What speed card to use

[stuart5936]

Just bought a new A720, and am trying to find out what speed card to use. I sent Canon a memo, and this is what came back.

(The write speed of the camera is limited by the drive inside the camera. Using a faster card rated at 12X or 24X speed may not perform any faster than a slower rated card. A faster card would give you a faster download. Spending more money for a faster card would be wasting money.)

Your thoughts about this statement, and advice on what card to use.

Thanks

[TCav]

The difference in cost between a slower card and a faster card might only be 10-15%, or, put another way, 5 bucks. So what? Sales Tax plus S&H will probably be more than that!

And many people come to these forums looking for a new digicam that can use the flash memory cards they used with their last digicam. So clearly, if you buy a card that is faster than the camera you have, it may not be faster than your next camera.

So, don't get something that's too slow, but don't worry about getting something that's too fast.

[stuart5936]

TCav, Thanks for answering. Money is not my problem. I am new to digital, and just plodding along, learning as I go. I have 5 Canon film cameras, going back a long ways. These days just looking for simplicity, and something small to carry around. I will take your advice. Still learning.

Stu

[TCav]

stuart5936 wrote:

... Money is not my problem. ...

I didn't mean to imply that it was. I was just addressing Canon's statement that "Spending more money for a faster card would be wasting money." It might be wasting money, but not a lot of money, and laterit may turn out to have been a wise investment.

[stuart5936]

Thanks again. You have a point. What card would you sugest I purchase. What speed rating, and how many GB's.

Stu

[TCav]

The cost per gigabyte goes down as the capacity of thecard increases. Therefore, based solely on that, you should get the largest cards you can find.

If you'll be using your A720 to record videos, you should get the fastest cards you can find.

If you'll be doing burst mode shooting, the A720 will record Large Fine images continuously on the fastest cards until the card is full. Large Fine images take about 2 MB, so you should figure how many images you want to capture at a time. Large SuperFine images take about 3MB, but the manual says the A720 can't record them in burst mode.

I'd buy the largest, fastest cards I could find, but I do a lot of burst mode shooting.

[Photo 5]

I'd go with a sandisc Ultra II series card. I use them and shoot a lot of action stuff (I only get one chance to get the photo and then its gone) with my camera and they always keep up with my shooting needs. Even in video mode ther have been no problems. I use a 2GB card as my pirmary card. Not sure what kind of card your cannon uses by my Fuji S-9100 uses Compact Flash.

As for film cameras. My first camera was digital.

dave