SDHC cards

i am thinking about getting the sandisk ultra 16 gig card

does anyone have any experience with this card?

or would or it be better to get the sandisk eXtreme III card?

also are there any reputable sellers of these cards on ebay that anyone can recommend?

What are you planning to use it in?

As for eBay - you'll probably do better going to a real camera store since SanDisk is offering rebates on most of their high-end cards, but only through certain dealers. Rebates on the Extreme III 16 range from $20 for 1 to $90 for 3; dealers include Beach, Adorama, B&h, Calumet, Camera West, Norman, Adray, Samy, . . .

i am going to use it with my XSi

so would a ultra suit my needs or should i spend the extra cash on the eXtreme III card?

thanks for the input

Here's the Rob Galbraith card test database for the XSi. In RAW, the Ultra II is about half the speed of the Extreme III. This will mostly matter if you fill the buffer very much, or when you're unloading files onto your computer. You won't see the quoted speeds on your camera with 16 GB cards; if you'll look, you'll see that smaller cards are faster than big ones.

so smaller is a plus in this situation

but will i see noticeable differences from just everyday use between the ultra and the eXtreme.

obviously i see that they run at different read and write speeds but for someone that isnt shooting in the multi frames per second mode will the average joe (which i am) see the difference?

i am just trying to figure out how to justify the extra money on the eXtreme card, but with the wife i already know it is easier to ask forgiveness then it is for permission so i have that angle covered but to myself i just am not sure

thanks again jon

I've used the 16MB Ultra II in my XSi for well over a year now (10,000+ photos) with absolutely no problems. You won't see any additional performance increase between the Ultra and the Extreme versions of this card in real world use. The Extreme cards are more suited for video capture (I have one for my Canon HD camcorder). With the money you save, you can pickup an additional 16MB Ultra card for the price of a single Extreme version.

Amazon has SD cards for significantly cheaper than the retail price. I bought mine from a store when I got my XSI and the 4 GB Ultra cost me about $40. That same card is about $10 on Amazon!

Jon wrote in post #8398602
Here's the Rob Galbraith card test database for the XSi. In RAW, the Ultra II is about half the speed of the Extreme III. This will mostly matter if you fill the buffer very much, or when you're unloading files onto your computer. You won't see the quoted speeds on your camera with 16 GB cards; if you'll look, you'll see that smaller cards are faster than big ones.

According to this website, I see that Transcend is faster and cheaper than Sandisk on Amazon. Does anyone know if it's a good brand? Does anyone know another brand of SD card that is faster and cheaper than Sandisk, but also reliable like Sandisk?

Personally I wouldn't get the one 16GB card, but would rather get two 8GB cards (which I did). By only having one 16GB card, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. If that card gets corrupted, then you will lose ALL your photos until you run a recovery program. By dividing that into smaller, more usable parts, the chance of you losing everything is reduced. Furthermore, I would figure out what size you "really" need. Are you going to shoot just jpeg? Then you probably could live with a smaller size and save a bit of money. Are you going to do RAW+jpeg? Then in that case, you'll need the larger size. I just picked a format that I know I would use (e.g. RAW) and multiplied that by the number of shots I think I would do in a given day (~450 in my case). That came out to about 8GB. Thinking about it now, I probably would be better off with four 4GB cards instead of two 8GB, but I'll consider that if I ever have to purchase cards again.

The problem with your logic is, now you have X times the chance of one of the cards failing.

More cards more of a chance one of them fails.

How many folks have had a card problem and lost their photos? I have been doing a long while and I have never had a card go bad. Maybe I'm just lucky. And I have 17 of them.

j00sten wrote in post #8399393
Personally I wouldn't get the one 16GB card, but would rather get two 8GB cards (which I did). By only having one 16GB card, you're putting all your eggs in one basket. If that card gets corrupted, then you will lose ALL your photos until you run a recovery program. By dividing that into smaller, more usable parts, the chance of you losing everything is reduced. Furthermore, I would figure out what size you "really" need. Are you going to shoot just jpeg? Then you probably could live with a smaller size and save a bit of money. Are you going to do RAW+jpeg? Then in that case, you'll need the larger size. I just picked a format that I know I would use (e.g. RAW) and multiplied that by the number of shots I think I would do in a given day (~450 in my case). That came out to about 8GB. Thinking about it now, I probably would be better off with four 4GB cards instead of two 8GB, but I'll consider that if I ever have to purchase cards again.