Are 400x CF cards worth it?

Speed of card is only relevant if you do a lot of burst photography where a faster card will help you record more images in a given time. It will also speed transfer times to the PC if you have a fast reader.

If neither of those things apply, you won't notice any difference....
 
A given model of camera will have a maximum write speed dependent on it's electronics. This page has a review of cards used in a 40d and it looks like it tops out at 11 MB/s with the SanDisk Extreme Ducati 8GB card. http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9257
The same card will do 33MB/s in the 50D.

Also as you'll see from the test data the number given (150x, 400x, etc.) doesn't necessarily mean much!

Based on that list I'd probably go for the SanDisk Extreme III or IV.
 
I've a few Sandisk extreme III cards for my 40D and I've yet to buffer them. Had no problems with write speed from camera to card at all. Personnly I'd save my money and spend it on something else
 
As Andy says, only matters if you take sustained bursts at high FPS and are shooting in RAW mode, otherwise they're a waste of time and money.
 
I use the same Sandisk Extreme III 133x and Kingston 133x cards in my 5D2 that I used in my 40D.

No problems here.

I don't shoot video but thats imaterial as a 40D can't :D
 
jerry12953 said:
When I looked into using faster cards I think it was tdodd who pointed out that using one in a 40D was a waste of time as the camera itself was the limiting factor.
Click to expand...

And, as is always the case, Tim was correct. The 40D is limited to around 11 MB/s - so buying a faster card will make no difference to your shooting. It might make a difference to the speed you upload to your computer, but it's likely that'll be limited to about 20 MB/s (depending on your card reader and its interface).
 
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