Larry,
I've written some thoughts on this almost exactly 1 year ago:
http://pdml.net/pipermail/pdml_pdml.net/2018-May/445228.html
Some additional thoughts:
Samsung, whose cards I liked most recently, seems to have stopped
producing SD cards, but now they produce micro-SD cards exclusively,
selling them with an adapter to SD size. (also noted by John)
I don't know, but I would assume these cards are as good. And, I suspect,
Samsung makes them this way to make these cards more versatile: you can
insert them into your cell phone or tablet.
As for the "sweet spot", I've observed that 1 step below the mass-produced
(i.e. across several brands) maximum capacity of a specific type (and
sub-type (e.g. SanDisk's Ultra-equivalent, Extreme-equivalent, etc.) of
the specific category of devices, usually has the optimum price (for SD
cards, HDDs, and SSDs).
There are some transitional periods when there is a jump in the capacities
available. In that case, only one, sometimes two companies have the newest
capacities available (most often SanDisk). In that case, this rule could
be broken, until most companies catch up.
At this moment, it seems to me that this "sweet spot" (GB for $1), is
either at 128 or 256GB, and it probably depends on the speed rating
(e.g. equivalent of Sandisk Extreme Pro and Ultra)
Also a factor to keep in mind: what is the maximum SD card capacity
acceptable by your oldest camera?
E.g. Pentax K-7 doesn't take cards with over 32GB capacity (IIRC).
I don't know what that limit is for K-3 and K-1.
HTH,
Igor
It's been a while since I've purchased SD cards.
What is the current price/performance/quality sweet spot these days? Ideally
in make, model and size. And if someone bought cards in the near past, a
pointer to the item in the store would be fantastic.
I'm going to need to get a couple cards soon, and I'm hoping someone else
recently did the research, because the sweet spot tends to change every month
or two.
The last I checked you got the most storage for your money at about 64GB.
Some people are Sandisk, or nothing, others are happy with PNY, Patriot etc.
There are also other "name brands" that one could look at.
Also, the various speed ratings on SD cards are difficult to sort out, at
best. 90Mb/S isn't always 90 Megabits, there's also class 10 etc. With the
sucky bus in the K-1, there's probably a certain point where faster doesn't
improve the camera's performance, but I can always hope that new models will
be better.
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Larry Colen [email protected] http://red4est.com/lrc
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/collections/72157612824732477/
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