Are you confused by all those “weird” numbers, symbols, and other classifications on your memory cards? Well, don’t feel bad because you’re not alone—even though this terminology can be quite important to understand.

Today’s explainer from the popular Aftershoot YouTube channel will bring you up to speed in the next seven minutes. Instructor Ernesto is a professional photographer and he puts it like this: “Knowing your card specs can save you from slowdowns, dropped frames, and even data loss.”

Ernesto decodes all the terminology so that you can identify the speed of your card and understand the impact this has on camera performance—whether you’re shooting still images or videos. He begins with “the big number that stands out the most, and you probably understand that this one refers to a card’s storage capacity in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB). Simply put, this indicates how much information you can store on that particular card before running out of space.

Cards of between 2-32GB are labeled “SDHC” (HC standing for High Capacity.” Those that go beyond 32GB to 2TB are referred to as “SDXC” or Extended Capacity. And if you see a card labeled SDUC, that’s an Ultra Capacity card that can hold up to 120TB of information.

But there’s much more terminology on a card label beyond storage capacity and you have to look closer because this identifying information is printed much smaller. The next bit of critical nomenclature expresses the speed of a card; namely, how quickly data is transferred from the camera to the card regardless of capacity. This classification is represented as a number inside of a small circle.

A Class 10 memory card, for example, assures you a minimum write speed of 10MB per second. As Ernesto explains, “My Sony A7iv shoots 35MB Raw files, which means that a Class 10 card could take up to 3.5 seconds to store that image into that card.” This rate of data transfer may be OK for capturing a high res image or two but won’t get the job done with sports or wedding photography when you’re shooting numerous images at high burst rates.

And videography calls for the fastest cards you can afford. As this point you’re less than halfway through the eye-opening episode and there’s much more to unpack. Once you’re done, head over to the Aftershoot YouTube channel where’s there’s much more to learn.

We also recommend watching another helpful explainer that we shared recently, demonstrating the power of your camera’s Single-Point AF mode and how to use it to capture precisely focused photographs in a wide range of situations.

Experienced landscape photographers understand the importance of a concept known as “hyperfocal distance” that enables them to maximize depth of field by using appropriate aperture settings and focusing on a specific point within the frame, namely, somewhere between foreground and background depending upon the image at hand.

Today you’ll learn how to put this tool to work in the following eight-minute tutorial from German pro Rainer Hoffman whose instructional YouTube channel is devoted to straightforward tips for shooting in the field. He demystifies today’s transformational concept with easy-to-understand graphics and illustrations.

Hoffman explains it like this: “Hyperfocal distance is important whenever you want depth of field from close to the camera out to infinity.” According to his definition, when the lens is focused at the hyperfocal distance, all objects from half of this distance out to infinity will be acceptably sharp.

At this point you may wonder what Hoffman means by “acceptably sharp,” and he puts this to rest before explaining the key variables that determine hyperfocal distance in any given scene. In simple terms, these include the focal lens of your lens, the aperture setting, and the sensor size of your camera.

You can skip the underlying math with phone apps that quickly do the calculations on your behalf but, like many of us, Hoffman finds it too cumbersome to deal with a smartphone in his hand a camera hanging from his neck. Hence, he uses a handy rule of thumb, and you should use it too.

We’re not going to summarize the technique further because it’s super easy to understand while watching how Hoffman’s graphics clarify the process. There are even some tips for film shooters and those of you who use legacy manual-focus lenses with distance engravings on a DSLR or mirrorless camera.

Be sure to visit the Hoffman Photography YouTube channel where there are many more how-to videos that simplify other seemingly complicated concepts.

And don’t miss the recent tutorial we posted on a similar topic featuring another accomplished pro who demonstrates everything you need to know about controlling f/stop settings like a pro.

If you deal with more than a couple thousand images, you need a DAM, a Digital Asset Manager. Excire offers two solutions that fit the billing of “best ever.”

Excire calls their product a “photo management tool,” but since Excire Foto 2025 also handles video, I think the correct label is DAM: Digital Asset Manager. And unless your collection of imaging creations spans just a handful of folders, you DAM well need it.

What Exactly is Excire?
Excire Foto 2025 is a standalone digital asset management utility that assists users in organizing, searching and accessing their images and videos. Excire Search is a Lightroom plugin with most of the same capabilities. Both leverage powerful AI technology to provide features such as text-prompt search, facial recognition, GPS search, and searching by the keywords you previously assigned. Excire also delivers potent culling functions based on parameters like sharpness, subject type and similarity.

Who Needs Excire?

Professional Photographers
Anyone who sells stock photos knows how hard it can sometimes be to locate the “just right” image for a client. Excire makes it a snap. And wedding pros, I’m not even heading down that road — you know the importance of image organization better than I do.

Family Photo Curators
If you have the sometimes stressful responsibility of being the archivist for your family’s photos, you’ll appreciate how easy it is to find the shot of Uncle Smirnoff exiting Ellis Island.

Once you begin scanning the household collection of old negs and slides, you’re faced with the challenge of remembering what went where. Again, Excire to the rescue.

Corporate Libraries
From what I’ve seen, most companies, large and small, have tons of images — executive portraits, product shots, corporate events, employees, etc. — and virtually no handle on how to find a specific asset when they need it. Note that Excire also offers special options for businesses so more than one employee has access.

Archives and Collections
Surely NASA and the Library of Congress have sophisticated digital asset location/retrieval systems, and a stable of engineers who maintain them. But smaller museums, historical societies, schools, clubs and business associations could doubtlessly benefit from the speed and power of Excire.

Prolific Amateurs
How many digital images do you have, including video clips? Hmm. How do you find anything? If you’re like me, it’s been “by guess and by gosh.” The efficacy has not been fantastic, let’s just say that. Excire has the potential to change my cataloging scheme in dynamic ways. I’m excited.

Getting Started — it’s Simple
It’s easy to get started using Excire Foto 2025 or the Excire Search plugin. The talented staff at Excire greets you with an email after you register and provides step-by-step instructions. It’s hard to make a mistake.

Excire (both flavors) installs on your Win PC or Mac the same way any other application installs. There’s a separate version for older Macs with Intel processors. You must enter your authorization code (one time only) and to do so requires an Excire account. It’s free and takes only a minute to set up.

Excire Search Plugin
After installation, launch Lightroom Classic. Access Excire Search by clicking Library > Plugin Extras in the Lightroom menu bar.

Initialize the images you want to be able to search (a required step) to allow Excire Search’s AI-powered technology to analyze them. The process is strictly local; i.e., neither your images nor data are uploaded to the cloud. You can initialize the entire LR catalog or selected images in a batch. Note that Excire can access only the images that have been initialized.

After initializing the photos you can search using any of the following parameters: Keyword, Example Photo, Faces, People, Aesthetics, Text Prompt or Duplicates. Additionally you can transfer keywords that Excire Search assigns to the images in your Lightroom catalog.

Excire Foto 2025
Installation follows the same steps, but because it’s a standalone program, Excire Foto 2025 offers more features, and functions differently. Launch the app and you’re greeted by the Gallery View. After importing images into Excire, they are analyzed — same as with Excire Search Plugin — and again, neither your images nor data are uploaded to the cloud.

From the Gallery View page you can import images, view images, rate images, and search for images.

Excire provides seven tools for locating files:
– Find by text prompt.
– Find duplicates, identical and near-identical images.
– Find by GPS (based on GPS coordinates in image metadata).
– Find by specific keyword that you previously assigned.
– Find faces matching specified characteristics.
– Find people based on a sample image.
– Find photos similar to a sample image.

Since Excire Foto 2025 is a DAM, a Digital Asset Manager, and does not have direct editing tools. Instead it makes it easy to export to an external editor that you own, including Lightroom, Luminar, Capture One, ON1 Photo RAW and Adobe Photoshop. It also offers tools that simplify exporting images for printing or sharing.

Cost & Availability
Excire Search and Excire Foto 2025 are sold on a one-time payment (non-subscription) basis and include a license valid for both Mac and Windows PCs. The price of Excire Search is $129 and the cost of Excire Foto 2025 is $199. You can save by buying the Excire Bundle that includes both for $299. Order and download directly from Excire.

Join the Shutterbug Community!
Sign up for an account—it’s easy and FREE. Subscribe to our FREE newsletter (find the sign-up form on our homepage) and bookmark Shutterbug as a Favorite on your browser.

Visit our Gallery section and spend five minutes or less uploading your best shots once a week. You might even become a Shutterbug Photo of the Day photographer!

In the Galleries, you’ll see the incredible work of thousands of photographers from around the world. We encourage you to add your own images to our ever-growing collection. It’s an excellent platform to connect with other photographers and share your knowledge and passion for photography.

(If you’re worried that submitting images to the Photo of the Day gallery might be complicated, it’s not. Check out these short 1-2-3 directions.)

—Jon Sienkiewicz

Find more articles written by Jon Sienkiewicz.

Leave it to Sigma to throw the playbook out the window. With the new Sigma 300–600mm f/4 DG OS Sports (for Sony E cameras), the lens maker has dropped one of the more daring pieces of glass we’ve seen in years. And most importantly, it works. Really well.

David Schloss, editor of Imaging Resource (Outdoor Photographer’s sister site), calls this an “audacious lens” in his recent review and he’s not wrong. A fixed-aperture super-telephoto zoom is virtually unheard of in the industry.

It’s the sort of hybrid concept—prime-level brightness with a zoom’s flexibility—that photographers have fantasized about for years. And you can pre-order it now for the relatively reasonable (considering the science behind it) price of $6000.

Built Like a Tank, Handles Like a Pro Tool

Right out of the box, the Sigma 300–600mm screams “pro,” according to Schloss’ review. Weighing in at just under four pounds and stretching 18.5 inches before you even attach the oversized hood, this lens looks and feels like something you’d see perched on a sideline at the Olympics or tracking a bald eagle from a blind in Alaska.

It’s made of magnesium alloy for durability and weight savings, and the construction is as weather-resistant as anything in Sigma’s Sports line—more than capable of surviving a misty mountain wildlife shoot or a foggy day on the trail.

The controls are clearly built with field use in mind. Giant, glove-friendly rings. A rotating function switch. Four focus lock buttons spaced around the barrel. You’ll also find drop-in filters at the rear of the lens—a welcome and rare touch on modern telephotos.

Image Quality That Hits the Mark

In testing, Schloss found the image quality of the new Sigma 300–600mm (for Sony E cameras) to be outstanding. The fixed f/4 aperture gives a beautiful separation from background elements, something you won’t get from Sony’s 200–600mm f/5.6-6.3 or the 400–800mm f/6.3-8 G lenses.

Even wide open, edge-to-edge sharpness is superb. Chromatic aberration? Barely there. Stabilization? Excellent. Sigma claims 5.5 stops of shake reduction, and while Schloss couldn’t verify the exact number, he had no issues shooting handheld.

A Few Bumps in the Road

But this isn’t a fairy tale lens. Like any bold design, there are compromises. Most notably: it can’t maintain autofocus while zooming, a major knock for anyone shooting fast-moving subjects like birds or jets. And on Sony cameras, the lens caps burst shooting at 15 fps, far below the Sony A9 III’s potential 120 fps. Why? Because Sony doesn’t share its secret autofocus language with third-party lens makers.

Also missing: compatibility with Sony’s teleconverters. While some shooters won’t miss them—preferring to crop from a high-res body—others will be left wishing for that extra reach.

The Value Proposition

Still, at $6,000, the Sigma 300–600mm f/4 is priced perfectly between Sony’s $2,000 200–600mm and its $13,000 600mm f/4 prime. It delivers close to G Master quality at half the price, with none of the low-light compromise of variable aperture zooms.

For wildlife, aviation, and sports shooters who can live with its limitations, it might just be the best deal in the super-telephoto game right now. As Schloss put it: “This is a lens Sony should have made.” But they didn’t. Sigma did. And for a lot of pros out there, that’s going to make all the difference.

Read Schloss’ review of the Sigma 300–600mm f/4 at Imaging Resource or watch his hands-on video with the lens below.

The post Sigma 300-600mm F/4 Review: An Audacious Lens for Wildlife Photographers appeared first on Outdoor Photographer.