Gday Guys/gals...

Thanks for all the great information on this forum. I have found a stack of information regarding the purchase of a new digital camera.

My wife and I recently gave birth to our first child and I realised that the pics that we were getting out of our 6mp digital camera just were not good enough. We have two digital cams, a Kodak 4MP (3 years old) and a generic brand (ALDI) 6.0MP that I bought for my wife last year (She wanted something that she could keep in her handbag and it wouldnt matter if it got lost or damaged).

I was tossing up between the Panasonic FZ30 and the Fuji Finepix S9500. I love photography and have taken some pretty nice shots with the standard cams, but thought that now might be the time to empower myself with something a little more flashy so that I can learn on (I dont believe that I have the skill to drive an SLR at this stage).

Based on the information that I have gathered from your site, the FZ30 seems to get quite good reviews and I think it would make a good stepping stone - besides technology changes so quick that in 12-18 months there will no doubt be something that supercedes it again.

I do have a question though - I was looking at memory cards for the camera today, and I am told everywhere that I go that the bigger the card the better. I am looking at a 2GB SD card, but I was wondering what affect the speed of the card would have on the operation of the camera. Does anyone have any thoughts or experience on this topic? If so, is there a minimum speed card that I should be looking at?

I know that there are a lot of thoughts/recommendations on this site, so if someone that might be a little more camera savvy than myself has any thoughts or suggestions, I would be more than appreciative.

Once I get myself established, I can then take part in the photo comps and share my beautiful country with you.

Thanks heaps for your time and comments in advance.

Aussiedude

[Biscuit761]

Aussiedude

Welcome to the site, I have an FZ20, I am sure you will be pleased with the FZ30.

I use a 512Mb card and never have any problems with it, hopefully you will find the same with the bigger cards.

Bill

[Magslad]

Speed is only really an issue if you are intending to take lots of shots in quick succession (generally will be called sports mode or burst mode) i.e. 2-3 shots per second. For normal photos, the write speed of the card is pretty much irrelevant.

One thing you might want to consider if you want 2GB of storage is getting two 1GB cards rather than one 2GB card. The difference in price shouldn't be great, and it gives you a backup should one of the cards fail (shouldn't happen hopefully as SD cards are pretty reliable, but if it did go wrong sod's law dictates it would be on the first day of a fortnight's holiday!)

[Keith Hurst]

Have to agree with Magslad here. Don't buy a 2GB card, all eggs in one basket type of bad idea.

I have the FZ30 ( still learning ) and bought 4 512MB cards. 2 high speed ones for burst mode and 2 cheaper standard ones just for day to day stuff. On a single 512 if you're shooting in JPEG mode you'll get about 130 shots per 512 card, not bad really.

KH

[Paul Shirley]

Speed will definitely be an issue if you use RAW. For JPEG any reasonably fast card should be OK, just be careful over ultra cheap stuff.

I prefer to carry a couple of cards rather than 1 big one, much more flexible if you're carrying 2 cameras or other SD devices.

[Neil294]

Agree with Paul. If you're going to be shooting in RAW then a faster card will make a difference. I've ended up going for a couple of 1Gb cards and 1 x 2Gb card for a bit of flexibility. I know that the 2Gb card means that I am potentially risking a lot of images, but I'm naturally lazy and don't want to change cards all the time. I seem to have gone from being amazed at the advantages of digital over film and gone out the other side. Why can't it be quicker?!

Anyway, I picked up my FZ30 last week and am very happy with the camera. I had the same quandry; FZ30 or S9500. I think I made the right choice and there are a lot of reviews to suggest the same. Might be worth waiting a few weeks before buying to see if Panasonic make an announcement on a possible FZ40 seeing they appear to have stopped production on the FZ30 black at least.

You're going to be taking a lot of pictures of the baby and you are going to want these to be right. Shooting in RAW gives you more flexibility to alter the images if you're not entirely happy. Go for a quicker card, shoot in RAW and have pictures that you'll be happy with for a long time.

Cheers, good luck and congratulations,

Neil

I would recommend a Sandisk 2gb Ultra 2 card (£54 on www.emartbuy.co.uk) as sandisk are very reliable and come with 10 year warranty. not only that but the faster card is definately better if you are going to be taking videos on your camera.

[Paul Shirley]

The other PIA with shooting RAW is you'll need bigger cards anyway, the images are immense. Its worth considering one of the HD photobanks, at the low end 40gb of space for £70 compares well with bigger name 1/2gb 133x SD cards.

For day to day shooting probably overkill but a lifesaver on longer trips if you don't have a laptop with you.

I notice eBuyer are selling PNY 133x 2Gb cards ludicrously cheaply ATM.