Understanding digital camera memory will help you make better choices
about what camera to buy, how much memory you need, and which memory
card is best for you.
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Digital
camera memory is an essential and sometimes overlooked piece of
digital photography equipment. There are many types of memory and
it's a good idea to consider what type of memory a camera uses before
you buy your digital camera. It's also important to make sure you
have enough memory before you take pictures of an important event
or leave for a holiday. Although memory cards are reusable, they
don't have a limitless capacity and it's always good to have more
than you actually need.
Most digital cameras come with very low capacity memory cards.
If you're shopping for a digital camera make sure to budget for
an additional card. It's a safe bet that the card that comes with
your camera is woefully inadequate. And as camera megapixel counts
grow, higher capacity memory cards become necessary.
Most camera manufacturers publish tables on their Web sites to
show how many images you can save on their included memory card.
There is no fixed rule for the number of photos you can put on one
card because different image file types, different amounts of compression,
and image content all affect the size of each file. But the manufacturer's
site is a good place to start when you decide how much memory you
want. As a general rule, I'd recommend at least a 256 megabyte or
two 128 megabyte cards if you're buying a 3-5 megapixel compact
digital camera. If you want to shoot lots of high resolution TIFF
or RAW files, then you'll probably want to look at 512 megabyte
and 1 gigabyte cards. It's also a good idea to not save all of your
photos on one card. There's always the possibility that cards can
get corrupted, lost, or stolen. Using more than one and switching
during a shoot protects your valuable photographic data.
Now that you know a little more about memory cards, you can start
thinking about what to buy. The links to the left briefly describe
the most common types of digital camera memory. There are also a
few useful, memory-related accessories listed.
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