Digital camera memory cards are an essential part of any digital photographer’s equipment.  With camera memory cards, there is always a balance between quality and price.  Without a high quality memory card, your pictures can come out distorted, which could ruin a life time of memories.  Also, with too little storage, you might not get that fantastic picture because you ran out of memory space.  Choosing the lowest priced memory card is not always the best way to go.  If you already have a camera, you probably should know what type of memory you need for your camera.  Most cameras come with a low memory card that is rather useless.  You probably can only get a few shots on a high quality setting.  Remember, the higher the megapixel of the camera, the more memory you’re going to need.  10 megapixel cameras can capture a photo at over 1 megabyte per photo.  This means that the 32 megabyte memory card will only allow you to capture a handful of pictures.  Regardless of your camera type, it is essential to buy a higher quality/higher memory storage card.  These days, most cameras take secure digital (SD) cards and others take memory sticks.  Here are other options to store your digital camera photos.

The first thing you’ll need to do is to determine what type of photographer you are.  Also, you will need to read your camera’s manual to determine how many photos can be taken at what capacity.  Many experts say to get 1 gigabyte storage for a 3.5 megapixel camera.  Of course, the higher the megapixel, the higher the amount of storage you’ll want to get.  I’m a very picture happy person and like to take photos/videos with any chance that I can get.  I have a 10 megapixel canon and bought an 8 gigabyte card.  If you are planning on going on a long trip, a higher digital camera memory card is the way to go.  It is a burden to keep constantly uploading files to your computer and you won’t want to continuously do this while you are on vacation.  Go ahead and spend an extra $18 and get the next size up. 

Compact Flash is a common memory card for many expensive digital cameras.  Depending on the camera type, a digital camera can be compatible with compact I and compact II.  Compact II tends to have more memory space.  Only more expensive cameras have the ability to use compact II cards due to their fast internal processors. 

Secure Digital (SD) Digital Memory Cards

The SD card is the most common type of digital memory card and is compatible with many popular brands.  The card is very small and is popular due to its compact storage and high storage capacity.  Many people use novice type cameras that are used for their convenience and portability.  Also, SD cards can be used in PDA, phones, camcorders, and MP3 players.  SD cards can hold up to 8 gigabytes worth of storage.  That’s over 1 hour of digital camera movie!  Another feature about these cards are the write-protect function.  If you do not want your pictures to accidently be deleted or tampered with, you can flip the little switch on the card to protect your data.  There are also micro SD cards which are a bit smaller in size than the regular SD card and mini SD cards that are mainly used for smart phones and other cellular devices.  Both the micro and mini SD digital memory cards can be used in digital cameras with a computability device. 

The Sony memory stick was created solely for Sony Digital Cameras and other media devices.  This is a burden to some since SD cards are compatible with most digital cameras.  Many people are turned off from buying Sony Digital Cameras just for this reason alone.  Also, memory sticks tend to have less storage space than SD cards. 

Does the cheapest camera memory card work as well as the most expensive card?  Some brands sell for up to $20 more than others.  You might wonder if the brand affects the quality and from my experience, it does.  I bought a cheapo 8 gigabyte SD camera memory card (I will exclude the brand name) and used it on my trip to Taiwan and Korea.  I took a lot of pictures and was excited to see the results after I returned to the states.  After uploading my pictures to my computer, I was devastated.  Many of the pictures had green streaks and were distorted.  I know it was my memory card because my camera did not do this with other memory cards, but somehow was affected by this cheap memory card.  Other things you will have to consider is how fast the memory card will transfer pictures from the card to the computer.  You do not want to wait hours upon hours for your stupid card to transfer all of you pictures to your computer.  Make sure that your camera’s memory card has the transfer capacity and speed to quickly get pictures to your computer.