SD question

[Turnerea]

I just ordered my first DSLR (Sony A300), and realized I didn't get any film with it... so now I need to go memory card shopping. I'm going to be mainly shooting sports/action- bike races- so I'm concerned about the speed, especially since I'm new to this and will likely depend on snagging a ton of shots at first to make sure I frame things well enough.

Do I need to shell out the $$ to get the SDHC? Is the fps that the camera can shoot limited by the write speed, or is it stored in some sort of RAM on the camera, and then shoved onto the memory card? I'm planning on starting out by shooting just M or L JPG- so about 4-4.5MB per file.

Opinions on this 8GB SDHC card for cheappp?

Thanks for your thoughts!
Erik

 

[Big Mike]

Is the fps that the camera can shoot limited by the write speed, or is it stored in some sort of RAM on the camera, and then shoved onto the memory card?

The way I understand it, the camera's 'buffer' is what determines how many shots you can fire off continuously. At some point, the camera's buffer may fill up (more likely when shooting RAW)...at which point, the camera will slow down while it waits for files in the buffer to be written to the card....which is where a faster card will help.

So, a faster card will help you, if you are shooting the camera like a machine gun and filling the buffer. But if you only take shots one at a time or in short bursts, then a regular card will probably be OK. Although a slow card may cause problems. It all depends on your shooting style.

Also, unless shooting long bursts is what you are doing...I'd suggest shooting in RAW, rather than JPEG. The forum is filled with other posts on that issue.

 

[chrisburke]

i wasnt going to give an opinion on the cards, but as mike said, shoot in RAW..

 

[Turnerea]

This will be my first DSLR, so hopefully if I have time to get my feet wet shooting (easy) and processing (need to figure out workflow) RAW, then I'll definitely do that. I'm picking up a copy of Lightroom today, and will figure out what I'm doing with it once I get my camera.

Forgive me for this question that should be answered by looking at my manual, but I haven't got it yet and I'm curious- when you shoot in RAW only, can you not preview the pictues on the LCD- the camera hasn't processed them right? Is that why people shoot RAW+JPG, so they have the unprocessed file to fool with, but the JPG to at least see the composition at the time?

Thanks for your input-Erik

 

[Johnboy2978]

Forgive me for this question that should be answered by looking at my manual, but I haven't got it yet and I'm curious- when you shoot in RAW only, can you not preview the pictues on the LCD- the camera hasn't processed them right? Is that why people shoot RAW+JPG, so they have the unprocessed file to fool with, but the JPG to at least see the composition at the time?

Thanks for your input-Erik

I shoot Pentax, but I would assume this following would apply to any camera maker. The RAW file should be viewable in camera just as a jpg. I shoot only RAW now and the only reason I could think of for RAW+ Jpg is that when you download it to your pc, you already have a viewable image and can quickly go through and make selections of junk shots. Of course, you can use something like IrfanView with the free plugins to also view RAW files. Otherwise, I think it's just a waste of space to do both.

 

[Big Mike]

I believe that RAW files have an embedded JPEG image for viewing on the LCD and preview on the computer.

 

[iflynething]

I believe that RAW files have an embedded JPEG image for viewing on the LCD and preview on the computer.

You tell me how this works and I will love ya forever.

I can never view the RAW file other than using Bridge.

~Michael~

 

[davebmck]

I started out shooting raw + jpeg until I understood how to make the best adjustments to the raw files. At first, my jpeg files looked better than my processed raw files, but once I had some experience doing the processing my raw files started looking better (at least to me). I would suggest this method if you're just starting to shoot raw files. It at least gives you a reference to work to.

 

[juane414]

I ordered three of these from Adorama because of the rebate. They are 2GB SanDisk Extreme 3's, which are supposed to be about as fast as you can find. If you buy three of them and send in the rebate you should get $50 from SanDisk. Thats $25 for three 2GB FAST cards after rebate.