Which Memory Card Is Best For Photography?

Depending on what photography you are doing, the memory card can have a huge impact in performance of your camera. For example; if you are photographing high speed motor sport, you want a memory card with a high write speed to match. Below is a diagram of what the icons on the front of an SD card Symbolise.

Read Speed - The read speed is key if you are looking to have quick image transfer between your SD card and the device that you what to send the files to. To accompany this, we recommend getting a USB 3 Card Reader/Writer.

Write Speed - The write speed is more vital than the read speed in most circumstances. The faster the write speed the quicker the image will transfer from your sensor on to the card. If you have a slow write speed your camera will slow down in continuous shooting because your card can't handle the amount of data needed to be writen on to the card. So the better the write speed the more likely you will get the best performance out of your camera.

Capacity & Card Type- The differences between SD card capacities don’t stop there. Standard SDSC cards are 1 MB to 2 GB in size, or perhaps 4 GB in size — although 4 GB is non-standard. The SDHC standard was created later, and allows cards 2 GB to 32 GB in size. SDXC is a more recent standard that allows cards 32 GB to 2 TB in size. You’ll need a device that supports SDHC or SDXC cards to use them.

Class Type - There are four different speed classes — 10, 6, 4, and 2. The fastest of these being 10, while 2 is the slowest. Class 2 is suitable for standard definition video recording, while classes 4 and 6 are suitable for high-definition video recording. Class 10 is suitable for “full HD video recording” and “HD still consecutive recording."

UHS Type - Some SD cards have UHS (Ultra High Speed) Classifications. A UHS (Ultra High Speed) Classification determines the maximum speed at which a memory card can read. This doesn’t affect the speed of the memory in the card, but manufacturers will rarely make a UHS-I card that is unable to read or write faster than a non UHS card.

It is best to consider what work your going to be doing and how the card may effect it, because getting a high capacity cheap card, may not always be the best card for the job.

View our collection of memory cards.