4 gig sd card

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8877molly

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Has anyone tried a 4 gig sd card in an M8?---There are conflicting theories on whether the card and camera are a good match

Thanx
 
Hi Molly,

It's important to be aware that there are two types of SD cards, SD & SDHC. SD is the standard card that's been out for quite awhile now and supports capacities up to 2GB. SDHC or SD High Capacity is a newer standard card that uses the same size card and connection but is compatible with a range from 4GB to 32GB.

Currently, the Leica M8 does not have the hardware necessary to interpret SDHC cards making the max capacity 2GB.

However, some card manufactures figured out how to fit 4GB of storage into standard SD cards before SDHC cards really caught on (so they weren't widely supported) and they were expensive to manufacture. This is why there are *some* 4GB SD cards that work fine on the M8. You can find a PDF from Leica (link here) that lists officially supported cards and it includes the 4GB non-SDHC cards that work fine.

Now here's where things start to get really confusing... There is a user here, Gabriel, who has reported that he uses a 4GB card made by a manufacturer named "Patriot" that works fine. What's confusing about this is that the card is labeled "SDHC" and since the Leica M8 physically doesn't have the hardware to interpret SDHC cards it's really strange that it works. There are a couple possible explanations for this, including that Patriot might have mislabeled the cards, but no one knows for sure yet. Also, he has reported that he's only tried the 4Gb card, nothing in a larger capacity which would really prove whether or not the card is SDHC or not.

So, all that to say that right now using a 4GB card on the M8 is a bit of a crap shoot. There are some that work, and its best to just use the list that Leica provides to find an officially supported one if you are in need of 4GB. There's *possibly* some other ones that work, such as the Patriot, but all we have to go on is random user reports and without the official word from Leica just be aware that its not been officially tested or supported so something *could* happen like photos not recording properly, etc... There is also a slew (most) of 4GB cards that just don't work in the M8 at all. There also has been no single user report that I'm aware of of any 8GB or higher capacity card working in the M8.

Hopefully that's useful. Just be careful when buying a 4GB card and do your research. *Any* card 2Gb and under *should* be just fine.
 
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When I did have an M8, I tried a Ridata 150X 4 gig card that worked fine. It also works on the Kodak DCS Pro 14n, which is extremely finicky, perhaps more so than the M8.
 
Does anyone know where to get the Hama SD cards in the US? I've tried searching for them, but only come up with UK dealers.

Thanks.
 
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How about the G9?

How about the G9?

8877molly said:
Has anyone tried a 4 gig sd card in an M8?---There are conflicting theories on whether the card and camera are a good match

Thanx
Click to expand...

And since in another thread the G9 is being compared with the M8, can someone comment on 4-GB card compatibility for the G9?

(Sorry for the hijack.)

Harry
 
kbg32 said:
Hmmmm, interesting. I've tried the Transcend 4gb card and it did not work in my M8.
Click to expand...

Transcend has both SDHC and regular SD 4Gb cards. The ones to get are the 150x regular SD 4Gb cards.

They are called 150x, but in fact are not as fast as the Sandisk Ultra II 2Gb cards. Fastest, and in my opinion best cards for the M8 are the 2Gb Sandisk Extreme III cards. Those are my main cards; I have a couple of the Transcend 4Gb cards, but find that I often have to wait for the camera to finish writing, and thus only use them when the other cards are full.

I got my Transcend cards here (in Canada):

http://tinyurl.com/4kom68

Henning
 
My grandmother's favorite expression was the one about not putting all your eggs in one basket. Hence I stick with 2GB cards, mostly the Sandisk Extreme-III's with a couple of Kingston 150x's thrown in. I have 12 cards, which take up very little room. Each one I scribed with a Roman Numeral so I can easily isolate a bad card if I get corrupted files. 2GB holds approximately 180 DNG's, or the equivalent of 5 rolls of 36-exp film so that's 60 rolls of film before the cards are full even if I don't cull and delete at the end of a day's travel shooting. Plus, for a little more than $100 I picked up an 80GB Wolverine portable HD with a built-in SD card slot. It's a little bigger than a deck of cards (doesn't have a color LCD viewer, which doesn't bother me). So far though I've never had to use it. I really wonder what the thirst for huge capacity cards is, if it's like the horsepower race in the 60's, or if there's really some stupendous reason I'm missing.
 
Figure this out! I bought an AMICROE 150X 4GB SD card (not SDHC), formatted it in my M8, DNG files displayed on the M8..but my PC would not read the card...told me that the card was unformatted! Thinking a Firmware upgrade might do the trick, I installed V 1.201...no difference. Then I formatted it as FAT32 on my XP PC...then reformatted it in the M8..and it worked like a charm???...for now!
 
What will M8 users do when the production of 2Gb cards will be stopped because of cost/price ratio?..
Today the price of 4 Gb SDHC is the same or even less than 2Gb a year ago...
 
Why on earth should that be stopped? SD cards are not just for cameras. There is plenty of stuff around that does not take SDHC, cellphones, games, music players, washing machines and even toasters for all I know. There are still floppy disks being made.....
 
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