD cards. If your camera fits normal-sized SD cards, you can use an adapter to insert miniSD or microSD cards. However, normal-sized devices cannot be used in microSD card cameras.
• Memory capacity: With regard to storage capacity, you can choose SD, SDHC, or SDXC memory cards. SD cards have a maximum capacity of 2GB. SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) can accommodate a maximum of 32GB of data. SDXC (Secure Digital ’Xtra Capacity) is the most advanced of the three and can hold up to 2TB of data. The three types of devices have similar physical sizes.
• Read and write speed: The read and write speed of the card will determine how fast you will be able to save pictures when shooting. Also, it will determine how fast images are copied from digital cameras to computers or laptops.

What capacity of memory card should you choose?

The capacity of your memory card should mainly be determined by your level of photography and the resolution of your camera. It is worth noting that the chosen format of images and videos is not altered by the type or capacity of memory card you use.

Professional photographers typically need to take a lot of high-quality pictures and videos. They would need 64GB or 128GB of memory to store their images. Smaller memories of between 1GB and 8GB will suit most novice photographers.

As an example, 8GB will be able to hold up to 1,330 20MP photos in JPEG format. The same memory card will only be able to store up to 130 20MP pictures in RAW format. If you lower the resolution to 12MP, the 8GB memory card will hold up to 1,900 JPEG images. In most cameras, the default format is JPEG, and this can be changed if you want to take high-quality pictures.

What are the different read and write speed classes?

The speed of your SD card will affect the quality of pictures you take, especially if you are using continuous shooting mode. With videos, a faster memory card will prevent the loss of frames.

Memory cards are grouped into several speed classes. These are classes 2, 4, 6, and 10. The class number denotes the lowest write speed the card is capable of. For example, a class 10 memory card has a minimum write speed of 10MB/s.

Cards with write speeds of up to 104MB/s are given an Ultra-High Speed (UHS) class 1 rating. Typically, UHS-1 cards have write and read speeds of around 85MB/s. UHS-2 cards can deliver speeds of up to 312MB/s. In reality, most memory cards with this rating have read and write speeds of around 270MB/s.