Customer Reviews

SanDisk 4GB ExtremeIII SDHC Card

5 star:		(175)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

For anyone with a fast 10-megapixel camera that accepts high-capacity SDHC cards (check with your manufacturer!), this choice is a no-brainer! Nikon USA reassuringly has this specific card on their "approved" list for the D80 and other recent DSLR models.

Shooting in high-quality RAW format, capacity is now up to 326 images (or more), meaning less chance of running out of image storage -- usually at the worst possible moment -- when you're paying more attention to the scene before you rather than the image count-down indicator. And if you shoot in .jpg format, you now have a virtual warehouse for your images. The free USB reader is a bonus, allowing for quick, reliable image transfers to your hard drive, Mac or Win.

The downside? As of June, 2007, these cards are still relatively expensive and in scarce supply. But, based upon past SD card history, it should become a non-issue over the coming months. Still, if you want speed, reliability AND capacity for your new digital camera NOW, this card is worth the price.

This device does exactly what it claims and a bit more. Every other memory card I have benchmarked has been overrated, many shamelessly. Sandisk claims 20 MB/s and I measured 20.1 with HD tach, with a 20.2 burst rate! My digital pictures are 18 MB so I definitely need the speed and Sandisk Extreme III brings home the bacon. Well done!

I was having problems reading SDHC Cards on my SD readers, but no problem using my camera. So I scoured all the sites for a good deal on SDHC readers. I was dumbfounded about the inexpensive price that included the Extreme III cards. I have purchased two 2GB Extreme III cards that are great. I can take 3 shots/second with this card. Incredible stop action pics for tennis and football.

The card reader is smaller than my old one I loved, what a plus. It takes the SDHC without a hitch. It comes with a groovy holder that protects the reader and card. This one is definitely a photographer's friend.

I wholeheartedly recommend this combo and I would like to thank everyone that has written reviews on Amazon because I come here first.

I bought a new Canon PowerShot G9 recently. I had to buy a new memory card. My Canon PowerShot G6 took CompactFlash cards.

Comparison between CF and SDHC

Cost

I had to buy a 2 GB CF card at RadioShack for $80 while I was on Vacation in July. I bought this SDHC for $63, which includes a reader.

Download Speed

This card is much faster than the CF by far. It takes me half the time or more to download photos. Whereas my pictures on my Canon G6 ranged from 1 to 3 MB, the pictures from my Canon G9 range from 3 to 5 MB.

I never take the card out of the camera. I simply hook my camera up to the computer via a USB cord. It saves wear and tear on the card. I don't really use that much battery power from the camera.

Card itself seems fine. I bought this package instead of some of the cheaper standalone cards because I wanted the extras.

Sadly the MicroMate card reader is too wide to fit in some USB ports (including those on the front panel of my dell desktop and the side panel of my dell laptop).

If the RescuePro software crashes on startup, be sure to go into Windows Data Execution Prevention options and opt-out the rescuepro.exe to resolve the crash.

I'm using this card in my Nikon D40X and it has worked out great. It's fast and works well with the included reader. With this card I don't worry about running out of room, even shooting in RAW mode (~10MB/picture) and it has proved reliable. I leave it in the camera all the time, except when on travel, when I need even more storage and have to use less dense or slower memory cards.

This Secure Disk High Capacity (SDHC) Class 6 memory card is just what I needed for my dSLR photography needs when shooting JPEG + RAW files. Class 6 is the fastest speed available for SD cards which meets my needs especially for shooting multiple consecutive shots on my Nikon D80. I'm planning to get 2 or 3 more SDHC cards since I easily max out my cards when taking photographs when I travel. Highly recommended.

1st off, this is a great combo deal. The SC Extreme III card is the
fastest available as of right now. My Canon SD950 can shoot 32 mins.
of 1280 resolution avi's that are crystal clear...

Only a card like this can make that possible...

The only negative about the reader is the fact that its too wide near the USB connector to fully insert into my PC's port. I have to use a USB extension cable to connect it, but that's not a big inconvenience...

Love this little combo. And the price! I have always used SanDisk cards and the Extreme III cards are great for super-fast downloading at 20MB/sec (133x). Never had a problem with SanDisk cards and at this price, it is silly to buy the slower cards for the same price. The MicroMate is just what I want; don't need a big reader with a long cord.

I've been using my Nikon D80 with an inexpensive 2GB card (Edge ProShot, whoever that is). It was faster when copying to the computer than my last CompactFlash card, but I never thought about how it would work with the camera; a couple of sites and reviews I'd read said that it wouldn't make much difference where the camera was concerned. Fools!

I shoot RAW but I know a lot of people shoot JPGs at Fine resolution so I tested with both. I put the camera into motor drive mode on each one to see how long it would go at full tilt rapid-fire mode, and how long it would go before the cam quit taking shots.

JPEG
Edge ProShot: 12 shots in 9 seconds, then 88 more shots in 111 seconds (at an inconsistent rate)
SanDisk Extreme III: 106 shots in 104 seconds. Very steady framerate throughout.

RAW
Edge ProShot: It shot 6 raw frames in 5 seconds, then started shooting at a rate of one frame every 5 seconds. I didn't wait around till the buffer was full.
SanDisk Extreme III: 11 shots in 6 seconds, then a mighty 189 more in 80 seconds!

The Edge ProShot says it's a 130x card, SanDisk claims to be a 133x card.

(Now, I just noticed that I had the camera's Exposure Delay on from when I was doing some macro and long-exposure shots, so the framerates for both would be higher I think with it turned off. I'm not going to redo the tests, I don't want to hammer on my camera that hard. The comparison is clear enough here.)

The computer test: The read speeds between the two cards were equivalent whether I used the Sandisk reader or my old one -- on Windows they read a 1.04GB file in around 81 seconds on windows, and little faster on a MacBook Pro, about 71 seconds. The SanDisk wrote the same folder a little slower -- 96 seconds on Windows, and 81 seconds on Mac. The Edge Pro? It was over ten minutes, on both Mac and Windows, with either reader! I can't explain that, but it certainly shows why the SanDisk was blowing the doors off of it in the camera test.

Both cards were freshly formatted using the D80.

As for the card reader:
It's nothing to write home about. It showed no speed improvement over the Chinese cheapie Adorama sent me, on either Mac or Windows. It's prettier I guess, but the form factor means I can only use it in certain USB slots on my computers without blocking other slots.

Final conclusion: The speeds on the SanDisk are basically where they should be for what it is. The no-name Adorama sent me has disastrously slow writes, which translates to terrible performance in the camera, where it counts. I don't know how different, say, a 300x card would be in the camera, but at least I can confirm that all ~133x cards are not made equal, and the SanDisk performs predictably and speedily. And the card reader is fine, too. And it's nice to be able to shoot 530 Fine JPGs or 326 RAW files without having to stop and dump. But mostly I'm glad I have this so that my rapid-fire shooting will be usable, where before it was not.