Finding the Best SD Card for Travel Photography

What to Look For When Choosing an SD Card For Travel Photography

When selecting an SD card for your camera, there are several key factors to consider. Here are some of the most important things to look for.

1. Compatibility

Before purchasing an SD card, it's essential to check the compatibility with your camera. The majority of cameras support the SD size format, while others may require the smaller microSD format. It's also a good idea to check if your camera has a slot for a compact flash card, CF express, or XQD cards.

If it's an SD card you need you next want to determine the type of SD card from the SD Standards Family. These are:

• SD cards: The original format which is now severely outdated, with a maximum storage capacity of 2 GB
• SDHC cards: A slow card standard typically used for low-resolution security cameras, with a capacity of 2GB to 32 GB
• SDXC cards: These are the SD card formats for modern digital cameras, including DSLRs and Mirrorless.
• SDUC cards: A new SD format capable of 128 TB maximum capacity and potential speeds up to 985 MB/s. Not many manufacturers or cameras are compatible with SDUC cards yet.

Additionally, as I've touched on above, some cameras may require a specific type of SD card, such as UHS-I or UHS-II to take advantage of high burst rates or high-resolution video recording. I'll go into more detail about these specs further below in the speed ratings section.

However, before you jump the gun and buy the most expensive card on the market, there is no point in buying a UHS-II card with a V90 UHS speed class rating if your camera does not support the UHS-II format.

2. Storage Capacity

Often when people start searching for an SD card for photography, they begin by considering the storage capacity. Simply put, the larger the usable memory, the more photos, and videos you can store on your card.

These days, photographers want to find SDXC cards with storage options ranging from 32 GB to 2 TB cards.

However, most photographers focusing solely on taking photos rather than video will find a 128 GB memory card sufficient. Additionally, in real-world terms, that's approximately 3200 RAW files shot with a Canon R5, which in most regular cases, is enough capacity to get to a computer to dump the files onto an SSD drive or one of your backup hard drives.

On the other hand, professional photographers on multi-day shoots, or those looking to capture video alongside their photos may require higher-capacity cards. Of course, there's always the option of simply buying more cards and swapping them out in the field, or taking advantage of the dual SD card slots or additional CF Express card slots available on higher-end mirrorless cameras and DSLRs.

Why are High Capacity SD Cards so Expensive?

As the storage on an SD card increases, so does its price. What isn't so obvious at first is that buying a single, large card, rather than two or three smaller cards to achieve the same overall storage capacity is going to be much more expensive.

This is because manufacturers require more expensive equipment for high-capacity SD cards since they need to pack a higher density into a small package.

3. Read & Write Speeds

If you ask me, read and write speeds are the two most important factors to consider when selecting an SD card for both photography and videography.

The read speed refers to how quickly data can be transferred from the card to your computer or devices like mobile phones or tablets via a Type-C card reader.

Conversely, the write speed refers to how quickly data can be written to the card, either with high burst rate photography or constant high-resolution video recording. For photographers, write speed is the more important metric.

Understanding Class Rating on SD Cards

In an attempt to make things easier, SD card manufacturers have implemented class rating systems according to their write speed. However, most photographers find that this just makes it more confusing.

Since we're stuck with these ratings, let's dig into what they mean, and what photographers need to look for when choosing an SD card for their cameras.

These days, most modern digital cameras require a minimum speed class mark of a Class 10 rating, translating to a minimum write speed of 10 MB/s. However, considering a single RAW file using full-frame mirrorless cameras like the Canon R5 or Sony A7 IV can be over 50 megabytes each, photographers are going to need more performance than this.

That's why it's more important to look at the UHS speed class ratings.

Generally speaking, most cameras these days require a UHS-I or UHS-II compatibility, with a UHS speed class rating of U3, translating to minimum write speeds of 30MB/s.

The final symbol on the card is the UHS video speed class. For most cameras, you should be looking at a rating between V30 and V90 for photography, especially if you want to take advantage of your camera's burst mode.

Benchmarking Results

Below are the average write and read speeds after benchmarking all five of the above SD cards using Blackmagic's Disk Speed tool on the highest stress settings using my Macbook Pro's inbuild UHS-II reader.

All cards were newly formatted using my Canon EOS R5.

SD Card	Avg. Write Speed	Avg. Read Speed
Kingston Canvas React Plus 256GB UHS-II	252 MB/s	275 MB/s
ProGrade 512GB SDXC UHS-II	243 MB/s	273 MB/s
SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB UHS-I	137 MB/s	157 MB/s
Sony SF-G Series TOUGH 256GB UHS-II	250 MB/s	280 MB/s
Lexar Professional 1667x SDXC UHS-II	112 MB/s	226 MB/s

This test benchmarks sequential write speed and sequential read speed. This is the measure of how quickly large files are able to be written onto or transferred from the SD card. This pattern is the best metric for photography, since random read and write, are more suitable for applications such as devices running an operating system.

4. Durability & Brand Reputation

As a photographer, few things are more frustrating and disappointing than discovering a corrupt SD card. It can be a nightmare to realize that all the time, effort, and creativity may have gone to waste.

Therefore, for peace of mind when choosing an SD card, you'll want to ensure that you are buying from a reputable brand. The top manufacturers like Kingston, ProGrade, and SanDisk use high-quality materials in order to ensure the durability and longevity of the card.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of fake SD cards on the market, especially floating around on Amazon. Therefore, I recommend buying only from the brand's Amazon store or from a reputable reseller. All of the links on this post lead to the official Amazon store.

5. Budget

Finally, your budget. When it comes to price, it's essential to find a balance between cost and quality.

While it may be tempting to opt for the cheapest SD card available, it's important to keep in mind that you've likely already invested a significant amount of money into your camera body. Going for a cheap SD card is like putting low-quality fuel into a high-performance car– you won't get the maximum power or efficiency that the car is capable of.

On the flip side, purchasing jet fuel for your Toyota Corolla wouldn't make much sense either. Not all cameras are able to fully take advantage of the higher-end speed rating specifications, especially those found in the UHS-II format.

While it's important to invest in a high-quality SD card that is compatible with your camera, it's equally important to choose a card that aligns with your camera's capabilities. Going for the top-of-the-line SD card may not necessarily provide any additional benefits if your camera isn't able to fully utilize its features.

More Travel Photography Gear Guides

I hope you've enjoyed this up-to-date gear guide on finding the best sd card for photography.

If this guide has helped you choose the right memory card for your camera, then make sure to check out some of my other photography gear guides below. I'm always updating my guides and often publishing new gear advice from my several years of working as a travel photographer.