Nikon COOLPIX L330 Memory Card Recommendations

Quick Recommendations on SD Cards for the Nikon COOLPIX L330

If you just want some quick recommendations, here you go. Any of these will work well in the L330. These SD cards meet the needs of the L330’s feature, have a strong track record of reliability, are readily available, and are usually cost-effective.

Any of these makes for a good choice. If you’re after more detail, you can find it below.

What Memory Card Does the Nikon COOLPIX L330 Take?

A memory card is an essential accessory for the Nikon COOLPIX L330. Without it, you’re not going to be able to take many photos or shoot much video. ¹ But the L330 doesn’t come with one. There are some bundles that retailers put together that might include a memory card, but chances are it’s something you’re going to have to pick up separately. Or maybe you want something bigger with larger storage capacity—the cards that are included in bundles are often on the small side and might fill up quickly, especially if you’re on a trip. So which card should you get?

That’s where this post comes in—hopefully, to help you get out shooting sooner and taking full advantage of all the features of your new camera rather than spending your time searching the web and trying to make sense of cryptic technical codes. I’ve been buying and testing numerous SD cards for several years and have put many of the most popular SD cards on the market through their paces. You can find my main SD card tests here.

Nikon COOLPIX L330 SD Card Requirements

The headline feature of the Nikon COOLPIX L330 is its 26x optical zoom. There are other cameras in the COOLPIX lineup that have much longer zooms (including the P900 and P950), it’s still much more than your average point-and-shoot can zoom in. The large lens for that also accounts for the camera’s larger SLR-like size. It has a 20.2-megapixel sensor and shoots HD720p video. It has a single SD card slot, and it’s compatible with SDXC, SDHC, and SD cards.

For all its impressive zoom and good-sized sensor, the L330 is not especially demanding of its memory card. So you don’t need to search for the fastest SD card money can buy–there are plenty of reliable, cost-effective options that are readily available.

And because of the way that cameras interface with memory cards, there’s no practical benefit to getting a card that’s faster than the camera needs. ² And, naturally, high-performance cards are more expensive. So why pay extra for high performance that your L330 can’t use? By all means, if you already have a fast SD card on hand, you can use it in the L330, but it won’t get you any extra performance in the camera (it might when downloading the photos and videos to a computer).

That said, in the recommendations below, I’m factoring in cost-effectiveness as well. And because memory card manufacturers are coming out with newer, faster models all the time, it’s quite possible that the most cost-effective cards are faster than your camera needs. But that’s a case where it makes sense to go with the cost-effective option even if its performance exceeds the requirements of the camera.

Detailed Version

So which SD card should you get for your Nikon COOLPIX L330? Here’s the more detailed version.

Practical Recommendations

The L330’s instruction manual is pretty unhelpful on the topic of which SD card to get. And, being an older camera now, it’s also quite out of date. If you go searching, you’ll find this buried in the technical notes:

Nikon does have a webpage of approved memory cards for COOLPIX cameras, but it’s not much more helpful. For starters, it refers only to brands and storage capacities and not to speeds or card model numbers.

So what I’m aiming to do here is provide some practical recommendations on which SD cards to get for the Nikon COOLPIX L330 so you can spend less time searching online and more time out shooting. I’m not trying to list every SD card that works in the L330–there are others that will work just fine as well. I’m focusing here on ones that offer a good combination of meeting the requirements of all of the L330’s features, are readily available at major retailers, are cost-effective, and come from major manufacturers with track records for good-quality cards. I’m also basing this on my own SD speed tests.

So here’s more detailed information on these cards, along with some others.

Making Sense of SD Card Specifications

You’ll find a range of different acronyms and codes on SD cards. Here’s a quick overview of which to look for.

SDHC vs SDXC

Most of the cards you’ll see available now have either SDHC or SDXC printed on them. The Nikon COOLPIX L330 will work with both SDHC and SDXC cards (and, for that matter, just plain SD cards, but they’re hard to find these days and have impractically small storage capacities).

These are categories assigned by the SD Association, which is the organization that oversees and develops the standards for SD and microSD cards. The difference between those two specifications is in the filesystem they’re formatted with–the SDHC specification uses FAT32 formatting, while the SDXC specification uses exFAT–but when it comes to buying memory cards, the practical difference is that cards 32GB and smaller will be labeled SDHC and cards 64GB and larger will be labeled SDXC.

UHS-I vs. UHS-II

The current generations of SD cards also have UHS-I or UHS-II on them (or often just an I or II). This refers to the type of interface that’s used to connect to the cards. It stands for ultra-high-speed bus.

UHS-I is the older, simpler bus interface. UHS-II is newer and potentially faster. The catch is that you only get the extra benefit of UHS-II if the device is also UHS-II. But the spec is designed to be backward compatible, so you can use UHS-II cards in UHS-I devices, but you will only get the speed of UHS-I.

The Nikon COOLPIX L330 doesn’t have a UHS-II interface, so, as a practical matter, there’s no benefit to using UHS-II cards in it (but it’s perfectly fine to do so if you already have a UHS-II card on hand).

Video Speed Classes

The SD Association has come out with various rating systems over the years to help buyers choose a card that’s suitable for use in cameras. Because recording high-resolution video (or, more specifically, high-bitrate video) is often the most demanding operation in terms of a camera and its memory card, it’s known as a video speed class rating system.

Most cards available now have a mix of old and new speed class codes printed on them. And while it’s helpful, it’s still an imperfect system for judging the speed of an SD card.

As a practical matter in the Nikon COOLPIX L330, cards that have any of these on them should be fast enough:

• V30
• V60
• U3

V90 is also fine, but it’s overkill for the L330.

There’s a separate rating system that you might also see on some cards. They might have an A1 or A2 on them. You can ignore that when choosing an SD card for a camera. It’s designed for the kinds of operations that gaming devices and smartphones do.

What Size SD Card to Use in the Nikon COOLPIX L330

The L330 is compatible with SDHC and SDXC cards. That means you can use cards from 4GB all the way to the largest cards currently available, which are 512GB and 1TB cards.

There’s really no right answer when it comes to what size, or storage capacity, to get–it’s mostly a matter of convenience so that you don’t keep running out of space. As is probably obvious, you can fit twice as many photos on a 64GB card as on a 32GB card. And with a 128GB, you can take four times as many photos as with a 32GB, and so on. And that’s especially handy when you’re travelling; even more so if you’re shooting any video. The most logical sizes for this camera in terms of convenience and price are probably the 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB sizes. But if you want to use a larger or smaller one, say 64GB or even 1TB, go right ahead–they’ll work just fine because of the way that the SDXC spec is designed.

So Why Get a Good Memory Card?

A better memory card isn’t going to help you take better photos or improve image quality. But it can let you take advantage of all of the camera’s features. A card that’s not fast enough to keep up with the camera can cause issues like locking up, dropped frames, and overheating.

There’s also the issue of reliability. There are plenty of junk memory cards on the market. Not only do they have flaky performance, but they’re also more likely to fail. And that means the risk of losing your photos and videos.

At the same time, you don’t want to pay extra for a high-performance SD card that’s overkill for the camera.

How to Format SD Cards

When you buy a new SD card, you should format it before use and then regularly after that. If you’re formatting a card that you’ve already been using, make sure that you’ve downloaded any photos and videos you want to keep, because formatting deletes everything on the card.

Here’s some information on how to format the memory card.

How to Format SD Cards in the Nikon COOLPIX L330

It is best practice to always format memory cards in the camera that you’ll be using them in. That sets the card up with the filesystem, folder hierarchy, and, in some cameras, a database file, so that the card is just how the camera expects. That greatly reduces the risk of unexpected errors and unpleasant surprises.

On the Nikon COOLPIX L330, you can find the format function under:

MENU > (wrench icon) > Format Card > OK

Formatting the internal memory works the same way. Just choose Format Memory instead.

How to Format SD Cards with a Computer

Having said that, it is still possible to format memory cards using a card reader and computer. You get a lot more flexibility that way, but also some extra risk if things aren’t set up just how the camera wants them. It’s also sometimes a good troubleshooting step if you’re having issues with a memory card.

There are some things to watch out for, particularly when it comes to choosing which filesystem to use. So I’ve put together guides on how to format SD cards on Mac and how to use the free SD Card Formatter app for Windows or Mac.

1. The L330 does have a small internal memory, but it’s only approximately 43MB. So it’s not a practical alternative to shoot for long without an SD card in the camera.[↩]
2. Depending on your computer and memory card reader setup, you might get some speed benefit when putting a faster memory card into your card reader and downloading images to your computer.[↩]

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