Choosing the best SD memory card for your camera can be a bit difficult if you don’t know what to look for, especially with tons of different speeds, brands and price ranges. Here’s what you need to know before purchasing one or more cards for your camera, along with the best ones available.
Speed
The more megapixels your camera has, the longer it will take to write the photograph on your memory card. The same goes for burst modes where you take a couple of pictures in a second, or Full HD videos. Personally I think the writing speed is the most important feature of an SD card, because you don’t want the slow speeds to limit your photography experience.
- Class 4 – Writes at 4MB/s
- Class 6 – Writes at 6MB/s
- Class 10 – Writes at 10MB/s or higher
Since SD cards are really affordable, I recommend you to go with Class 10. The SanDisk Ultra 8GB Class 10 has a writing speed of 40MB/s and costs less than $10. Class 10 is excellent for quickly writing the files, fast transfers on the computer, and fast display of all videos/photos on your camera.
Size/Capacitity
With cameras having more megapixels than ever, and long video clips, it’s important that you choose a memory card that will be able to store all of those files. I think the minimum is 4GB, whereas 8GB and 16GB are today’s standards for all digital devices (like this SanDisk Extreme 16GB U-3 card).
If you do lots of photography, there are two choices you have; either you buy a really big card, or a couple of smaller ones. Having one means you don’t have to carry plenty of smaller ones, but if the card goes bad you risk losing all of your shots. Having more cards means you can choose which one will be used for what, and you won’t lose all of your files.
Most people are fine with 8GB and 16GB as I said though, and unless you don’t often have an access to a computer (or have really long sessions), there’s nothing to worry about.
Best SDHC Memory Cards to Buy
As I mentioned before, the SanDisk Ultra 8GB Class 10 is the best price/performance card available, it’s fast and super cheap.
In case you need something bigger, check out the SanDisk Extreme 16GB U-3 and SanDisk Extreme 32GB U-3. It’s amazing how cheap memory cards are nowadays (the 32GB version goes for $22, a fraction of what you’d pay for this years ago).
Brand wise, stick to SanDisk as they’re number one for a reason, and if you find a good deal, Transcend has also been a popular choice for the past few years.
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