Having the best SD card (short for “Secure Digital Memory Card”) in your inventory should be one of the most important things for a photographer! Wether you’re using SD cards directly in your camera, or as a storage device to make proper backups of your photos instead of an external hard drive – avoiding the loss of data should be a high priority. Although these little memory cards might look the same to you, there are huge differences among SD cards you might not know about. As there are so many different brands and models on the market, I want to recommend the best SD cards to you that I use as a travel photographer!
What does the best SD Card need?
Chosing the best SD card for your purpose is quite easy – if you know about the technical specs! Don’t worry, it’s pretty easy to understand. You basically have to look for the following things when looking for the best SD card:
1. Storage Space
The most obvious thing to consider is the actual storage space on an SD card. The earliest SD Cards had 8 Megabytes to 2 Gigabytes. The improved SDHC cards that came on the market later on already had 4 to 32 Gigabytes (most common models on the market right now). The latest generation of the best SD cards are SDXC cards with up to 2 Terabyte Storage Space!
2. Transfer Speed
Taking and making backups of your photographs requires a high transfer speed on your SD card. To indicate the speed, each SD card belongs to a “class”. Class 2 memory cards for example have a transfer rate of at least 2 Megabytes per second, Class 4 SD cards have at least 4 Megabytes per second (and so on).
3. Price
Of course we will look for the lowest price of the actual SD card we want to buy. I would rather call it “value” though: it is more important to have a good, reliable SD card with lots of memory space instead of a cheap one that will fail on you (something like that does happen).
The Best SD Cards for Photographers
Considering the technical requirements above, I can recommend you the following SD cards as they deliver some of the best results in the industry – and served me perfectly on my journeys all over the world!
Recommendation 1: SanDisk Extreme Pro
The SanDisk Extreme Pro might be not the cheapest option around, but certainly one of the best SD cards you can get for your money! It is one of the fastest memory cards on the market right now, which will serve you perfectly when shooting RAW photos or handling large files. The special error correction code will make your backup even more reliable and prevent data loss throughout the transfer. It is certified as Class 10, which delivers one of the highest transfer rates on the current market. The best SD card for professionals!
Transfer Speed: Class 10
Available Storage Space: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
Price: 22 US Dollars to 102 US Dollars
Recommendation 2: PNY Elite Performance
PNY is a manufacturer of memory cards that is not as well known as Sony or SanDisk. But this should change in the future, as they produce some of the best SD cards in the world. Built specifically for DSLR cameras that require high transfer rates, you will not be disappointed when chosing PNY. It is made in Japan and provides an awesome durability: this SD card is water proof, magnet proof, shock proof and temperate proof to a certain extent! Although this card is also aimed at professionals, it is relatively inexpensive.
Transfer Speed: Class 10
Available Storage Space: 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, 128GB
Price: 15 US Dollars to 95 US Dollars
Recommendation 3: Sony SDHC UHS-1
Sony is well-known for all tech devices and also offers a high-quality SD card which is considered Class 10 (highest transfer rates). This card is also optimized for photographers and should serve you perfectly for all photography needs. Even if you should lose your files, Sony’s data recovery tool (you can download that) will help you recover missing files. The biggest plus is its price: for all the features you get with the Sony SD card, it is very inexpensive and affordable for every photographer out there! Seriously – if your photographs aren’t worth that small amount of money, you’re doing something wrong ;).
Transfer Speed: Class 10
Available Storage Space: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB
Price: 9 US Dollars to 36 US Dollars
