CF card speeds

markyboy.1967

markyboy.1967

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Mark Molloy
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I have just ordered another 2 CF cards and it has just occurred to me that i really dont need the faster cards (60Mb/s) as my shooting style has never in the past even caused an issue with my older 30Mb/s cards.I use the D700 mostly now but dont usually machine gun my shutter for it to cause any issues..So do you buy the faster cards and do you ever have the issue with card speeds?
 
Never really had an issue with card speeds to be honest.
I tend to buy SanDisk Extreme, but nothing faster than those.
 
Write speeds , within reason, only matter once your buffer is full. a 60MB/s card is more than enough unless you are shooting sports on a D3s and regularly fill the buffer... then yeah, a 90MB/s card may be useful.

As for read speeds, here's one of my Sandisk Extreme 60MB/sec CF cards tested with 50MB files.

ftjuv.jpg


The 90MB/s pro card only seems to have faster write times. The read times are actually only 13 MB/s higher than the 60MB/s Sandisks... Hardly worth the extra.



....just trying to save you some cash :)
 
I've never found card speeds limiting when I shoot, and if downloading takes a bit longer I can always do something else why it's doing it.
 
I use a card reader for transferring shots to PC, a Lexar USB3 reader.

Even the slow Kingston ultimate 266X 16GB cards, I use, is copying files with 90MB/s :thumbs:
 
I buy the cheapest ones I can, which are usually pretty slow. I've never found it's stopped me from shooting anything and I shoot motorsports, fast paced events and occasionally video. It's a little slow on the download, but it's not exactly a hardship.
 
I only use 60MB/s in my 1D MkIV and very very rarely have I got to the stage where the FPS slows down. On my 5D3 which has a smaller buffer I bought a 90MB/s CF card to see if it would help and I get typically 3/4 frames more in before the FPS slows down. I always buy Sandisk cards for no other reason than they were the first cards I ever bought.

There seems to have been a significant price drop on Extreme pro CF cards recently.
 
I use a Lexar 800x in my 1Dx doing sport and wildlife and have never hit the buffer even if I'm shooting in raw.
 
I tend to go for the faster ones personally as I shoot a lot of motorsport and the odd video from time to time.

But if you don't really require the faster speed, then just save your money.
 
JamesBryan said:
I tend to go for the faster ones personally as I shoot a lot of motorsport and the odd video from time to time.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why you might need a fast card for either of them. Especially video as that is very undemanding - about 8 MB/s should be enough.
 
hollis_f said:
I'm not sure why you might need a fast card for either of them. Especially video as that is very undemanding - about 8 MB/s should be enough.
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If you're using a high burst speed and video recommends class 10 or higher.
 
And that's a whopping 10MB/s...

There's really no point in getting cards any faster than your camera can handle.
Rob's website will give you a good indication of, what's "best" for your camera...

Of course a high speed USB3 card reader will upload images faster to PC with faster cards, but we're only talking seconds here...
 
hollis_f said:
And, like Jan said, Class 10 = 10MB/s. Can you even buy CF cards that slow nowadays?
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, that is of course a minimum of 10MB/s. Most SD cards are considerably faster than their Class minimum speed.
 
Jan K. said:
I use a card reader for transferring shots to PC, a Lexar USB3 reader.

Even the slow Kingston ultimate 266X 16GB cards, I use, is copying files with 90MB/s :thumbs:
Click to expand...

Good to hear, just ordered a couple of those kingston 266x cards, assumed they should be fine and that the super expensive 90MB/s 'extreme' cards weren't really worth the money.
 
Just as a matter of interest I have just bought a Sandisk Extreme Pro16GB 160MB/S CF card.

In my 5D MkIII the results were as follows.

All Sandisk 16 GB CF cards

60MB/S Max RAW 13. Frames before FPS slowed 17. Time to clear buffer to Max RAW of 13 again 5.5 secs.

90MB/S Max RAW 13. Frames before FPS slowed 21. Time to clear buffer to max RAAW of 13 again 4.0 secs.

160MB/S Max RAW 13. Frames before PFS slowed 25. Time to clear buffer to max RAW of 13 again 3.25 secs.
 
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Gaz J said:
Just as a matter of interest I have just bought a Sandisk Extreme Pro16GB 160MB/S CF card.

In my 5D MkIII the results were as follows.
Click to expand...

Did you shoot the same subject under the same conditions for each test?
 
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