TheShoe Loc: Lacey, WA

And it is usually a good idea to check the manual for the camera's maximum capacity and avoid inserting a card that is higher capacity than the camera.

sv3noKin51E

Good advice. The quandry is, for older models aas well as cameras of even recent issue, the manual is only a guide, it isn't usually revised and is never a guaranty. Nikon manuals are classic; full of double-speak and techno-confusion; some people have to look at them daily to work through the simplest issues. Still, it's always good to read The Fine Manual. Recent/new cameras usually aren't tested with readily available, excellent brand-name cards that work as well, if not better than what they tried. SanDisk Pro has been around for years and many professional don't bother using anything else. PNY and Samsung somehow never makes it into testing but make equally great cards.

There are a few 'brave' old souls (not brave here but old so raise hand), with years/decades in careers spent working behind the scenes with major corporations/players. What the camera's manufacturer's manual/guidelines suggest are 'suggestions' and what they tested prior to selling the camera. Unless others test beyond that, people won't know and tend to take those tests and guidelines as gospel and then never try anything else. One fellow we knew was disgusted; he sold his D300 for $25 because the camera shop tech told him it was obsolete, and that he needed a new camera if he wanted to use new lenses and higher capacity cards. He couldn't understand the laughter that began when he told hi story among friends. He said, 'if I'd only known it would take a bigger card, and uses -all- of the lenses, I'd still be using it.' Not sure what he told the camera center tech when he visited next, but given the language we heard, it probably wasn't tame. That's marketing.

Some manufacturers bought into flash card marketing, or just didn't have access to the latest/best tech/cards when they tested or when the manual was printed. No photographer has ever reported they've ruined/broken anything by testing/trying larger/faster flash cards. At worse, the camera says, 'huh?' and that's when 90% of owners give up. Thankfully, even oldies like the D10/D20 work fine with 16 GB cards if pre-formatted. Others claim 32 gb work. We will test at some point to confirm that for ourselves. One fellow assured me his D300 shoots happily on his 64 GB SanDisk card, after many people told him it couldn't work. Those types of cards/capcities didn't exist back then.


Research shows owners are frustrated with the industry standard non-responsiveness from the makers and who say not to try other than what's tested by the fine manual, and they never use other than xx size.' That always tends to push a few to test on their own. The D20/300 uses 32 GBs; Nikon never tested/recommended that size. With Nkon and Canon, since their R&D is planned at least 10 years out, one suspects they knew someone would get around to using larger cards than were available at the time of testing and didn't tell the FW to just say no.

With the EOS, the camera seea and usually formats the 16 GB card, but in some reported cases it can slow down writes after bursts, or the first couple of GSs, or may display an error message or just 999, but usually it works. Pre-formatting takes care of that.

This isn't meant to push anyone into doing something that's against their nature, nor is a claim that it always works for everyone. Some early FW on some models refuses to format or shoot larger/faster cards.

Neither Canon, nor Nikon (nor any other manufacturer) reveals the terms of their agreements with card manufacturers who provided the few cards they -do- test; nothing in the test is a guaranty, and in a few cases FW had to be bumped to meet what was written for the manual before testing was finalized.

Use your search-fu skills to verify others have used larger/faster cards than the manufacturer tested; we've been completely comfortable testing and using such cards. Again, no cameras we've heard of were ever harmed by simply trying to use a larger/better card. sv

Silverman Loc: Michigan

Thank You, very useful and informative UHH reply.

sv3noKin51E

We received a new card order with brand new sets of factory-fresh SanDisk CF Extreme/Pro UDMA CF, and Sandisk and PNY high-speed 32 micro USB cards, to try with the new DigiGear SD/SDXC USB to CF Type II adapter, which was about $15.00. Spent Friday testing all of them on the EOS 10D/20D, and Nikon D200/D300 bodies with unexpected and pleasing results for the EOS bodies. None hesitated or were ill-behaved; they self-formatted all the cards and shot with more speed than we experienced the older stock of cards we've used with the order from last year. The newest Extreme/Pro 160 UDMA 7 cards formatted in less than 5 seconds, same for the micro-USBs in the SD-CF adapter. So much for older EOS not being able to use more than 16 GBs. Have been shooting large-fine jpeg+RAW all day, about 800 images so far. Never tried 32 GB size CF or micro USB SDXC in the EOS bodies; we'd bought into and always used the pre-format procedure with the previous Type I CF adapter and with the 16 GB CF cards. So much for the older cards and the Type I adapter, they're now officially retired.

The Type II adapter can and does use the new series Toshiba Wi-Fi cards. A friend recommended the W4-32 GB Toshiba SD Wi-Fi, and says he loves it, but we don't use them so far; still a bit pricey and plugging/unplugging the camera bodies is safer, not a hardship. Toshiba released new software and fixes late last year that eliminated most problems with prior Wi-Fi cards series; most people expected plug and play. They didn't bother to read the instructions on Toshiba's web-site, but they still aren't plug and play. The cards run between $35-$50, from a couple of Amazon vendors. Be sure to buy the cards that are fulfilled by amazon, as well as check the reviewer and vendor remarks/reputation. Toshiba makes higher capacities if you want them, at double the price. You must use their new software updates and follow their proceedures. Maybe someday they'll be plug and play, but currently are the only real game in town for high-speed Wi-Fi SD cards. Toshiba took a lot of heat on the older series but they listen and act on feedback. Tthe DigiGear type II SD adapter says it's made to work for these. We don't need/miss camera Wi-Fi, yet; our D7200 Wi-Fi has Wi-Fi and we would be more inclined to use it if Nikon fixed their buggy app. Sometimes they go years between updates, but Nikon never claimed to be software company.

With the new tests, the EOS bodies seemingly don't care about the vaunted pre-formatting procedures we followed with the older 16 GB Sandisk CF cards used previously, so time will tell. The Sandisk Pro USB and PNY Elite/Pro 32 GB micro-USB in the DigiGear adapter worked as well as the Extreme/Pro CF cards; no difference. Haven't run Crystal Disk as so many do, so as Arnold said, 'trust me.' Will post if these ever falter. We have a spare 64 PNY micro-USB and 128 GB card that we might try with these bodies for grins; maybe next month. The Nikon D200 and D300 has had zero issues. Good weekend to all, sv