Did I make the right choice, I mainly shoot JPEG. I need your input and help. Thanks, Les

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>Did I make the right choice, I mainly shoot JPEG. I need your
>input and help. Thanks, Les

That's kind of like saying "I bought a Honda Civic, did I make the right choice". I don't think it's the wrong choice as it is from a quality supplier and works in the camera. But whether it is right depends on your need. Someone shooting huge numbers of shots may find it small, someone shooting without bursts (and who is not in a hurry to download) may find it faster ($$) than really needed.

It depends. It's a good choice, but only your needs determine if it is right.

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hi Les, only you can determine if it is the "right" choice. I use the 8GB card with my D300 with a 4GB spare card and it is the "right " set up for me. If I get a D800 I will try the
16GB card with a 8GB spare. If that does not work after trying it for a while, I would then move up to a 32GB card. Oh, I shoot Raw and I am not a pro .

Virge

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Hi Les,

Can we understand what your doubt is regarding the usage of this card?

Are you worried about "fast" response of this card? Reliability? Size?

If you need performance of this card on D800, then please see the speed test provided by Rob Galbraith.

Pravin.

I want to know how a 90MBs (tested 61.5) Extreme Pro Compact flash card
can write so much faster than a 95MBs (tested 42) Secure Digital SDXC card?

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If you want to test the card's pure performance, then you will need a UDMA-6 or 7 supported CF card reader and also a UHS-1 supported SDHC/SDXC card reader (USB 3.0 or Firewire).

Then use your computer to transfer many large files to write and read from the CF or SD card.

This will eliminate or minimize other variables and only check read/write performance of a particular flash card.

By doing the test using a DSLR, one variable that will come into the picture is the DSLR's buffer and CF or SD interface to write/read the files from the flash card.

Hence some cards perform better than others even though the theoretical specs are same/similar.

I purchased Sandisk Extreme Pro SDHC 32GB card for my camera after comparing the specs with Lexar 600x SDHC 32GB card.

But I decided to wait for Rob's card test results before purchasing a CF card. After reviewing his results, I plan to purchase Lexar 32GB 600x CF card.

Pravin.

>I want to know how a 90MBs (tested 61.5) Extreme Pro Compact
>flash card
>can write so much faster than a 95MBs (tested 42) Secure
>Digital SDXC card?

Because the circuitry in the camera is another variable in the test.

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>I want to know how a 90MBs (tested 61.5) Extreme Pro Compact
>flash card
>can write so much faster than a 95MBs (tested 42) Secure
>Digital SDXC card?

I did my own test.
The results are different especially when copying from cards to computer.
The 64GB 95s SDXC card is faster but still only half the rated speed.

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Thank You, That was exactly what I wanted to know, I appreciate the help, Les

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I'm curious why you bought a D800 to shoot mainly jpgs?

Don Menges
Menges Technology Integration

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Hi Don, I am going to start shooting Raw with the D800 as well as my D3s and I wanted more resolution and size of the prints with cropping usage. I have quite a bit of learning to do. Thanks for your interest, Les

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For what it is worth, the counter on my D800 with a 32 GB card says that I will get about 400 lossless compressed 14 bit NEF files (without jpgs).

RAW + FINE is 310

1300 FINE .jpgs

Assuming the scaling is more or less linear, 650 .jpgs would seem to be getting close to a reasonable expectation of your battery life. So if you stick to .jpg, 16 GB would seem to be fine for you.

If you switch to raw, I think you will find that 150-200 shots is too few. I hate feeling like I have to limit my shooting because of available memory card space - or worse, start deleting in camera.

32 GB cards are coming down in price - I have seen a number of specials (I watch on dealcatcher) for 32 GB Sandisk Ultra (the 30 m/s cards) for under $50. At that price, it might be worth getting a larger card and keeping the 16 as a backup.

I'm not sure how space constrained your archive system is, but you may want to consider shooting RAW + jpg immediately. You can stick with the .jpgs for now, if you wish. And once you get comfortable with raw files (and if you use Aperture or Lightroom, the comfort takes all of 12 seconds to achieve - other than needing to export as a .jpg to share with people, there isn't any additional overhead on your part) you may start kicking yourself when you see the flexibility that is lost in a jpg compared to a raw file

Hi, Thank you for your excellent reply, that was very sensible suggestion.

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I have two of those cards left over from my D7K. They work great. Now whats wrong with shooting jpeg's with a D800?? I shoot raw + jpeg look at the jpeg's and if I see a picture I want to change a little I can run it through CS5 or more often DXO.

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Thank You for your help, Les

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Regardless of the brand and speed you get, I recommend that you get a matched set of CF and SD in terms of capacity. I use 32 GB SanDisk Extreme Pro 90 MB/s and SanDisk 32 GB SD as in-camera backup. That way, my backup does not fill up before my primary fills up. I do use my older 16 GB 60 MB/s SanDisk Extreme CF cards if I fill all of my 32 GB cards, but I have started throwing away all of my oldest CF cards since I had an older one fail last week. It was three years old; 8 GB SanDisk Extreme IV.

Larry Jordan

D800E, 14-24, 50, 24-70, 70-180 Micro, 70-200, 80-400mm AF-S

Website:
http://larryjordan.smugmug.com/

Thank you for your recommendation it is exactly what I had in mind. I looked at your photos, just beautiful. I attended Winston's classes ind Denver, excellent instructor. Thanks again, Les

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