Your opinions: D300, D700 memory card & battery options

[Rob-F]

I've been using the Sandisk Extreme III 4gb card with no complaints. I'd like to pick up an extra. I see where I can get a Sandisk today with more--even a lot more--memory. Or, I can get an "extreme" with somewhat more memory--maybe double--but not as much as the largest choice. Even though I have an "extreme" now, I'm not sure what I'd be giving up with a "not extreme."

I can get a spare battery for these cameras that says "Nikon" on it, in a range of $25 to $35.00 or so. Or I can get one that doesn't say Nikon for half that much. There seem to be a few choices there.

What are your opinions and experiences? TIA!

 

[Nikon Bob]

With the D700 I mainly use Sandisk cards but do have some other brands. Several of the Sandisk cards are 4gb Ultras (30mb/s) and one is an 8gb Extreme UDMA (60mb/s). I don't shoot long burst so either will do for me speed wise in camera. I do not plan on going to any higher capacity than 8gb for the same reason as the previous poster, nervous of too many eggs in one basket. Two 4gb cards and one 8gb card are more than enough for month long car trips for me shooting 14bit NEFF. I think the PC you have has more to do with how fast you can download to the PC via card reader. My old XP machine took close to 3 seconds per file and the new i7 machine can do it in about 1 second. The Extreme seems possibly slightly faster than Ultra on the new machine.

Batteries were another story. I have two Nikon ones and never a problem but then got a couple of cheap ones out of China. The cheap ones work alright but don't drop down for easy removal like the Nikons do. I can't see any external differences but there it is. A friend also got cheap Chinese made ones for his D300 but from a different manufacturer and has had not problems. From this experience I will bit the bullet and go with Nikon brand in the future, I just don't need to chance the aggravation.

Bob