With the desire for true-to-life digital images with rich detail comes the need for greater memory storage capacity and faster write speeds. Manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon continue to make higher end dslr cameras that carry enough image sensing power to easily drown older memory card standards. Even the average cell phone/camera user wants a little more excitement and hi-tech under the hood for high resolution images and downloading quality video. At all this the digital memory card industry hasn't balked or hesitated, producing an explosion of memory capacities and extending the older SD standard to satisfy devices with even the most voracious digital appetites.
Even though shifts in technology and manufacturing have brought bigger memory cards, the older SD standards are far too useful to be gathering dust just yet. The older SD format memory card will hold its ground since newer devices are backwards compatible, and many users still have the older but not obsolete point and shoot cameras.
It's well known that the older camera memory cards, including SD, xD from Olympus, Memory Stick from Sony, and the CompactFlash used in higher end DSLRs, represent a grand step from the older film cameras, and an amateur photographer can take and store more images on one of those little cards than on several of the old rolls of film. But as long as there are the older point and shoot digital cameras the basic SD card still applies, even though maturing technology and markets will make greater capacities and cameras cheaper, rendering older cameras obsolete.
Digital photography has grown even more convenient and exciting with the evolution of camera memory. Compact point and shoot cameras typically use the SD or SDHC formats, with SDXC close behind, this popularity of SD and its extensions being another reason for basic SD's steadfastness. Over time these formats have proven to be the most popular since they come in a variety of capacities, fit the most devices, and therefore meet the broadest range of digital needs.
SD, or Secure Digital, was quickly succeeded by its faster extension, SDHC (an acronym for Secure Digital High Capacity). While the SD 1.0 standard only supplied up to 1GB of space, the newer SDHC and other mini and micro flavors supply space up to 16GB (microSD) and 32GB (SDHC). SDHC devices are backward compatible with the SD cards.
Given all these technological factors (greatly simplified here) the ease of choosing a card for your shooting needs hasn't changed, but has gotten simpler. A higher capacity card merely means you'll have more memory for your images. A faster write speed means the average user can enjoy using the card without any hiccups. Even if you're not concerned with sports photography and getting 4-5 RAW images in a second, you'll be sitting pretty knowing today's cards can handle your modest needs. A card which can handle high definition video? Unless you're filming a movie, it's merely extra power you have at your disposal if the need arises.
So that's it. Higher capacity, higher speed cards with fancier markings need not make your digital camera a pain to use or to buy memory for. Grab some memory and go. Just remember a plain SD or SDHC card will most likely meet your needs, and the newer extended standards will merely supply you with extra thrust - if you ever need it.
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