Guide · memory cards

Which memory card does my digicam take? SD, xD, Memory Stick, CF

Old digicams use five card families and many of them have a size limit that is easy to hit. This guide gives the card types and the largest size each maker states, says how sure we are, and says plainly what the makers never printed.

By the Digicam Atlas team · Last checked 2026-10-19 · 768 camera rows, each linked to its source

Which memory card does my digicam use?

It depends on the maker and the year. In the manuals and maker tables we re-checked, Canon, Nikon, Panasonic and Ricoh compacts take SD-family cards (older Canons and the Nikon Coolpix 2500 take CompactFlash), most Sony Cyber-shots take Memory Stick Duo family cards, and Fujifilm and Olympus used xD-Picture Card in many models.

Open the lookup table and type your model. Format pages: SD, SDHC and SDXC · xD-Picture Card · Memory Stick · CompactFlash.

What is the biggest card I can put in it?

The number your maker printed for your exact model, and no more. The lookup table shows that number in the maker's words with a link to its source. Where we found no maximum we say so instead of guessing from the card family.

Examples from cameras we have reviewed:

Will a 64 GB card work in my old camera?

Not necessarily. The SD Association states that SD host devices can only use SD cards, SDHC hosts can use SD and SDHC, and only SDXC hosts are listed as using SDXC cards.¹ SDXC is the over 32 GB tier.²

Canon's own table shows the split: of the 154 Canon compacts we re-read in it, 54 are marked for SDXC, 53 stop at SDHC and 25 take SD only.³ Panasonic's LX3 manual lists SDHC cards up to 32 GB and no SDXC, while the LX5 manual lists SDXC cards of 48 GB and 64 GB; see their rows. We found no maker statement that a larger card works in a camera whose row names a smaller one.

Do I need a fast card?

Only for movies, in the statements we read. Canon's manuals that we re-checked recommend SD Speed Class 2 (2 models), Class 4 (22 models), Class 6 (14 models), Class 10 (1 model).

Casio's EX-Z75 and EX-Z1000 manuals recommend a card of at least 10 MB/s for high-quality movies, and Sony's DSC-W830 guide recommends an SD card of Class 4 or faster for movies.⁴

Do the makers ever disagree with themselves?

Olympus's Japanese and US tables differ on Type H xD cards for some models (see the xD page). Canon's S3 IS manual lists SD and MultiMediaCard as recording media while Canon's 2013 table marks SDHC as supported.

Has anyone tested the card size limit?

Only the makers, in the cases we found. Casio said at the EX-Z1000's launch in June 2006 that it had checked SDHC operation with a Panasonic RP-SDR04GJ1K card and with the SanDisk SDHC cards it offered as prizes (a 4 GB model).⁶ In March 2007 firmware 1.03 for the EX-Z1000 was reported as adding support for SDHC cards of 8 GB or greater.⁵ Sony says Memory Stick PRO Duo and SD cards of up to 64 GB were tested in the DSC-W830.⁴

We have not physically tested any camera and card pair for this guide.

My card does not work. What now?

Check, in this order: whether the card tier is too new for the camera, whether the write-protect switch is locked, and whether the card was formatted on a computer. The details and sources are on the card error page.

Where do I buy the right card?

Search for the card type in your camera's row, not for the camera: memory card for digital camera on eBay memory card for digital camera on Amazon Affiliate links: we may earn a commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

For specific types see the SD page, xD page, Memory Stick page and CompactFlash page.

What we could not confirm

• File systems for xD and Memory Stick: the makers' pages we read do not state them, so we publish none.
• End of production for xD and Memory Stick: we found no official notice, so we give no date.
• Capacities nobody prints: for 230 rows (many Kodak and Pentax guides, for example) we found no size in the maker's guide, only the card type. Those rows say "Card type only".
• Fujifilm F30 with a 2 GB card: the manual lists up to 1 GB, and we found no Fujifilm statement either way for 2 GB.
• Held-back rows: 9 rows are not shown because their source did not verify or no maker document was found.
• Retailer and card-maker compatibility lists are not used as evidence, because they often disagree with the maker's own manual.

Sources

1. SD Association: SD, SDHC, SDXC and SDUC card capacity choices (read 2026-10-19, page opened in the owner's Chrome because the site blocks scripts)
2. SD Association: Capacity (SD, SDHC, SDXC, SDUC) (read 2026-10-19, page opened in the owner's Chrome because the site blocks scripts)
3. Canon Asia: What SDHC/SDXC memory cards are compatible with this camera? (page dated 22 Aug 2013) (read 2026-10-19)
4. Sony DSC-W830 Help Guide: Memory card (read 2026-10-19)
5. Imaging Resource: Casio firmware adds SDHC support of 8GB or greater for some cameras (March 2007) (read 2026-10-19)
6. Digital Camera Watch: Casio confirms SDHC support in the EX-Z1000 (28 June 2006, Japanese) (read 2026-10-19)
7. Camera rows: the manuals and maker pages linked in each row of the lookup table; the data is in digicam-memory-cards.csv.