memory card recommendation

[brucehughw]

Hi.

I just upgraded to a Nikon D7000 (thanks, CiC members, for helpful advice). I need to purchase some memory cards. I see from some photography magazines that prices vary widely, from $xy to $xyz (US). Any recommendations for brand and model? Other than occasional action photos at my kids' soccer (football) games, I don't see a huge need for speed. On a trip, I may take a 200-300 photos, but I only take a trip like this once or twice a year.

Thanks, Bruce

[Manfred M]

Check your manual for recommendations. I tend to stick with Lexar and SanDisk for my shooting, but got a deal on some Patriot memory that seems to work fine on my D90, but Verbatim media failed (but works fine on my D800). I have had card failures as well, and frankly that is not something you really want when going on a trip. Buy them from a reputable dealer, as there are a lot of fake cards out in the wild. A card that fails when you are shooting is no bargain at all.

Faster memory is certainly worth thinking about if you are doing sports photography. Once your camera's internal buffer has filled up, you won't necessarily be able to take any more pictures until the camera has written to your card. You could miss shots if that happens. I don't know how the D7000 is configured, so don't know its limitations that way.

[Mike Buckley]

I use Kingston cards type 4 and 6 in my D7000. You might need something faster for the soccer games.

More important, I keep a 128MB card in slot 1. Seriously! In the Shooting menu, I configure "Role played by card in Slot 2" to "Overflow." In the Setup menu, I use "Save/Load Settings" to save my camera settings to the 128MB card. I then write-protect the card by moving the slider on the card to the pertinent position. After re-inserting the 128MB card in slot 1, the camera "thinks" that card is full and automatically saves image files to the card in slot 2.

The reason I leave the 128MB card in slot 1 is that my first action every time after turning on my camera is to use the "Save/Load Settings" in the Setup menu to load those settings. That's just in case I have forgotten that I have changed a setting in the mean time for a special setting that I would not normally use.

[Melkus]

I been using PNY which I got a good deal on and so far so good. Before that I always used SanDisk.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Bruce,

I'm a Sandisk guy.

Bought Class 10, 32GB recently, seem OK in my D5000, quicker than my smaller 8GB C2 & C6 cards.

This bit is not relevant to you Bruce, but I feel I must say ...
However, in a lesser camera, specifically the Nikon P510 bridge camera, they are much slower - seems larger size cards can be in consumer cameras.

Cheers,

[koolkat]

Hi, there are a number of very good cards available and some of the newer names seem to do just fine. As was suggested, buy from a solid source with good return options. I had problems with one card, contacted the manufacture and it was handled with no problems, replaced after they confirmed the card was one of theirs, lots of counterfeit cards available online. But a good suggestion would be to have a "rescue software" program to read a card if you have problems. SanDisk offers a program with their cards that I have used with solid success. I also number my cards and then use them per their number to keep them rotated, but that's just me. ( I do the same for my batteries) Quality is worth the price.

[terrib]

I have had good luck with Transcend cards. As far as size and speed, I've always gone for the faster, smaller cards. Many times, I've found a better value in buying 2 smaller cards rather than 1 large card and I don't mind that. I figure if something goes wrong with a card, then I've only potentially lost half my stuff. But in reality, I've never had a problem with a card. I do off load to a computer pretty often as I rarely go anywhere without my computer. But if you take long trips without a place to off load your cards, you might require a larger size.