One of the first accessories to take into account if you have a photo camera or any technological gadget is a memory card. But the question is, which one do you need? It seems easy, but with so much variety in memory cards it might get quite confusing… but don’t worry! We are going to help clear things up.

The first thing that we look at for a memory card is its storage capacity. Nowadays we can find memory cards that range from 2GB to very impressive 2 terabytes in storage. A 32GB memory card is better than an 8GB one, we agree on this don’t we?

But, how many photos fit on a memory card?

We are sure that at some point you have asked yourself the same question, well, it mainly depends on the card capacity (the gigas), the quality of the photo that we are taking (if it is JPEG or RAW) and the megapixels that our camera sensor has.

Below we give you a rough guide for the number of photos that fit on a memory card (of different gigas).

If we have an 8 GB memory card that are 8192 megabytes and our camera sensor has 20 megapixels, our memory card will be able to store around 300 photos in RAW format, or about 1,100 photos in JPEG format.

On a 4GB memory card, about 220 pictures fit in JPEG format and 50 minutes of video recordings. And on a 64GB memory card, about 1,200 photos would fit and some 5.6 hours of video recordings.

Don’t forget that these amounts are purely for guidance.

And for mobile phones?

A music player or mobile can record much smaller files.

Most mobile phones use microSD memory cards. So if you are just going to store some photos then a 2GB memory card might be enough. If you save a lot of games and applications, buy a 4 or 8GB memory card. And if a day doesn’t go by without you taking photos, then it would be better to invest in a 16GB memory card.

Types of memory cards

The SD memory cards (standard capacity) are the original ones, and they offer us a storage capacity of up to 2GB in data.

The SDHC (high capacity) allow between 4GB to 32GB to be stored. They are perfect for saving large size files, high definition videos or fast photo sequences.

The SDXC cards (extended capacity), range from 32GB to 2 terabytes in storage. These memory cards are intended for high resolution video recordings.

Do remember, however, that not all devices are compatible with these memory cards. Before rushing to buy, check that the logo appears for the type of memory card that you want for your device.

The first part of this guide has now cleared up how to choose a memory card. We have highlighted two factors: the type of memory card and the storage capacity. But let’s not forget to discuss the access speed for the memory card. What are we talking about? We’ll cover this in the next post…

Here’s the second part: Which memory card should I buy? (II)