High speed SD cards
 

I'm in the market for a new camera (I fancy the Panasonic DMC FZ7) and will be looking to get an SD card to go with it. A 2Gig high speed one seems sensible but I have heard that these high speed cards are not compatable with 'old' card readers.

Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks

I have just bought a 2GB SD (Kingston) from Ebay for c. £10.

Re speed, there are conflicting views on this. My feeling is that for cameras it makes no real difference. I did a test on my HP4700 PDA once between a standard cheap one, and a very expensive Kingston "high speed" one which had some sort of extra fast interface mode. There was about a 2x difference on a big file transfer, but this was not visible on a camera. The price difference was about 5x.

It is the 4GB cards that are not compatible with many devices. I have one here; it works in the LS800 tablet computer but does not work in any of several cameras, even a 1 year old Pentax DL.

One of the best and cheapest places for cards is picstop.co.uk. I've dealt with them now four times, with next day delivery service each time.

Unfortunately they saw you coming. :eek: I brought one not so long ago from play.com which was around 15GBP

I bought the Panasonic DMC-FZ30 after I'd actually held an FZ7 and realised how diddy it is. I'm delighted with the FZ30 - it was a bit dearer, but it's bigger and more robust, which is important for a clumsy oaf like me. I think it's been replaced now, so there may be good deals on offer.

It does take longer to write a "normal" SD card rather than the "fast" ones. I use a 1GB SanDisk Extreme III which seems fine.

That was one issue I am concerned with. My wife has a fairly modern Nikon compact but you can't take two quick shots in a row because you are waiting for the data to be transferred. I'm hoping that the fast SD cards will overcome this.

I have a DMC FZ7 with a kingston 1Gb SD card (normal speed) and it works fine. Have the same card in my PDA/phone and it also works fine for TomTom etc. Have just bought 2x Kingston 2Gb SD cards from ebuyer at less than £10 each. 2 Gb SD Card

I've not had that problem with the FZ30. It will take pictures and store them (at 4MB per picture, approximately) as fast as I press the shutter.

The only time it shows any delay is when taking time-exposures (1 minute and longer - astrophotography and the like) where it does take a time - but I think that's the camera, not the SD card.

£8.08 for a 2GB SD card looked good. So I clicked "buy" and it asked me for £17.62 incl P&P and VAT. I clicked "cancel" instead. I really doubt it costs that much to post a postage-stamp-sized device to an address in the UK.

It's not quite that bad, £8.08 is subject to VAT (so £9.50), postage is only a couple of quid if you don't want next day. Even better, though, I added them to a bigger order which was free delivery. The link further up is better for a single item.

About the same I think - £43, five day free delivery to UK.

Never buy the memory card from the same shop that sells you the camera, unless you want to pay at least three times the true price.

I have used two companies in the Channel Islands who can legaly post items up to £36 in value without VAT. If you buy multiple items they will send them in seperate packages.

Do a search for MX2 and 7 day shop.