Topic: Does speed of the SD card matter in a digital camera?

[pfife]

Hey, I used coinstar and changed in a bunch of change, and I'm going to use the money to buy a relatively sweet digital camera.  With new camera comes new SD card - so I was wondering, does it matter the speed of the card?  I read somewhere once, I believe, that it does matter, but I'd just like to tap the TSKB and see for sure.

thanks dudes

[dmonterisi]

it matters in two regards: 1. if you are getting a camera with a continuous shooting mode (where you hold the shutter down and it takes rapid fire photos), the speed of the card will limit how fast the buffer empties and allow you to make the next shot after the initial burst.  if you're camera does not have this, it won't matter here.  2. the slower card will offload images to your pc at a slower rate over a usb2.0 connection.  i'm not sure exactly how much longer, but if the price isn't that much more for a faster SD card, i'd say it's worth it.

[pfife]

thanks for the responses, even the smart-assed ones....    Unfortunately, my question is somewhat obsolete, as I found a deal on Ebay where a 1GB SD card was thrown in for free, so I took the deal.   I was under the impression that the speed had something to do with the lag between when the shutter release was pressed and when it actually took a picture, but I don't think this is true now.   I think the camera I'm getting (Kodak P850) has burst, but its not really something I've used that often on other cameras, and when I did, I didn't think it performed poorly...

[bluegrass_brad]

When I was researching for a new camera it seemed that with many new cameras the speed of the card had an effect on the frame rate for video.  Some of the cameras with a fast frame rate that shot full size video needed a fast card in order to be able to do it, otherwise it would default to the slower frame rate.