Broken Memory

The other day while sorting out the various memory cards I have, I came across one that was getting a bit roughed up.  My Canon XSi (EOS 450D) takes SD (secure digital) memory, though I do tend to use SDHC (secure digital high capacity) cards more because of their large capacity allowances. I haven’t used very many cards, but I do remember my first one was a Kingston 4GB SDHC Class 6 card. I think I got it pretty cheep at one of the big box stores near by. Perhaps one day we might see a Fry’s up here in Vancouver? I can dream right?

While I was down in San Diego I stopped off at a local Fry’s. I’m sure people out there (especially American’s) know what Fry’s is all about, I’m sure there are Canadians who know about them too. For those who do not know who or what Fry’s is. They are a gigantic electronic store that seems to dwarf our big box shops such as Futureshop or BestBuy. At the time when SDHC was first coming out, the larger 4GB and 8GB cards were almost $100 CDN, though while I was browsing the toys at Fry’s they had 8GB SDHC cards for $20 USD. Not a bad price so I picked one up for myself. I also picked up some cheap SODIMMs for the company laptop I was using too.

Anyway, the 8GB card that I purchased a couple of years ago has now broke. First the outer casing broke near the contacts, but I could still use the card. Recently the “lock” switch broke off in the protected position, I couldn’t fix it nor could I make the card writable. I also noticed that the outer casing split, so I just crack it completely open.

It is amazing how they can manufacture the memory (the large black chips) to fit right up against the edge of the PCB. The second photo is a reverse-macro shot of the memory. The memory card itself is the brand Patriot for those who are curious. I should look at getting some higher speed SDHC cards (if they exist) for my camera. It is not much fun when my camera blinks “Buffering” to me during sporting events and I miss some what-could-have-been cool shots.

If  I do plan on upgrading my camera (be it the Canon 5DMkII or the Canon 7D) and I will have to look at getting back into Compact Flash (CF) cards. Though, I will invest in a few 4GB high-speed card for that though.

I still have one 4GB Kingston SDHC as well as a 16GB Kingston SDHC cards. Typically I just stick to using the 16GB, which gives me roughly 900 RAW photos. Do I ever need to dump those photos? Sure do, I seem to be trigger (or is that shutter?) happy!

What sort of brands of camera memory do you typically use/buy?