Is it worth getting Ultra II mem cards for S1-IS?

[dwb122]

I was considering getting an Ultra II mem card for my S1IS, but I asked someone at a camera store if it would be worth it and he said no because the camera's only 3 megapixels. I don't really care about the speed of saving images, but would it significantly speed up processing videos? I'd like to be able to use the camera to take relatively long movies, and it takes a while for it to process even a 20 second video. So would it be worth it? I'm teetering between an Ultra II 1gb or a regular 2gb.
So basically, I'm only interested in the faster speed cards if they'll speed up processing large videos. If not, then I probably won't bother.

Also, how long would it take to process a highest-quality video that takes up the maximum possible space on a really large card?

[wavshrdr@airpost.net]

It should speed up the processing. I also now am cautious about having too much info on 1 card in case I lost it. For example I now carry 4x(1)GB cards instead of 2x2GB or 1x4GB microdrive. After losing one card (actually it was stolen but lost nonetheless) I am now VERY careful about how much data I am willing to risk on 1 card. So now I carry a memory bank (portable HD) and immediately copy my images to it and keep the card as a backup.

[tedtim]

Hi,

I use an Ultra 512 meg card with my A70. I bought it for the same reason as you stated - to shoot some video. The helpful staff at the camera shop told me that the Ultra card would not provide any better performance given the A70 3 megapixels. They did think that it would provide some marginal performance gains for the video function.

I used the card on a trip in January and took a lot of video. The sizes of the files have a wide range that does not necessarily correlate to the length of the video. A number of them were taken underwater. I am too cheap to buy a dedicated case for underwater video.

The longest video resulted in a 14 meg file for 59 seconds.
Fifteen second videos average about 5 meg, although I have one that is 13 meg and one that is 16 meg for the same amount of time.
I also have a few that are around 20 meg for 30 seconds.

There did not seem to be any problem with the processing time of the card. I think that the longest one stopped on me, so it looks like I took it to the limit. There was only about a five second delay when it stopped before I could resume. I did not try to shoot many short videos in a row, but the camera was ready to go very quickly after I finished shooting in video mode.

With the underwater case it even captured sound. Most of the sound is just SCUBA divers breathing, but there is some of the noise from underwater.

[nj1266]

I have a similar question to dwb. I have an S1 and the manual says that it can take up to 1 hour or 1G of video. I want to use the camera to take videos from inside my race car. The typical race is 35-40 minutes long. Would an Utlra II 1G high speed Snadisk suffice? Do I need more?

[dwb122]

I have a similar question to dwb. I have an S1 and the manual says that it can take up to 1 hour or 1G of video. I want to use the camera to take videos from inside my race car. The typical race is 35-40 minutes long. Would an Utlra II 1G high speed Snadisk suffice? Do I need more? nj1266-

A 1gb card will not only suffice but will be as best as you can get for taking the longest single movie you can. The camera can only create up to 1gb videos, regardless of length. I believe it can take up to an hour of video, but that's at the lowest detail/framerate setting. This (http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ModelTechSpecsAct&fcategoryid=144&modelid=9824) site has a table of movie lengths on the camera at various memory card sizes. At the highest setting, with a 1gb card, it's 8 minutes. For a digital camera, considering the AMAZING quality of the videos, I'm really happy with that.

And by the way, I'm very glad I got an Ultra II card (SanDisk Ultra II 1gb). I tested it today and it seemed to write movies to the card much faster.

[ashleywilson]

also the downloading of the pictures will be quicker

www.ukcamerastore.co.uk

[flugelboy]

If you want to use the S1IS to take video at 640x480, you will need the fast memory cards. The slower cards can't write data fast enough to keep up with the camera at that resolution. I think I was able to take about 12 seconds of hi-res video before the buffer filled up.

If you are taking 320x240, the slower cards are fine. I was outside filming the hurricanes last summer with my S1IS at 320x240 on a slow card and it ran for several minutes without filling the buffer. It probably would have run until the memory chip ran out of space.

[pradeep1]

For photography, waste of resources. For video, might be useful.

Consider buying the Viking series of 1GB cards. They are plenty fast for capturing video. My friend has the S1 with the 512MB card and she is happy.