Best SD Card for a Canon Powershot A700?

[Greg]

I have a Canon Powershot A700 that I plan to use to take skiing photos and videos. I currently have a 1GB Standard SanDisk SD card, but I want to get a faster card to take advantage of the continuous shooting mode (2fps). Since I will be shooting video at 640 x 480, I need a card with as much capacity as possible, while still being fast enough to take pics at 2fps.

Are the SanDisk Ultra-II SD cards fast enough or do I need the Extreme-III card? Also I noticed Circuit City has a great deal right now ($130) for a Panasonic 4GB SD Card. The Panasonic site also says the camera must be "SDHC compatible" and I can't find anything on the A700 that indicates that. Also, is this Panasonic card fast enough to take photos at 2fps? If so, I would like to have the 4GB so I can take more video.

So, based on my needs which do I go with?

• Panasonic 4GB SDHC
• SanDisk 2GB Ultra-II SD
• SanDisk 2GB Extreme-III SD

Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

[Greg]

Nevermind. I think I pinned this down to the SanDisk 2GB Ultra-II SD. The A700 is not SDHC compatible and the 9MB/second of the Ultra-II is plenty fast enough to get 2fps.

Now the Powershot A710-IS is a NICE camera. I wish it came out a bit earlier when we pulled the trigger on the A700. The A710 is 7.1 MP, SDHC compatible and has image stabilization. $360 at Circuit City right now...

 

[Marc]

If you want fast, use the Adata Turbo card, 1 GB capacity, 150x. And it's $20 on NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211313&ATT=20-211-313&CMP=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r

 

[Greg]

If you want fast, use the Adata Turbo card, 1 GB capacity, 150x. And it's $20 on NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820211313&ATT=20-211-313&CMP=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r

Good deal. But I already have a slow 1GB card. Looking to increase capacity too...

 

[Marc]

Buy four, it would still be cheaper and faster than the 4 gig card you were looking at. Unless you were planning on recording continuous video for over 1 gig. That'd be a long video though.

 

[Greg]

Buy four, it would still be cheaper and faster than the 4 gig card you were looking at. Unless you were planning on recording continuous video for over 1 gig. That'd be a long video though.

Well, it's more a matter of convenience. I don't want to fumble around changing cards that often. Probably drop one off the lift... but at this price...

Think I'll just pick up an Ultra-II 2GB...

 

[David Metsky]

The Canon's (until the current crop) can't take a video that is greater than 1G in size. The newest ones can go up to 4 Gig file sizes.

For this camera, speed really isn't much of an issue. Even a good "basic" speed card will keep up with all video and burst mode. An Ultra-II (60x level) will be more than enough and allow you faster downloads to the computer if you use a High Speed USB 2.0 card reader. Pretty much all cards on the market today are reliable, I no longer feel the need to buy Sandisk or Lexar. My new 2G cards are by Transcend.

-dave-