How To Choose The Best Memory Card for Your Camera
Hello world, today with this post being my first article which I publish on my blog, I would like to get into one small but important thing in your photographic equipment.
So if I ask you what the most important thing is when you look at your gear, what would you answer me?
Maybe it’s your camera or lenses, or your backpacks or tripods?
But despite lenses and cameras being expensive and costing you thousands of dollars, the most essential part might be something simple and small like your memory card, which stores all your hard work, your pictures.
Today I received my Sony Tough SD Memory Cards which I ordered on Amazon a few days ago.
I bought the previous generations version V60 with 64GB with 277MB/s Reading and 150MB/s Writing Speed. Since I am mainly photographing landscapes I always treat myself to a bargain and I almost always buy the previous generation SD Cards.
So maybe if you are mainly photographing sports for example, or if you rapidly shoot 35 to 40 megapixel photos in sequence, you would need to buy the fastest card which is as of today 08.03.2020 available with the version V90 with 300MB/s Read and 299MB/s Write speed from the Sony tough SD Cards lineup.
Both SD Card versions from the Sony Tough Models are SDXCII Class 3 Cards and can be used with high speed UHS-II compatible products.
To keep it simple: That means memory cards that support the newer UHS-II standard are faster than the previous generation UHS-I standard models.
The main reason I bought this card is because of it’s exceptional sturdy build quality.
All my SD Cards from SanDisk which I have been now using for years, started to fall apart after a year of use and I had to glue them with Loctite to keep the parts united.
Most SD Cards consist of 4 Parts, the SD Card Chip, two plastic parts for the outer enclosure and the write protection switch which is a small plastic part. It is the tiny grey part, which can be seen on the photo above on the left side, if it comes off or if you lose it, the card thinks that write protection is on and the card can only be read but not be used to take photos with your camera.
Compared to the San Disk SD card counterpart the Sony Tough SD Cards are molded from one part.
If you are someone like me who invests a lot of money and time in traveling and photographing, I would strongly recommend to invest in good and reliable equipment, especially if it comes to memory cards, which will contain your best shots and all your efforts, time and hard work.
SD Cards can fail, that can happen with memory cards from any manufacturer, but memory cards which are designed to withstand and resist the elements are rare and helpful because unwanted surprises can be avoided.
Sony offers a File Rescue and SD Card Utility through their website. The SD Card Utility software enables you to check the status of your cards health.
Also it displays when the maximum amount of read, write cycles are reached, so that you can efficiently plan for the future to exchange/change/upgrade to a new card to avoid problems like write error, data loss and so on.
Should anything still go totally wrong, File rescue software helps to recover files, also the SD Card it is backed up by a limited five year warranty.
To be honest I haven't tried those apps yet, because the product description doesn't say that it's compatible with mac OS Catalina, which I am using now.
SanDisk also offers a recover software Rescue Pro Deluxe, which is included for free if you buy a SD Card, but it has no tool which checks the health and status of your SD Card.
The Sony Tough SD card may be not for you, if you really need the write protection function, which is physically enabled through the small grey plastic switch, which most of the standard make SD Cards have.
But if you need exceptional sturdiness and protection from the elements in extreme environments, in which we landscape photographers are exposed to, this card is definitely for you.
I didn’t had much time for testing this card yet, but I can feel that when touching it, that there are no flimsy parts on it, it’s one monolithic design, it feels substantial despite being such a small plastic part, it's simply sturdy and stiff, compared to my other SD Cards I know and own that are more flexible and give in when I try to bend them.
There are also no ribs that can bend or break, or parts that can fall apart.
According to Sonys product description it’s the world thoughest and fastest SD Card today.
It offers Class IP68 Classification to resist Water and Dust, because they have a ribless and switchless, one part molded design, which prevents bending or breaking parts, since all possibilities are already eliminated, so according to Murphys law, which states that the more complex a system gets, the possibility that it will fail also gets higher.
In this regard the design of this memory card is highly functional and effective since the parts of which it consists of are greatly reduced and kept to a minimum.
Also there are no noticeable weight differences compared to the other cards I have now used for years.
First I was sceptical when I heard of this card lacking a write protection switch.
But when looking back to my experiences in the past, when my SD Cards began to fall apart, I prefer to trust in a robust design.
If the Sony Tough SD cards are not for you, I would recommend the SanDisk Extreme Pro SD cards, because I never suffered from data loss despite the fact that it's being prone to fall apart in wet environments or after a period of usage, also one should keep in mind that it is not robust compared to the Sony Tough SD cards.
Nevertheless, I can strongly recommend either the SanDisk Extreme Pro or the Sony Tough SD cards if you are out to get a SD Card.
An useful tip besides: I prefer to take many memory cards with a smaller capacity (i. e. 64GB) with me, because if you have one card with a big capacity, everything is on one card, I recommend to choose a small card capacity and to distribute your photos to many cards.
That way the risk to lose all your data is distributed, if one card should become defective or if you should lose one, or if you should ever get robbed with the SD card in your camera (I hope that will never happen), you still have other pictures on your other cards saved, instead of losing all photos with losing just one card.
I experienced it once that I had a 128GB SD card with a large amount of pictures on it, then it got defective, it was not nice to see it happen.
Another good suggestion is to store your memory cards in a hardshell case.
While I travel I store all my cards within an shockproof, antistatic, waterproof case.
One of the best cases out there is the GEPE card Safe Extreme, which I can really recommend to you. It is available in bright neon colours it has the feature to be able to float on water.
If you enjoyed reading this article or if you found it helpful, all products mentioned or related to this blog entry, can be found on the bottom of this blog post, which are linked to Amazon affiliate links.
I don't get paid from Sony, SanDisk, GEPE or any other brand also it's no advertisement for any of those companies out there. This article's only purpose is to make it easier to find the right tools for your next photographic adventure.
If you buy those products through the affiliate links, it would not cost you more, but I am going to receive a small comisson, which I am going to use to improve and keep this site up.
Thank you. :-)
Yours sincerely,
Ryota
-Sony Tough 64 GB V60 (=the version I own and use now):
-Sony Tough 64 GB V90 (=the most recent version as of today):
-Sony Tough 128GB V60:
-Sony Tough 128GB V90:
-SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB UHS-I Version:
-SanDisk Extreme Pro 64GB UHS-II Version:
-SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB UHS-I Version:
-SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB UHS-II Version:
-GEPE CardSafe Extreme in Red:
-GEPE CardSafe Extreme in Neon Yellow:
-GEPE CardSafe Extreme in Onyx: