Memory card reccomendations

[Mark von Kanel]

Hi all,

Well my new Nikon D800 is winging its way to my home as we speak (i hope) as you all know the files are large and so good memory will be essential the cam takes 1 sd and 1 compact flash. What do you guys n gals recommend?

i currently use sandisk extreme class 10 but there seems to be some new classification that im not familiar with out there, i think its for video but im not sure. I dont do video but if the cards will be faster for stills (and it seems logical that they would be ) then im up for it.

thanks all

[dubaiphil]

Contrary to what you may have sympathetically been told, size matters

[Manfred M]

I primarily shoot CF (as large and fast as you are willing to pay for) and use the SD as backup. If you shoot RAW, the files are huge on the D800, and the SD card is fairly slow to write to / read from. I am using Lexar Professional 400x 32GB CF cards, and will likely go to at least 600x if I buy more. I chose these as they were the "sweet spot" price wise.

I use Lexar Professional 133x 64GB SD cards as well. Both cards are listed as "approved" in the D800 manual. I went Lexar instead of Sandisk, because they are marginally less expensive. The other cards (Panasonic, for instance) listed are not readily available where I live. I've tried the Verbatim, Sandisk, Patriot SD cards that I have kicking around as well, and these seem to work.

I also installed a USB 3 port on my computer to pick up a bit of speed when I download the cards.

[Mark von Kanel]

thanks, lexar 1000xcf GB and 600xsdhc 32gb ordered

[rpcrowe]

I wish the Canon 7D had dual card slots but a single card slot is not a deal breaker for me. Regarding the cards to use. I prefer at least 300x or 400x UDMA CF cards for my 7D. The UDMA seems to increase write speed and it definitely speeds transfer speed if the CF card is downloaded using a UDMA capable card reader. I use Lexar Professional cards because I have gotten excellent buys on both 16gb 400x and 4gb 300x cards. I have had no problems with these cards but, had two different Kingston CF cards fail right from the start!