T1i Memory Cards

I recently bought a T1i and use an 8G PNY Optima memory card... these are class 4. These work great... Are there better/faster cards? Is there a "best" card for this camera?

There are class 6 cards.

I am using 4GB class 4 cards. Lots of folks use bigger faster cards, but I have yet to be convinced that bigger/faster makes some kind of a difference in practical terms. I do fill my cards with video quite often, but a video file can't exceed 4GB anyway. I transfer and clear each card shortly after shooting.

I suppose if I were travelling, larger cards would come in handy. It's also possible that because I'm used to film's limitations, having room for 158 raw shots per card seems like a luxury. YMMV

ScullenCrossBones wrote in post #8190592
There are class 6 cards.

I am using 4GB class 4 cards. Lots of folks use bigger faster cards, but I have yet to be convinced that bigger/faster makes some kind of a difference in practical terms. I do fill my cards with video quite often, but a video file can't exceed 4GB anyway. I transfer and clear each card shortly after shooting.

I suppose if I were travelling, larger cards would come in handy. It's also possible that because I'm used to film's limitations, having room for 158 raw shots per card seems like a luxury. YMMV

I have a class 4 (8gb and class 6 (8gb) card. I find my class 6 performes much better during video capture than my class 4 card.

Can you be more specific? I am really wanting to know in what way the class 6 outperforms the class 4, especially with video.

I would be curious too. Was at bestbuy today and there is so much selection that it would have been nice to know the pros/cons of a II or III, class 4 vs class 6 etc etc.

tia

Faster read/write speeds - meaning less dropped frames while recording in HD.

Since flash memory is soo cheap these days,, why not go for a class 6? I have 2 class6 8GB cards. Haven't tried anything else. I mean @ $15 or something,, what's to lose?

JNRSM3 wrote in post #8191080
I would be curious too. Was at bestbuy today and there is so much selection that it would have been nice to know the pros/cons of a II or III, class 4 vs class 6 etc etc.

tia

Don't buy "Best Buy", adorama, b&h, and others have much larger selections and much, much better prices. Once I saw a 4gb extreme iii in best buy for 140, looked it up on b&h, 60 bucks... and then a 15 buck rebate from sandisk that only b&h, adorama, and a few other photo places get.

ScullenCrossBones wrote in post #8190958
Can you be more specific? I am really wanting to know in what way the class 6 outperforms the class 4, especially with video.

Class 6 vs class 4 is about min write speed, 4vs6 mb/s. Most companies talk about max write speed though, ultra ii cards (and think 100x cards) are 15mb/s, extreme iii are 30mb/s (as are 166x). All depends on the card and brand though, and what type of file. Lot of small files? min write speed is important. Lot of large files (video)? min write is important, but most cards will work closer to the max than min. Some class 2 or class 4 rated cards can also be faster than class 6 cards, mainly because each year they add new card specifications (they just introduced class 10, and an extreme iii already took honors with 32gb class 10), but cards haven't really improved more than 50% in the last five years or so (extreme iii were good, in 2k8 they made them 50% better, same with ultra ii cards). Just to prove that point, sandisk reciently announced extreme iii cards were getting "upgraded" to class 10 (from class 6), yet the controller remains the same (controller is the main thing limiting speed right now). The "class" system was screwed up from the beginning, and only is there to demand royalties from companies...

Dwaine wrote in post #8190475
I recently bought a T1i and use an 8G PNY Optima memory card... these are class 4. These work great... Are there better/faster cards? Is there a "best" card for this camera?

I personally suggest ultra ii or extreme iii from sandisk. The extreme iii cards also come with file recovery programs (on top of being faster), so if anything does happen to data you can sometimes recover it (even if you accidentally format your card). Both also come with a limited lifetime warranty, though from the two dozen sd and cf cards from them I have never had any issues, and only had to use recovery programs once (when I accientally deleted a day's worth of decent shots)

tester3000 wrote in post #8191356
Since flash memory is soo cheap these days,, why not go for a class 6? I have 2 class6 8GB cards. Haven't tried anything else. I mean @ $15 or something,, what's to lose?

Yeap, the class 6 8GB were only $2-3 more. The 16GB's are also coming down quite bit

One fellow on one of the other forums was using a pair of Kingston Class (6) cards and his T1i kept shutting down video recording. He would see a buffer bar appear and when it filled up his recording would stop, he was losing video and not happy about it.

He returned one of the cards as defective, it was replaced and the replacement did the same thing. At wit's end he called a Canon service center. The tech told him these cameras can be very finicky even about brand in video mode and advised the use of SanDisk Extreme III Class (6) cards.

He bought one and his problem went away.

I have one older SanDisk Extreme III 8GB (the 20Mbps version) and just got in a 30Mbps version of the same thing for $56 and change from amazon.com

If you only shoot stills and don't shoot in bursts Class (4) and most any old brand should work, but if you plan on doing any video I'd go with the SanDisk Extreme III or faster.