Simon Lewin Posted March 16, 2007 Share #1 Posted March 16, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hello there, Inspired by a lot of the threads on this forum I've taken the plunge and I'm now an M8 owner! Looking forward to getting to grips with everything. I'm based in the UK and just wondered if there was any sort of consensus about the best SD card to be using (that I can easily buy here). Any specific brands or products? Many thanks! Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 16, 2007 Posted March 16, 2007 Hi Simon Lewin, Take a look here Best SD card for M8?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
fjmcsu Posted March 16, 2007 Share #2 Posted March 16, 2007 Simon, Welcome & good luck with new aquisition.I'm sure you will enjoy it . There have been several threads regarding cards that seem to work that are not on the Leica approved list so you might also try the search option with "SD card" etc. My card was purchased based upon others recommedations here & it is a RIDATA 155x 2GB card. I have two of them & have not had any trouble. The price is right also at about 30-50 USD depending on the dealer.I don't have any experience with bigger cards(4GB) but others sa they work well.The SDHC cards have been temperamental for some but perhaps others can attest to their reliability.I don't need "big" cards for my type of shooting so the 2 GB is fast enough & works fine. Good luck & happy shooting Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Mitchell Posted March 16, 2007 Share #3 Posted March 16, 2007 The RiData 4gb card is also nice, and I recommend the Lexar 2gb 133x Professional cards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoff Posted March 17, 2007 Share #4 Posted March 17, 2007 SDHC memory cards are currently not supported in the Leica M8. However, I was told, when at Leica USA in Allendale, NJ, that it is intended by way of a future firmware update. SDHC cards differ from traditional SD card in the fact that they use sector addressing as opposed to the traditional byte addressing. Therefore, there are no SDHC that currently work in the Leica M8. For capacities over 2GB only a few non-industry standard 4GB Secure Digital cards are reported to work. In fact, earlier today, I reluctantly ordered four Transcend 4GB X150 Secure Digital memory cards, model # TS4GSD150, for a trip, at the end of this month, out to LA. It has been reported by reliable sources, on this forum, that these cards have work very well in the Leica M8. Do a search for details. I would have much rather purchased true industry standard SDHC cards, and from another brand, but knew M8 support would not be ready in time. I paid under USD$40.ºº per card. My past history with a handful of Transcend SD cards has been that they tended to split at the seams over time. Personally, when choosing memory cards, I factor in construction, quality of components and how accessible and responsive the manufacturer is. Pretty much the same rule I use when selecting external hard drives. This goes beyond just relying upon whether someone else didn’t have any problems with their purchase. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Mitchell Posted March 17, 2007 Share #5 Posted March 17, 2007 Just don't forget that you spent almost $5,000 on the M8 and probably a lot more on your cache of lenses. To save a few dollars on your SD cards for lesser brands is absurd. You wouldn't put the cheapest film into your MP with Noctilux and take it to Costco for your exhibition work, would you? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
waterlenz Posted March 17, 2007 Share #6 Posted March 17, 2007 SDHC memory cards are currently not supported in the Leica M8. However, I was told, when at Leica USA in Allendale, NJ, that it is intended by way of a future firmware update.. Thanks for the good news! New SDHC cards are being introduced right now, see DPR PMA reports. I expect SDHC will replace plain SD before too long. Tom Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
egibaud Posted March 17, 2007 Share #7 Posted March 17, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) On my Panasonic FZ30 I use Sandisk Extreme III 1Gb but for the M8 I wanted to use larger cards, many Extreme III 2Gb problems were reported with the M8 as well as it is not on the list of supported cards. So I use what I found here in Tenerife, Canary Islands. Sandisk Ultra II with 2Gb capacity. They have not given me problems so far. I shoot DNG + Jpeg Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
barbican Posted March 17, 2007 Share #8 Posted March 17, 2007 I bought some Extreme III's from Robert White in the UK and have had no problems at all. He seems to be the first dealer in the UK to have dropped the prices in the latest round of memory madness. He now sells 2GB for £25 and 4GB for £40. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roderik Posted March 17, 2007 Share #9 Posted March 17, 2007 I had trouble with diffrent Sandisk cards while all Lexar cards seem to work Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertknappmd Posted March 17, 2007 Share #10 Posted March 17, 2007 I wonder why certain cards from certain makers work flawlessly whereas others are problematic.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
devils-advocate Posted March 17, 2007 Share #11 Posted March 17, 2007 As a dedicated cheapskate and M8 owner (work that one out), I have always used inexpensive SD cards -- specifically a pair of Transcend 4GBs. Four thousand frames later, not a single glitch from the $75Cdn cards. Wish I could say the same thing about the $5000 camera. I believe that all of the card-crashes on the recent LL Antarctica trip were amongst high-end brands, though there were very few (less than 5, I think, in several hundred-thousand frames. The Transcends also run in my 1dsII beside the Lexar 4GB CFs I usually use in that camera. Both brands and formats have been absolutely reliable in that camera. My sandisk CFs have been equally stable. Unless and until I see something scientific, I will remain unconvinced that reputable but less-expensive SD cards pose any risk. (though I remain open to persuasion on this). Write-speed will always be best with the top-end brands, but in the M8 the difference is essentially irrelevant, at this point. All SD cards share a certain physical fragility, given their size, but the horror-stories I have heard seem to apply to all brands, again in limited measure. - N. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sirvine Posted March 17, 2007 Share #12 Posted March 17, 2007 The Transcend 2GB 150x cards are under $30 each at their website right now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwalker649 Posted March 17, 2007 Share #13 Posted March 17, 2007 I bought a Transcend 150X 4GB card and my M8 writes to it (I can see the images in playback) but when I put the card in my computer (built in card reader) it says "No Images". Is that my card reader or something else? Other cards don't have this problem. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted March 17, 2007 Share #14 Posted March 17, 2007 I cycle between a Transcend 150X 2GB, a SanDisk X III 2GB and a SanDisk Ultra II 1GB and have had no trouble with any of them. I always format in the camera, and try not to delete. Only read in an SIIG reader, and treat them as read-only until they get back in the camera. Has anybody checked prices this week to see where the sweet spot is? 2GB or 4GB? scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ario Arioldi Posted March 17, 2007 Share #15 Posted March 17, 2007 There is no need for very fast SD cards if you use them on the M8 only (it is not a Canon 1d which can shoot more than 8 fps). There is no need, and it is not safe to use very high capacity cards: a 2g card is sufficient for about 180 shoots and since any card can get corrupted it is safer not to store all your pics in one card only. There are many cards not mentioned in the Leica approved list which can be used on the M8 without any problem. The above consideration are based on my personal experience. Ario Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
J_Brittenson Posted March 20, 2007 Share #16 Posted March 20, 2007 I just got my M8 back, and both the 4GB Ridata Pro 150X cards I had bought while it was doing the Solms factory tour work fine. No problems whatsoever, counter on top, playback, shooting, on/off, etc, all good. They read fine in any of my Macs or the one PC. They don't work in the DMR at all, though. I'm going to shoot these a bit more, and then if they keep working fine get a few more. They were $40 ea if memory serves. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robsteve Posted March 20, 2007 Share #17 Posted March 20, 2007 I bought a Transcend 150X 4GB card and my M8 writes to it (I can see the images in playback) but when I put the card in my computer (built in card reader) it says "No Images". Is that my card reader or something else? Other cards don't have this problem. Some of the older card readers will not read the 4gb SD cards. I had to buy a new card reader to use with my 4gb Transcend cards. I bought a couple IO Gear Pocket drives for $19 each. They work well and are cheap enough to have a spare handy. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Olof Posted March 21, 2007 Share #18 Posted March 21, 2007 I think at the moment the SanDisk Extreme III ist the best card in overall perfomance. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
t0tor0 Posted May 15, 2007 Share #19 Posted May 15, 2007 Some of the older card readers will not read the 4gb SD cards. I had to buy a new card reader to use with my 4gb Transcend cards. I bought a couple IO Gear Pocket drives for $19 each. They work well and are cheap enough to have a spare handy. i have some problems with the Transcend 4gb too. not sure what it is but all my JPG and DNG seems to be damaged after transferring to my macbook pro. can view the file on the camera though. could it be the reader? hmm... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott kirkpatrick Posted May 15, 2007 Share #20 Posted May 15, 2007 I've got some 2GB Transcend 150Xs, several 1GB and 2GB Extreme III's (fastes downloads) and Ultra II's (much slower). With a PC running XP, and a SiiG 18way USB2.0 reader, I have no trouble. With a very small Kingston reader that I can carry with me, I sometimes have to try a few times to get the Extreme IIIs to be read. You need to know the whole chain to understand whether somebody else's experience is relevant to your situation: (PC of Mac or ..) X (what reader) X (what card, and where was it formatted...) Oh, on the last point, format your SD card in the M8, and if you use it in another camera, reformat in that camera. Aren't the prices great? If SDHC finally happens, I may buy a lot of the best of the previous generation at <$5/GB. I think of them as little archives of the raw data. scott Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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