Best CF Cards (for a cheaper price) ?

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Graelwyn

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I know Sandisk are good, but they are pretty expensive.
Are there any decent quality, cheaper priced CF cards you can get ?
 
Magnum said:
You don't need a really fast card unless you're shooting off high fps constantly. Someone i know uses a card from www.mymemory.com.
This one http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Compact-Flash-Cards/MyMemory/MyMemory-PRO-Compact-Flash-Cards-(133X) on his D300. Hasn't had any problems with it and i will be buying one soon.
There are other cards on that website for about the same price for 8gb, and for 4gb. It's worth a look.
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Thanks, I was looking at those on ebay but wasn't sure about the quality.
I may well consider those as to be honest, cannot afford to spend £20-£30 quid right now on a memory card.
 
I wouldn't recommend buying cards from fleabay- lots of fakes out there. 4gb Extreme III from 7dayshop is a good price at £18.
 
I think for most people the Extreem III range from Sandisk can't be beat for both speed and value at the moment. As eveyone has pointed out you can get a 4Gb for around £18. (or £66.49 if you go to Jessops !!)

When I bought my first digital camera (a 2Mp Nikon P&S) a 128k CF card cost me around £60! :thinking:

http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/prod13.html
 
Graelwyn said:
I know Sandisk are good, but they are pretty expensive.
Are there any decent quality, cheaper priced CF cards you can get ?
Click to expand...

How cheap is cheap? You might be cursing yourself later for the sake of a couple of quid if you end up with a no-name card that goes phut. Sandisk give you a disk with recovery software (and a handy wee card pouch, come to mention it) to get your images back should the worst happen.

Oh and as mhuk says, don't buy cards from Ebay :nono:
 
Flash In The Pan said:
How cheap is cheap? You might be cursing yourself later for the sake of a couple of quid if you end up with a no-name card that goes phut. Sandisk give you a disk with recovery software (and a handy wee card pouch, come to mention it) to get your images back should the worst happen.
Oh and as mhuk says, don't buy cards from Ebay :nono:
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:agree:

Although with my warped mind, thats a bit like getting full breakdown cover with a new (suposedly reliable) car - What do they know that we don't...

;)
 
My evilBay 4gb card failed a few weeks back :( I managed to recover all the images (Sandisk recover pro wouldn't do it - possibly owing to the cards unmarried parents) and bought a real one from 7day.
 
As mentioned, unless you're shooting losts of high speed stuff, a standard CF card will be fine. My local PC shop does 2GB ones for a tenner...
 
Magnum said:
You don't need a really fast card unless you're shooting off high fps constantly. Someone i know uses a card from www.mymemory.com.
This one http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Compact-Flash-Cards/MyMemory/MyMemory-PRO-Compact-Flash-Cards-(133X) on his D300. Hasn't had any problems with it and i will be buying one soon.
There are other cards on that website for about the same price for 8gb, and for 4gb. It's worth a look.
Click to expand...

I've been using a 8GB CF card from mymemory for a while now without a problem :)
 
another vouche for sandisk extreem 3,
i use a 2 gig one, on my 40d and have never had any problems, speed is great, handles the fps. takes 135 raw shots, and so far, havent surpassed this on a single shoot,
nathan
 
just ordered a Extreme III from picstop for £21 inc shipping.
 
I have a jessops own brand 1GB in my camera and had no problems with it.

however i decided to get a 4GB extreme III from picstop for £21 (inc shipping) and its made a very noticeable difference in taking photots, especially in raw.

I think its one of those things thats best not to go for a cheaper option.
 
Another vote for Sandisk Extreme III's 4Gb from Picstop. Only £18 - worth every penny and are about the best price/performance/size point at the moment.

OK you're camera might not write that fast to exploit their speed, but stick them in a USB 2 card reader and import the raw pics and it makes all the difference.

Graelwyn, if you're really that skint, I've probably got one or two 1Gb Extreme III's I don't use I could pass on.
 
I use Sandisk Extreme III's as a matter of course - I just keep an eye on camerapricebuster.co.uk for offers on the 4GB ones. If anyone has them for £18 delivered (best price I've seen), I always buy a couple:)

Although, I am tempted by the MyMemory 8GB cards for the same price - I rarely shoot at high FPS, so I think I may try one of them next.
 
Extreme III

Have tested a fair few cards and for compact flash Extreme III's seem to be okay, not fast but okay have found that compact flash cards are very slow to transfer data (using card reader). I now use a Maplin card reader which is many times faster than Belkin reader I used before, can be 30 minutes for a full 2GB card. I always format the card on the computer not in the camera and each time before I go out run off a few test shots. My girlfriend and I have about six cards between us and we have standardised on 2 GB, we get about 100 CR2 & Large jpg’s. This means that we use 1 or 2 cards most of the times we go out. And does mean if we ever lost a card its means only(ehhh) 100 pictures gone!

I have an Canon IXUS 860 we sometimes take out which uses SD cards, it transfers pictures at least 10 times faster than the compact flash cards and possible a lot faster than that, will not a comparison test one day!
 
Interesting about the speeds of your card reader. Have you made sure it's a USB2 one and you have USB2 ports? That makes a lot of difference. I can load in a full 4gb card into lightroom and render in under 10 mins.
 
I've always used Extreme III Cards. Be careful where you buy though as there are loads of fakes around. I do my standard test whenever I buy one. Basically fill the buffer shooting in RAW and time how long it takes to write them. One card a friend bought that was badged as Extreme III was 3 times slower than the real deal!
 
beaware when buying non branded CF cards. I have a datasafe 4gb card that I got for £10, its a high speed one. works perfectly in my fuji s7000 when I had it. Howeve once I stuck it in my Canon 400d it would occasionally lock up the camera and also the camera would not take shots.

I invested in a Sandisk Extream III 4Gb from Amazon, £20 delivered to my door, Came with a sandisk CF pouch and the recovery software.

Even altho you might not need the high speed, buy a decent brand of card. Should you ever be out and your card starts playing up the recovery software will 99 % of the time help you out. Its saved my skin on a few occasions

Its just like not skimping on tyres for your car really. Get the basics right and the rest will follow

Mike
 
Interesting about the speeds of your card reader. Have you made sure it's a USB2 one and you have USB2 ports? That makes a lot of difference. I can load in a full 4gb card into lightroom and render in under 10 mins.
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Both are said to be USB2 ports and I use a year old Dell which is USB2! me and my girlfriend both load into ACDSEE Pro 2, I will try just transferring to Harddrive to see if thats any faster.............
Mike
 
Why spend all that money on a camera and then skimp on a card? I bought a 2Gb ExtremeIII when I got my 20D and after nearly two years of almost constant use I added three 4Gb cards. None of them have failed or let me down in any way.

I don't want to be in the position of having travelled miles or arranged a studio shoot only to have it all fall apart for the sake of a decent memory card. I do always make sure I have a spare (charged) battery and a spare formatted card in my bag.

I got some good advice from a pro who said that it is better to shoot a few smaller cards than one huge one. That way, if there is a problem with any of them, you don't lose the lot.
 
I don't understand this fascination with trying to save a few pennies on one of the more important pieces of camera kit - and one that has a greater potential to fail than most.

All cards, included branded, are dirt cheap these days. Just think of the prices some 12/18/24 months ago.
 
As they are very unreliable in my experience.

Personally, I would look in my local shop first.
I got a Jessops 'managers special' card reduced from £29.97 to 97p

I also look on Google to find reviews, surprising what you learn (y)
 
One of the other reasons I stick with Sandisk is compatability of other brands with my backup device. I have an Innoplus iwith
32005805-177x150-0-0_.jpg
that won't read some other cards for some reason.
 
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