What type of 4GB memory card do I need to get the most video recording?

I plan to get the Canon power Shot A570IS. I’m seeing that not all 4GB cards are equal. There’s one SD SDHC memory card 4GB for Canon PowerShot cams for $39.88. Then there’s one model DASD4096R 4GB High capacity digital SDHC memory card for $19.99. Both of these cards are Dane-Elec brand.

Dane-Elec is a well-known brand; that is not some fly-by-night company. Lexar actually has had serious problems with image corruption which is why I don’t buy their memory cards. You can check “Lexar Canon corruption” on Yahoo! or Google to verify this (without the quotes).

The second model, 4096R, has a relatively slow transfer rate which means for reading/writing it’s not the best. I agree that you should get a faster card.

As you note, not all 4 GB cards are equal. You need to look at how fast the card is–that is, how much data it can move onto or off the card in a given amount of time. The more data it can move per second, the faster the card is.

Generally, the best cards are the SanDisk Extreme series cards. Other reliable and good brands include Kingston Elite Pro, Kingston Ultimate, Transcend, Ridata, and Delkin Devices. For the non-Extreme cards, look at the data transfer rate and aim for 133x or 150x cards. Since you don’t list the transfer rates for the Dane-Elec, it’s hard to tell you whether one card is better than the other. Both will allow you to record over 1/2 hour of video if the capacities are correct, but you should go for the faster card.

Now, the Canon A570 records video at about 1.7 megabytes per second; even a standard Dane-Elec can do 2 to 4 megabytes per second. Where speed becomes critical is when you’re done and want to move it off the camera to the computer. A faster card in a good card reader will save you tons of time, up to 4 times faster. That’s the difference between taking 10 minutes to transfer a video vs. 40 minutes.

My suggestion: get one of these readers:

http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-Extreme-Reader-Retail-Package/dp/B000H4CLXS

Pair it up with a SanDisk Extreme or a really fast SDHC card (133x or 150x). You’ll be a lot happier.

Sandisk 4GB Class 4 SDHC Memory Card

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