Memory Card Sizes

[Jason Dunn]

My previous post about the Sandisk 8 GB CF card (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/index.php?topic_id=9882) got me thinking: at what point is big enough..."big enough"? I mentioned that I have a Kingston 4 GB CF card, and it's simply awesome. I also have two 2.2GB MagicStor CF drives, a 1GB CF, 512MB CF x 2, and a smattering of smaller cards. The truth is, though, that I've yet to ever use up my 4GB card and need to swap in another card. So do I even need these CF cards? Most people I know that have digital cameras have a storage card in the 256 MB to 512 MB range. What about you? For the purpose of the question below, the type of memory card (CF, SD, xD, etc.) doesn't matter, nor what you use it for (camera, PDA) - I'm only curious about the size.

[Neil Enns]

I think the size of the card depends on your camera and type of shooting you do. With my 10D a 2GB card was just fine for a day of shooting in RAW mode. I was hard pressed to really find that much to take pictures of that the card was a limitation. Mebby if I were a wedding photographer or something it'd fill up, but I mostly do landscape stuff and there's only so many tulip pictures you can take in one sitting...

With the upgrade to the 5D I've gone out and got a second 2GB card, simply because I can't fit nearly as many pics on the same size card.

Neil

[ctmagnus]

I have a 1GB SD in my camera, a 1GB miniSD in my SMT5600 (mostly for snapping nature pictures when I'm out with the dog), a 1GB SD in my iPaq and a spare 1GB SD that I use to backup data on my Tablet PC to. My next memory card purchase will likely be at least a 2GB SD card. ;)

[Philip Colmer]

At the moment, we've got a 256MB & a 512MB. They were plenty big enough when shooting JPEGs. However, the move to RAW has reduced the capacity by a significant factor so I'm now looking at getting 1 or 2GB cards, depending on the price.

I don't want to buy too cheap, especially after seeing that report comparing the different speeds of the cards. I'll probably stick with SanDisk.

--Philip

[Bob12]

I've got 7GB total (6GB Microdrive & 1GB SD) in my EOS-1D MkII, 4GB Microdrives in the Pro 1 and iPaq, and 1GB cards in other cameras and for transfer purposes. Except for the Microdrives, all are SanDisk.

[Outlaw94]

I have a 1GB High Speed CF card for my Digital Rebel. I haven't began to shoot in RAW yet so it has more than enough room for me.

I use a 1 GB CF card for my Dell 51V Pocket PC to hold a map of North America for GPS.

I also use a 1GB Memory Stick Dou for a PSP and a 256MB Mini SD for my cell phone.

I don't see myself getting anything bigger than a 2GB CF for my camera if and when I start shooting in RAW format. I find the price that you can get a 1GB for is more than reasonable and easy to justify the purchase. Especially to the woman.