Memory Cards

Nowadays, there are a lot of memory card available in the market. Just to name a few, there are compact flash (CF) card, secure digital (SD) card, memory stick, multimedia card (MMC), smart media card, xD picture card. Take note that within each type of memory card, there are also variants (e.g SD cards have microSD, miniSD, SDHC). So pay attention to the type of memory cards that your camera can accept so as to avoid wrong purchase. There are some camera models allow selected memory cards to be slotted into the camera. If you happen to have an old model that uses a CF card and you purchase a new model that allows you use CF card as well as SD card, you can still use the same CF card in your new model.

You might wonder how many pictures can a memory can store. Below is an estimation of how many pictures you can store using different size memory cards. My advise is to get more capacity memory cards if the cards is worth the value to buy. Do not get the maximum size that the market can offer as they are expensive and it is risky to bring one large memory card along with you. It can be frustrating if you will to take an important picture and realise that the memory card malfunction. Instead, get an extra memory card of similar size as a backup. Do not get a high speed card as there is a limit that a camera can record image (i.e if the camera can record at 8x, do not get a 12x memory card as 8x is the maximum speed that a camera can record image).

<< Return to Glossary