How do various types of memory cards differ?

How do various types of memory cards differ?

Mark Comon (Vice President, Paul's Photo, Torrance, CA) gives expert video advice on: How does my digital camera turn my picture into a file?; How do various types of memory cards differ?; How much memory do I need for my digital camera? and more...

When you're buying a digital camera don't think about what memory card it takes unless you have other devices that take a memory card that you wish to match. Most customers are buying their second or third digital camera, and they already have a stack of memory cards. So I think it's wise to try buy your next camera that takes the same memory cards. Or maybe you have a mp3 player or a PDA or something that takes a memory card, like a secure data card (SD card). The secure data cards are really cool because they fit in most of the movie cameras today as well. So you can use the same memory card in your PDA's, some of your phones, and your digital camera. That's really cool. Compact Flash cards generally offer the most power, the fastest, and the biggest. But they are a little bit bigger. It's quite a bit bigger than the SD type card. So this card won't fit in the super small compact cameras, but in the bigger SLR cameras this is what you are going to have to take. Some of the older small cameras took these, not anymore because those cameras are to big for todays market.