What Size SD Card to Use? And Other SD Card Issues.

One of the most common questions I get asked is which size SD card to use in a drone / GoPro / camera / camcorder. And which card to use.

I wrote a detailed story on this back in February (which you can read here) but to reiterate a few basic points:

Check your device’s documentation to see what SD (or microSD) card rating is recommended. While the fasted read / write card may seem to be obvious, some devices simply cannot take advantage of these speeds and therefore you are wasting money paying for the ability. Some may not work at all. If you are shooting 4K video (or higher), go as fast as you can to make sure there are no dropped frames.
I talk from experience here, but I’d suggest ALWAYS purchase brand name SD cards. I use and recommend Verbatim as to date I have never had a failure with a Verbatim Conversely, cards I have purchased in an emergency that are either unbranded or a name I have never heard of (ie cheap) usually give read / write errors after the first or second re-format.
Make sure you format the card according to its capacity eg FAT32, NTFS.
Again, from personal experience, transfer the data from an SD card to a more permanent device as soon as you can. For travelling, I use a Verbatim VX500 SSD that has 120GB of storage which is more than enough and can be bought for less than $100.
Rather than use a single humungous capacity SD card in your drone or camera, I prefer to use a number of smaller capacity cards. That way, if one does get lost or corrupted, at least not all the shots or video are gone. Refer to my Hervey Bay whale story for an example where using multiple cards saved the day in a TV shoot.
Before you go out on a shoot (of any sort), check the SD cards are working OK, and always carry at least one or two spares. There is nothing worse than starting the shoot and finding the card(s) are duds. (The same applies to batteries as it turns out).
Store cards properly. I use a small case that has plastic inserts to hold both SD and microSD cards. You can get them from Officeworks for $7 or so.

Remember, all those little electrons that make up your images no matter it be still photos or footage are on those cards. Once they are gone, they are to all intents and purposes, gone forever. So, treat them nicely!