SD card advice for AF100

[grimrebes]

Coming from an exclusive P2 workflow and stepping into this SDHC environment where cards are extremely prone to fragmentation, I can't imagine reusing cards. Granted, the least expensive ones are a little more pricey than, say, DV tapes, but in the grand scheme of things, not by much. And I never reused tapes, so why reuse cards that can run about the came cost as DVCProHD tapes?

Have people experienced problems writing to fresh, out of box sd cards from any reputable suppliers? Or does the reliability of the media become an issue only when reusing cards?

[grimrebes]

I should clarify in that reliability is more of a concern to me than mere write speed.

[timbook2]

you mean you only write to a card once forever? its not meant to be that way but the card-industry will love you!

[grimrebes]

If I am paying $10 or $20 or even $40 for a card and billing the client for it, why not? It reduces the chances of memory failure, right? Or am I crazy? Or both :-P

If I am traveling to Uganda and or Glacier Park for myself or a long term documentary and I am putting the card through it paces with writing and re-writing, then sure, I'd want to spend $200+ on a card. But if it's corporate, I'd rather just avoid the whole problem all together. It's not really cost effective with P2 media, but it could be with SDHC cards.

[nicksnow]

Times have changed, Grim Rebes. You don't need to spend insane amounts of money to get reliable media. As many of us have posted on here, we've been writing and rewriting on the same SD cards for years without any issue. I get not wanting to dump/rewrite on cards if you're on location somewhere away from where your dedicated work station is, but to only use an SD card once then hang it up is like wearing a shirt once and refusing to wash it or wear it again because you read that a thread might come loose.

And think about the environmental toll!

[RieniO]

I re-use cards all the time. When a card is full I copy content to my Apple book, after that a back-up is being made to external disk, by that time I have two copies, in the meantime I continue shooting on another card, when that card is full cards are changed in the Apple book and I continue that routine till end of the day so basically I've been shooting for one year now using two GH1 and 4 SD cards. I use Lexar and Sandisk only and never had a read/write problem.

[TheDingo]

I started with 6 of the blue Patriot 16GB Class 6 cards ( I still have 4 of these, sold 2 of them with gear ), then bought one of the Patriot IRIS 32GB Class 6 cards, and two weeks later bought 3 more. So 8 cards in total, all working with no problems.

I borrowed a friend's Patriot LX 16GB Class 10 card to test it out, and it benchmarked ( using the ATTO Drive Bench ) slightly faster than my other cards:

Patriot Blue Class 6 : 13 MB/sec Write / 20 MB/sec READ

Patriot IRIS Class 6 : 18 MB/sec Write / 20 MB/sec READ

Patriot LX Class 10 : 19 MB/sec Write / 20 MB/sec READ

Patriot cards have been 50/50 for me. I have a 16gig class 6 card that works great, but I had a 32 gig class 10 card that I didn't like and was actually slower than the 16 gig class 6. The 16 gig is still going strong and is the card I currently use in my GoPro HD Hero, and the 32 gig I sold after owning it for 2 weeks and I took a 50% hit on it.

[Brian@202020]

I started with 6 of the blue Patriot 16GB Class 6 cards ( I still have 4 of these, sold 2 of them with gear ), then bought one of the Patriot IRIS 32GB Class 6 cards, and two weeks later bought 3 more. So 8 cards in total, all working with no problems.

I borrowed a friend's Patriot LX 16GB Class 10 card to test it out, and it benchmarked ( using the ATTO Drive Bench ) slightly faster than my other cards:

Patriot Blue Class 6 : 13 MB/sec Write / 20 MB/sec READ

Patriot IRIS Class 6 : 18 MB/sec Write / 20 MB/sec READ

Patriot LX Class 10 : 19 MB/sec Write / 20 MB/sec READ

I had the Blue Class 6 16gig one and it was faster than my black LX Class 10 32gig one. I heard the 16gig class 10's are a lot faster than the 32 class 10's so you are probably right with your test. I got the Class 10 from a reputable dealer so I know it was the real deal and not a fake. All I know is it couldn't record the 1080 mode in my GoPro Hero HD without it messing up as well as my GH1(3) at as high of bitrates as the blue class 6 one could. I replaced it with the Sandisk Extreme 32gig class 10 card which so far has been able to handle anything I've thrown at it, even over 1 min of GH1(3) footage at around 108 mpbs. My opinion is Patriot cards are all over the board and their quality is inconsistent when it comes to speed which means they are probably inconsistent with reliability as well.

[TheDingo]

My opinion is Patriot cards are all over the board and their quality is inconsistent when it comes to speed which means they are probably inconsistent with reliability as well.

My experience has been the exact opposite. If you are having issues with a card, I recommend downloading the ATTO Drive bench ( it's free ) and testing to see if you have a defective card.

[Robert Sharpe]

Hey, so I bought a Duracell 16GB Class 10 SDHC card yesterday at Futureshop, it was on sale for $30. Has anyone had experience with this brand before? I realize it's certainly not a name you associate with SD media, but I was looking for a deal.

I won't be shooting anything important on the AF100 for the first couple months, as I'm heading into a prodution using 16mm film, but before I do shoot something important should I really get a Panasonic or SanDIsk?