ASK COREY: Why do you use SD, and not CF, cards?

Hey Corey. I’ve heard you speak several times and say you love using SD cards. What’s the big deal? What do you like about them? Also, curious to hear your thoughts about budget or off-brand memory cards? They’re cheap, but are they reliable enough?
Thanks,
Brandon

Hey Brandon. To answer the second part of your question first, let me give you my two-second elevator pitch for why you should never, ever purchase off-brand or unproven memory cards. It’s a totally bad idea!

I’ve seen photographers drop a bunch of cash on the newest HD-SLR camera bodies and fast zoom lenses. Then, for some crazy reason, they skimp on the memory cards. It’s like dropping $6,000 on a new road bike, and then not buying a good helmet—it just doesn’t make sense. No matter how good your camera equipment is, no matter how talented you are as a photographer, if your memory card fails, your entire shoot may as well have never happened. Reliable memory cards are the cheapest insurance there is for your pictures.

To answer the first part of your question, my philosophy when it comes to selecting gear always comes back to the idea that I prefer equipment that comes in the lightest, smallest form factor—so long as I don’t lose the functionality that I need. Small, light, easy-to-use equipment allows me to be light and fast out in the field and focus more of my energy on creativity and waste less energy on technical issues.

SD cards are winning the battle right now when it comes to that small, light form factor. For my Nikon HD-SLR cameras, I currently use the SanDisk 128GB Extreme Pro SDXC Card (can’t wait to get my hands on the new SanDisk 256GB Extreme Pro SDXC card!) I prefer cards that have higher storage so that I don’t have to swap cards in and out of my camera throughout the day.

That said, not all of my cameras use SD cards. In some cases, if I’m shooting really large files or ultra high-res video, then, yes, I’ll need the speed of a CF card. But given the choice, I’m a fan of SD cards.

A disclaimer is that I am on the SanDisk Extreme Team, so feel free to be skeptical about my response—I totally get it. But I honestly only work with companies whose products I genuinely believe in. I’d buy all this stuff anyway, regardless of my relationship to the brand. This is true with SanDisk, just as it’s true with all the other companies I work with including Nikon, LitePanels, Kessler, SmallHD and Freefly Systems.

When I started working with SanDisk, I met their team at their headquarters in the Bay area, and they spent the day training me on all the technology that goes into these SD cards. It was a really enlightening experience that inspired a lot of confidence that my work wouldn’t ever get lost. SanDisk’s Extreme Pro SD cards have waterproof and shockproof capabilities that add a lot of protection. Trust me, you’re not going to find that same protection in those other off-brand/budget memory cards. Those other cards will probably get the job done for you most of the time, but that one time when you’re caught in the rain, or your camera pack gets dropped off a luggage carrier, or whatever the dire circumstance may be, you’ll be stoked to have that extra waterproof and shockproof protection.

Like I said, reliable memory cards is the cheapest insurance you can buy these days. So don’t make the mistake of going down the unproven track just to save yourself a few bucks. It’ll cost you a thousandfold in the long run.