Hi there

I have recently purchased a Lumix GF3 and currently have a Class 4 SDHC memory card installed.

As an amature wanting to progress can anyone please advise me if I should have a Class 10 Extreme memory card?

Would be keen to find out what (if any the difference) would be between a class 4 and 10?

Many thanks in advance

According to the specs from Panasonic, a minimum of "Class 6" card is necessary for capturing Motion JPEG video. Beyond that, a faster card will help the camera unload the buffer faster when you're shooting in burst mode.

One thing to be careful of when evaluating memory cards is that the terms (Class 6, Class 10, etc.) only specify the minimum transfer speed. The "Class" corresponds to MB/sec. Performance differs greatly between brands.

For myself, the difference in price between the least and most expensive cards is small enough that I always lean toward purchasing the fastest cards supported by my camera. I've never had any trouble with the Sandisk Extreme lineup.

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Thats great Thanks V Much.

I will order one from that site now.

So the class is all about speed and doesnt affect quality of pictures?

That is correct. Any card will store still images and since it's digital data, there is no difference whatsoever between what is stored. The things that differentiate memory cards are performance (speed) and reliability.

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Does the SD speed affect FPS?

From my understanding it only has an effect on unloading the buffer. So your FPS shouldn't be any lower initially, but you will have to wait longer to shoot any kind of high FPS again. Of course if you have a really old slow SD card this might not be true, not sure about that.

I've noticed when going to review pictures I just took with my class 6 card, it takes a little bit for the card to finish writing. With my class 10 SanDisk extreme this never happens. I only keep the class 6 around because it came with the camera and I believe in a backup. This information pertains to the GX1 which I suspect is a bit more demanding of this sort of thing because of it's larger file-size.

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I moved from Panasonic 4GB C4 card to a UHS-1/Class 10 Sandisk.

I think it's worth for continuous shooting or if you save both JPG+RAW, otherwise it won't be necessary.

Do choose which with the UHS-1 on it though GF3 doesn't take advantage of the UHS standard, but that's supposed to be real faster even running as C10.

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Panasonic DMC-GF3
Olympus PEN E-PL5
Panasonic Leica Summilux DG 25mm f/1.4
Lumix G Vario 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 ASPH/MEGA O.I.S.
Lumix G Vario 45-200mm f/4-5.6 MEGA O.I.S.
Sigma Art 60mm F2.8 DN
Lumix G 14mm f/2.5 ASPH
M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 II
mecablitz 44 AF-1 digital

In stills, yes a fater SD can improve FPS, up to the speed of the camera. The buffer fills very quickly, then after that your speed is limited by the card write. Faster SD cards will also help ensure the camera can write fast enough to keep up with HD video frames in motion jpeg or AVCHD. Also, faster cards will take less time to transfer to your computer when you're done shooting.

If you want a good fast card, I recommend Sandisk Extreme Pro, or Lexar Professional.

Check out this thread for more:
Geekin' out on SD Card speeds!