CF Card Speeds

Urban Grimshaw

Urban Grimshaw

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Whilst most of the time I don't find this an issue, there are times when it's a real pain in the ass waiting for images to write to my card. Those times are when shooting bursts (for the most part I can live with this) and long exposures.

Long exposures are the absolute worst. If I run off a 2 minute exposure I then have to wait a further 2 minutes for it to write to the card. If I shoot a 5 minute exposure...well, let's just say I couldn't be bothered.

Anyway, I've had my CF cards a while, so thinking surely this is a fairly fast moving technology, picking up something a bit better should be easy. But it seems not that simple. I've learmt that many of the speeds quoted on cards are actually read speeds, as oppsed to write?

Currently I'm mainly using a Transcend 8GB 133x. I don't want to spend huge money, cheap and cheerful if possible. Can anyone recommend something, and give me an idea of what I should expect in terms of performance?

I'm shooting RAW by the way, with a Canon 30d, so not mega file sizes.
 
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Urban Grimshaw said:
Long exposures are the absolute worst. If I run off a 2 minute exposure I then have to wait a further 2 minutes for it to write to the card. If I shoot a 5 minute exposure...well, let's just say I couldn't be bothered.
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Long exposure noise reduction? I does take a while and is nothing to do with the card
 
As said turn off long exposure noise reduction if you are impatient with 2 min exposures, you will have to do your own noise reduction in post processing. The camera takes as long as the exposure so for a 30 second shot it takes another 30 secs for noise reduction.
 
Interesting. I will try turning it off. Don't mind doing it PP.

Oddly, I've noticed images seem to write much faster when it is only the first few on the card. These images also write to the computer faster! I haven't tested this, so it may be a coincidence that it's the first images on the card, but has anyone experienced this and/or have an answer?
 
Yup deffo NR on, meaning it takes another exposure and subtracts the noise from the original image
 
Urban Grimshaw said:
Would I be better leaving it on? It makes a lot of sense from this description.
Click to expand...

It depends what you want to do...but I never have it on and I easily shoot 20,000 x 30+ second exposures per year...in theory it's a great idea but in practice it's a massive PITA and really isn't needed
 
The 30D - I also have one - is an older body, and has some limitations when you shoot bursts too. I think the buffer has a capacity of 11 raw images, and there's going to be some lag while it writes to the card. I think that has more to do with the camera than the card speed though.
 
Cool. Cheers for the info. The bursts I don't mind so much. The LENR I will leave off if it's not needed. I just find it so time consuming.
 
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