Top 6 Memory Cards Worth Having

Memory cards are very important if you want a good workflow. Photographers often forget about the importance of making a good investment when buying a memory card, and sometimes settle for something more affordable of less quality. Sadly, a good part of these decisions to cut down costs lead to lost images and footage or a repeated necessity to replace damaged cards.

Let's talk a little bit about how a memory card should be. The devices we use today, and by that I mean phones, tablets, laptops and cameras, are all designed to work as fast as possible, and they can't really do so if you use a slow memory card. Nobody's ever complained about a card being too fast, but I bet you don't have to spend a lot of time on forums to find threads about slow cards and poor performance. Speed is essential and as resolutions and file sizes become larger, it's only common sense to optimize your workflow with fast memory cards.

Most of the cameras in use today work with two types of memory cards: Compact Flash cards (CF) and SDHC or SDXC, which are basically the same thing, but with different capacities.

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When you go shopping for a memory card, one of the first things you will notice is the speed written on the memory card. A lot of times it's something like "Up to 100MB/s" or "Maximum 95MB/s". The most important thing to understand about these specs is that they're there to inform you about the maximum capabilities of the card, but they don't say that those speeds are only sustainable for a few seconds or less. With that said, there is always going to be a difference between the actual working speed of the memory card and the speed written on the package. That difference in speed depends from one manufacturer to another.

We've put together a list with our favorite six SDHC and CF memory cards. You can use it as a guide next time you go shopping for more storage.

SDHC/SDXC Cards

128GB Black SDXC UHS-1 Memory Card

This SDXC card from Delkin is made to withstand up to 45 lbs of force, making it more durable than any other card of this type on the market. You can also use it in extreme temperatures ranging from -40°C to 85°C.

It is capable of writing at speeds up to 80MB/s, with a minimum guaranteed writing speed of 30MB/s. It is ideal for shooting bursts of RAW files and HD Video with DSLRs.