Photography is not a cheap hobby, but the sad fact is that buying a camera is not enough, on its own, to actually start taking pictures. You might need a lens, if you’ve chosen one of the best mirrorless cameras or a DSLR, and of course, a sturdy case or bag to keep it in, but the sad fact is that, without a memory card, you’re not going to be able to capture anything.
Unlike smartphones, digital cameras don’t tend to come with internal storage, so you’ll find a slot on the side, into which you can slot cards. These come in various different types, speeds and capacities, and knowing which cards your camera can accept is the first step on the road to getting the best one for you.
If you’re into shooting high-res video, or have a stills camera such as the Sony Alpha 1 that can shoot at a high framerate with 50 megapixels, then you’ll need a card that can keep up. Having a fast card means images will be written to it more quickly, so the camera’s internal buffer will empty sooner, allowing it to be ready for shooting again after taking a burst, but these cards can also be among the most expensive, especially if you choose a large capacity. If your camera doesn’t require such a premium card, then there are myriad slower, cheaper cards you can choose which will do the job just as well without leaving quite such a dent in your wallet.
Capacity is also something to think about. While cards are available that can store huge amounts of data, you can be better off with two or three smaller cards instead of one large one. This is a case of not putting all your eggs in one basket, as cards are small and easy to lose, and it also means you can have one card in a card reader, copying its contents to a hard drive, while another is in your camera. Card corruption, where the images on a card become unreadable, is rare but not unheard of, so having more than one card means you won’t lose everything if it strikes.
Whichever you choose, these essential little storage devices make modern digital photography and video possible, so it’s worth picking up some of the best.
Best memory cards at a glance:
SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-II V90
Best for: a fast SD card
The humble SD card is the most common form of memory device used in digital cameras, and you’ll find a slot that can take one in the side of many laptops too. They’ve been around for a long time, and while not the fastest cards on the market they can transfer data swiftly enough to be useful for both stills and video shooting, especially if you choose the UHS-II standard, which adds a distinctive second row of electrical contacts on the back of the card.
This card from SanDisk is badged for V90 transfers, which means a minimum write speed of 90MB/s, but claims a top speed far in excess of that, at 300MB/s, which will be good enough for 8K video depending on your camera’s framerate and bitrate.
Buy now £102.00, Amazon
ProGrade Digital CFexpress 4.0
Best for: fast CFExpress
A sustained write speed of 1,500MB/s puts this CFExpress Type-B card ahead of most other card types, with a data rate that can handle anything modern cameras can throw at it. While few things will clear a frame buffer faster, the biggest benefit of having such a fast card will probably come when you want to copy your files onto a computer for editing, as the process will take much less time using a reader hooked up to a USB 4 or Thunderbolt port.
The cards are expensive, especially when you start going up through the capacity levels (165, 325 and 650GB models are available) but if you’re shooting all day the time-saving can be worth it.
Buy now £178.00, Amazon
Sony Tough
Best for: ruggedness
Sony makes Tough cards in SD and CFExpress flavours, to suit its range of mirrorless and cinema cameras. The Type-A CFExpress cards come with a built-in heat sink to help with overheating during sustained high-speed writes (their top speed is 700MB/s), and Sony claims they’re five times more resistant to being dropped, and ten times more resistant to bending than the applicable industry standards say they need to be.
All together, this makes for a somewhat pricey card that’s perfect for shooting in rugged terrain, or just for peace of mind.
Buy now £200.00, Amazon
Transcend 700S
Best for: a budget SD card
You don’t have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on your memory cards, though it’s an easy thing to find yourself doing. The UHS-II V90 SD card from Transcend offers 185MB/s write speeds and a capacity of up to 64GB (enough for nearly 900 raw files from a 24MP camera) which is more than enough for photographers who aren’t shooting at enormous framerates and resolutions.
It’s fine for 4K video too, so you don’t need to splash out if your needs are more modest.
Buy now £35.00, Amazon
Kingston Canvas Go! Plus SDXC
Best for: a large capacity SD card
The SDXC standard allows for cards up to 2TB in capacity - we’ll need to use the newer SDUC cards to go higher than that, up to 128GB. SD cards that actually reach 2TB are pretty rare, but this one from Kingston can store 1TB (still an enormous amount of data for something the size of a postage stamp) without costing the Earth.
A compromise has to be made, and it comes in the form of a V30 rating, which translates to a write speed of 90Mb/s with a minimum guaranteed 30MB/s. It’s not up there with the speedsters of the memory card world, but it’s enormous, and sometimes not having to change cards, and juggle the used ones, is a valuable thing. Just don’t lose it.
Buy now £102.00, Amazon
Lexar Professional Silver Series
Best for: a budget MicroSD card
MicroSD cards are everywhere: in your phone (well, some of them), in action cameras, in a Raspberry Pi computer and in that slot on the side of your laptop. They’re a great way to store a lot of data in a conveniently small way, as long as you don’t want to label them or find them when you drop one on a patterned carpet, and this one from Lexar brings together speed, capacity and a reasonable price.
The 1066x emblazoned on the casing refers to the read speed - 160MB/s - the write speed is more like 120MB/s, which is still good enough for most applications.
Buy now £11.00, Amazon
Lexar PLAY
Best for: MicroSD with huge capacity
Lexar again, this time with a 1TB MicroSD card that’s been made with games consoles (specifically the Nintendo Switch, which has a slot to take it) in mind. Loading games from a memory card is one time that the card’s read speed matters more than its write speed, and at 150MB/s it’s pretty good for such a capacitous card.
Of course, you don’t have to use it in a console, you could just as easily slip it into the card reader of a laptop or phone for a massive storage boost.
Buy now £70.00, Amazon
Integral Blue
Best for: CFExpress Type B on a budget
Ever since the camera industry started moving from SD cards to CFExpress, prices of the latter have been high. Integral’s Blue card offers a huge 1,600MB/s write speed, and comes in capacities of up to 256GB, which isn’t huge, but when cards are as well priced as this buying two or three isn’t going to put too much of a dent in a budget that also stretches to pro cameras and lenses.
Buy now £90.00, Amazon
Verdict
The days of only having 24 exposures in your camera are well behind us. Modern digital cameras can create enormous amounts of data very quickly, and having one of the best memory cards is key to recording it all and taking it home to edit. The same is true of laptops, phones and game consoles, which can use memory cards for all their storage needs thanks to built-in slots.
Cards such as the SanDisk Extreme PRO SDXC UHS-II V90 are perfect for all these uses, as they offer a great mix of speed, capacity and pricing. There are plenty of other options too, and no matter what your needs are there's a memory card out there that can do everything you want it to.
