SD Vs SDHC memory card for Nikon D3000?

You will have to make the final decision, but I can tell you what the difference and and pros/cons.

SD card is an older style Secure Digital. It’s design limits it to the storage capacity of 2 Gigabytes (does not mean it’s an old card, they still manufacture thousands of them, it’s just an older design). As the memory became cheaper, the newer SDHC, standing for Secure Digital High Capacity format was introduced, that can go much higher. It does not have anything to do with speed – as there are both fast and slow SD and SDHC cards out there (yes, the fastest SDHC would be faster than the fastest possible SD, but that’s at the top of the line for each kind), nor should you worry too much about the speed. For as long as you are not shooting like a machine gun (several shots per second for extended periods of time) and recording them in RAW (aka NEF) format – just about any speed will do (with either SD or SDHC; and of course with D3000, which has no video capability, you won’t even need to have second thoughts about that) – you do not have to get the more expensive fast cards for your situation.

So which you buy will depend on whether you want:

A. The convenience of having just one large card (e.g. 8G or 16G card in your camera and that’s the end of it). The obvious advantage of this is that you won’t have to worry about not losing the additional cards, and the convenience of not having to change the cards in the middle of the trip. Then you get one or two large capacity SDHC and be done. It is also cheaper to get one SDHC card than to get same total capacity in many smaller ones.

B. The piece of mind of not having all of your vacation pictures on a single card. This way in a rare occasion that a card fails (or gets stolen together with the camera or alone) – you will only lose what’s on the missing/damaged card, but will have the rest of your vacation pictures on the others. If this is your priority, then get a whole bunch of smaller capacity SD cards. Something like 1-2G or so. A 1G card will hold about 300-500 pictures, so unless you are shooting away like crazy, it will probably last you at least a day or two per card. Change the cards at the end of day, or every other day, so that you don’t run out and have to change in the middle of a days trip, and keep the filled cards in a secure place.

Hope this will give you enough information to make a decision that is right for you.

Enjoy your trip and bring back many great pictures!

LEM.

Get two SDHC cards of 8gb. (SD cards only go to 2GB and are slower). Two cards in case of mishap…you wouldn’t want to lose ALL your photos, would you.

You’ll get just over 1000 best quality pictures (fine) on each card.
http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imaging/lineup/digitalcamera/slr/d3000/pdf/d3000_16p.pdf