memory cards

[murtaugh]

Just curious how many memory cards the avg person uses? i have 3 2-512 and 1- 1 gig. still not really sure the difference in say the sandisk extreme 1,2,3, and 4. Is the main differnce speed, as in how fast they download from the camera or card reader to your cpu. And if so is the higher speeds really worth it, meaning is there a fast enough differnce to justify spening hte exrtra cash. Or should one just save the few bucks on memory card speed and put it some where else like say faster glass. Any light that can be sheed here would be great.

[Jon]

I've got 12-15 or thereabouts, totalling something like 20 GB. One thing to remember, the cards you buy now will probably still be in use when you get the camera-after-next, unless they've become too small to be practical (256 MB cards aren't too practical in a 1Ds II set on RAW), so as the cameras get faster, the faster cards will be able to keep up. They are, of course, also faster when copying via card reader to the computer. So I don't see a lot of reason to not get the fastest card that doesn't have a major price premium attached, in the largest size you can. These days, in SanDisk's line, that'd be Extreme IIIs in 4 GB. Of course, if you never fill the camera's buffer (which it's very easy to do even without going into burst mode) and don't take very many pictures per day, smaller, slower cards will do fine.

[kevin_c]

4 x 1Gb and 2 x 512M - I get about 100 odd RAW image files on a 1Gig card in my 20D and I've never managed to fill up two in one day yet!

[rick j]

2 x 256mb at the moment .