Upgrade from Rebel EOS 8mp to T3i - advice on SDHC. PNY vs Sandisk?

[grnidkjun]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to the board.

I have the Rebel EOS 35mm, later added the DSLR in 8mp (the XT I believe it is).

And I've just now moved on up to the T3i.

I'm looking forward to the bump in picture clarity and features.

I will probably keep my old body as a back up as it still works just fine.

Now, I'm onto purchasing data cards.  The old body uses compact flash, and as you all know already.. the T3i uses SDHC.

So, my question to you seasoned users..  I picked up a PNY 16g class 10 with 20mb transfer.

Would I be better off with the Sandisk 16g Ultra class 10 that boasts 30mb read with slower write but it doesn't specify the write speed.

Any thoughts?

PS, I've been stalking the other post on the person with the new T3i and lots of good info in there.  Thank you.

[cicopo]

Your camera WRITES to them but your card reader READS them so write speed is more important IF you shoot video or action in the highest FPS mode. The easiest way to verify if you need faster cards is to compare the specs in the manual against your results. If it says you can shoot 40 consecutive frames (holding the shutter release down) in jpg before seriously slowing down check how your card compares. If you come up short you need a faster card, but if you're very close (things like ISO & shutter speed have an effect) faster cards aren't going to deliver much improvement vs the extra cost. 

[BrickR]

Agreed. If you're not shooting a high number of frames per second then a class 4 or 6 is fine. If you're shooting video, class 6 is the minimum you should use. But in general, just about any class 10 card should do you just fine unless you are pushing your camera (ie: burst with RAW+JPEG or 1080 video with a high bitrate)