Thursday 30 December 2010

Transcend - class 10, memory card


I purchased this for use with my new Canon T2i. I use it primarily for shooting full resolution 1080p video, although I shoot stills as well.



The camera choked on the class 4 chip that I originally purchased, but with this one, it is amazing. I can shoot rapidfire 18 megapixel stills (I've tested it up to 30+ shots in a row), and there is no lag. I've never had an error when shooting hi-def video.



Highly recommended! I'm buying another one. Transcend 16GB Class 10 SDHC Card (TS16GSDHC10)

I bought this card for my Canon T1i. The card I had been using before ordering this one was a Kingston Class 6 micro sd card and it worked well enough for the type of shooting I did. Class 6 was the card speed that Canon recommended when I bought my T1i (Class 10 cards were not yet available) and it seemed fast enough for the way I used my camera - isolated single photos taken at Medium (8 MP) or Large (15 MP) jpg settings and 1280 x 720 video. And while I ocassionally took continuous photos, I had never much exceeded 5-10 photos in a row and had never run into a problem with my Class 6 card.



When I first saw the Class 10 cards I did some experiments with my camera. How many continuous Large photos could I take before the camera slowed down? It turned out to be about 30. And how many RAW photos could I take before the camera slowed down? It turned out to be about 9. SInce I did not generally take any photos in RAW and never needed more than about 10 continuous photos at Large, the Class 6 card seemed more than sufficient for my needs. But I wondered about the speed of the Class 10 cards enough that I finally bought one.



It turns out that the Class 10 card is sufficiently fast that there does not seem to be a reasonable upper limit on single Large photos. I have taken 60 on continuous without an issue. And although I still cannot take more than 9 RAW photos on continuous with the Class 10 card, when I am finished taking those photos the camera no longer displays a Wait - writing pictures screen. The RAW photos get written from the built-in memory to the card so quickly that the camera does not need to display the Wait screen.



So this card is fast! Given the way I take photos this purchase was unnecessary, but still I am glad I bought it. I know I will not run into a situation where speed is an issue with this card.

I will be writing this review for both SanDisk Extreme SDHC class 10 8gb and Transcend SDHC class 10 16gb.



I bought SanDisk class 10 and Transcend class 10 for my new Panasonic LX5. I got both card because no one really did a comparison with a compact camera and I was just going crazy trying to see if there is any big difference between the 2 cards.



SanDisk Extreme package box indicated it's water proof, x-ray proof, shock proof, temperature proof. I am not ready to spend $50 to see if it really stand up to it's words. And I don't think normal people would go through the extreme condition in taking pictures or videos.



Cut the story short, I really want to see if there is any difference in writing performance between the 2 cards in a compact camera. There is a continuous burst mode in LX5 and the manual indicated it is only limited by the condition of picture environment and performance of the SD card. Within the mode there are 2 different settings:1) speed priority or 2) picture/quality priority. The shutter speed is much faster with speed priority compare to picture priority.



I first formatted both cards out of box then put each card in series of test(3 rounds each setting for each card) shooting at the same object under same lighting condition. The results:

Speed Priority:

SanDisk Class 10 8gb

22-33 shots before camera stopped to allow the card to catch up with writing.



Transcend Class 10 16gb

22-24 shots before camera stopped to allow the card to catch up with writing.



Picture priority

SanDisk Class 10 8gb

34-46 shots before camera stopped



Transcend Class 10 16gb

27-33 shots before camera stopped





It seems that at a higher shutter speed, both cards performed very similar under the same shooting condition. But at a slower shutter speed the SanDisk definitely out perform Transcend. I hope this little experiment satisfied anyone with curiosity like me. Transcend definitely is a bargain with 16gb and almost half of the price compare to SanDisk. But I am going to use SanDisk Extreme as my primary card and Transcend as backup or on a second camera to ensure i would not miss any shots.

OK. this card was around $47 for a class 10 16gb. The other card i bought was a Sandisk class 10 8gb for the around same price. I did a 10 sec stop watch test on both cards with my Rebel T1i on raw and the Sandisk was only faster by 1 shot in a 10 sec burst. to me it seems trivial to pay 47 bucks for a Sandisk 8gig when you can get 16 gigs for the same price. yes i know, the Sandisk is good for arctic and desert temperatures... but i live in western NY... not Antarctica or the Sahara. If your looking for a good card, with more gigs for your buck, the Transcend is well worth it. - Memory Card - 16 Gb - Class 10 - Sdhc'


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