memory card recommendations

[Dana C]

I currently have a D90 and would like to know what brand, capacity etc. would the experts recommend.
I am going to shoot a bit of high school sports.
Thanks,
Dana

 

[robbins.photo]

Sandisk Extreme pro 95 mps write speed. Capacity is up to you of course, most folks prefer multiple 8 gb or multiple 16 gb cards so if on the off chance the card does get corrupted you won't lose too many pictures. Me I like a little higher capacity so I don't have to change cards - since I dump everything to the PC at the end of the day anyway and erase the card completely that works well for me.

 

[480sparky]

All is revealed in the back of the manual that came with the camera.

 

[Dana C]

All is revealed in the back of the manual that came with the camera.

Actually, all is not revealed. "Approved brands" and capacities are listed which I knew but nothing about speed recommendations. What I am asking about, is recommendations about which brand is an avid or professional photographers use. I mentioned specifically sports in the question to help qualify the answers.
Oh and yes, I have read the manual cover to cover.

 

[480sparky]

Unfortunately, Nikon doesn't give a clue about the speed of the camera writing to the card. It's up to use poor slobs to figure out whether 30mps is enough, or 45, or 60, or 80.........

I'd say the Sandisk 95mps cards would be overkill for a D90, but if you are planning on upgrading in the future getting the cards now will saveyou money in the long run.

 

[Derrel]

Well, I went to my go-to resource, but they do not have either D90 or D300 data...the closest they have is for the D3 series...Rob has put the site in deep-freeze since he took another job. Rob Galbraith DPI: Nikon D3S

As you can see, this is two year old data, but still, it gives a good idea of the card specs, like "1,000x" and "600x", and the brands that are the best, as well as some of the off-brands that...are kind of shoddy...

And you can see that there are PLENTY of VERY GOOD cards that easily handle 45 MB/second transfers of RAW files, and these cards are readily available still. I believe that 45 MB/second cards are pretty much all the D90 can handle, and that at current prices, those are the best value for a D90, or D7100 which is limited to 45MB/s as its top write-to-card speed.

 

[robbins.photo]

I don't think the D7100 is limited to 45 mb/s write speed, I think it's upper end limit is 104 mb/s:

Nikon D7100 SD Card Speed Tests - Fastest memory cards for D7100 - Camera Memory Speed Comparison & Performance tests for SD and CF cards

Not certain about the D90, haven't been able to find any specs on it.

But a thought occurs, I'd probably still go with the Sandisk 95 mb/s cards anyway - you'd be certain that your camera is writing out as fast as it's capabilities allow, and when you do decide to upgrade the D90 you'll already have a good selection of fast cards that can take advantage of the newer cameras faster write speed. Just a thought.