Memory, as big as you can?

[davidedric]

Bigger is better, you dont want to run out of space just when the shot of a life time appears in front of you

Yes, I agree that bigger is better. But, surely, unlike film where you almost always went to the end of the roll to save money and waste, with a card that's becoming full you change it at a quiet time before that shot appears?

Dave

[Letrow]

In summary, "as big as you can" may not work for you in all circumstances if you have a non-DSLR camera. If you can borrow a larger card to try first, that may save disappointment.

Cheers,

I remember reading something about this on Thom Hogan's site and had wanted to mention it yesterday, but thought I was being silly.
Here it is: (Source: http://www.bythom.com/nikond800review.htm)The real issue here is balance of card size versus file size. Really large cards do slow down the camera for image review. So that temptation to buy 64GB cards? Suppress it. 8GB is probably the right balance, and certainly no more than 16GB. That may mean you need to carry extra cards, but I'd be tempted to load up on state-of-the-art 8GB or 16GB cards for my D800. That also reduces your catastrophic loss risk should something happen to a card (you lose ~100 raw images on an 8GB card).

So, I am still happily shooting my (two) 8Gb cards in the D600.

[RustBeltRaw]

My cards are all by SanDisk, and run large. A 32GB C10 Extreme II, two 16GB C10 Ultras, and two 32GB C10 microSDs (backups, mostly used for my GoPro) with SD adapters. This definitely leaves me more vulnerable in terms of the number of shots a card failure will destroy, but when buying cards, I wanted to make sure I had room to grow into the video realm. On the photo side, I frequently come home from roller derby bouts with nearly 50GB of RAW shots. The faster the action you're shooting, the better the case for a high-capacity card. Any delay between shots can mean missing a great one. When shooting critical, slower-paced events like concerts, I'll frequently rotate among all five cards to hedge my bets.

[GiacomoD]

After reading all the posts, it looks to me that it's mainly a matter of what kind of shoots we are going to take.
Weddings, sport events, birds and similar, where you can't afford at all to lose one single moment, will probably take major advantage from big and fast cards, I don't think you''l waste time in reviewing images on the LCD while photographing birds.
On the other hand, for landscape or still photography, one can probably benefit more from having several small size cards. In this case, the few seconds required to rotate cards should not be a problem.