Compact Flash cards

[Jorge]

Tried giving this a search.. need a card, or two.

Search didnt find anything useful,

Does the brand of the flash card matter too much? I see a lot of mention of the Sandisk Extreme III is it?

Where are the cheapest places? I usually just pick up the cheap SD cards from wherever has them on offer at the time. (ebuyer, 7dayshop, etc)

I was thinking either a 8GB or 2x 4GB. £30 to play with at most. That still seems excessive on memory cards in my opinion though.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Buying cards is mainly to do with reliability and speed, and the Sandisk Extreme III has both, hence they are the choice for most of us.

 

[Jorge]

What about the Ultras? They are well around half price..

Actually looking at it, 4GB £20, or the ultra is £14

Speed to me isnt an issue, and reliability. Well for the price difference, will that pay for itself or not? We have had just a generic 1GB for 5 years now and never had a problem.

What about Kingston? They do a 16GB card for £29 !

 

[InkZ]

Sandisk Extreme III 30MBs if you are using your camera in burst mode, Kerso cheapest I've seen that are deffo the 30MB/s version. For normal stuff I've found the cheapo Kingston ones from 7dayshop are great.

 

[Nod]

I was thinking either a 8GB or 2x 4GB. £30 to play with at most. That still seems excessive on memory cards in my opinion though.

8 gig will hold plenty of JPEGS for a measly £30 (close to 1,000 large, fine JPEGs from a D700). That's around 28 films (36 exposure) which would cost around the same, ignoring D&P costs. By all means go for the cheaper ones BUT they do sometimes fail and always when the shots are unrepeatable!

 

[Raymond Lin]

I have had a 8G Sandisk fail on me once, the card was borked to the point where i can't format it in camera (30D and 5Dii) nor my PC. I did recover the pics from it with no problem but had to RMA for a replacement.

But that is RARE, and I've got 10 other Sandisks cards, all Extreme III.

 

[andyred]

for Sandisk Ultra and Extreeme cards

 

[Jorge]

4gb extreme or 8gb ultra?

 

[andyred]

2gb in my daughters 300D and I've a couple of 4gb Extreemes in my 40D

 

[Jorge]

I think I am being greedy needing more than 4GB. I will look for a 4GB extreme I guess.

 

[andyred]

I chose the 4gb over the 8gb at the time I purchased due to cost and also not knowing if I needed any bigger cards - if so, by that time, the price will have dropped aswell

If shooting in jpeg, you can get hundreds on a 4gb, obviously RAW takes up much more space

 

[Lee O'D]

I bought a 1gb compact flash card when the 300D first came out. It cost £199!
Somewhat cheaper now! Only downside to large capacity cards, is if you loose one, you may loose an awful lot of pictures.

 

[Jorge]

A friend told me to try shoot in RAW most of the time as it gives more potential for PP.

Just looking and there are some on 7ds for £10.

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=103277

Or the Sandisk at £19.99 (£19.29 through Amazon and 7dayshop) That is the Extreme III

Or this Lexar Professional at £19.99 too, which actually has a higher speed rating?

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_6&products_id=105119

 

[markjayne]

Just beware of the fakes. Buy from a reputable place

Mark

 

[Jorge]

I have only looked at Amazon and 7dayshop, but amazons cheapest price is 7dayshop.

 

[admirable]

I use a 16GB Kingstone in my 40D with no problems!

 

[Jorge]

I have a few Kingston SD cards that I have never had problems with.

I will just take the plunge next week. Doesn't seem to be any warning signs to stay away from any

 

[Arkady]

Cards aren't something to skimp on IMO - buying from a reputable dealer means you'll like as not get a geniune card and buying a good make like Lexar or Sandisk means they'll be reliable...

Extreme IV are good or even the Extreme III if you're not bothered too much about write speed and buffer-sizes etc etc...

Just remember to format the thing every time you put it in the camera or after transferring images to the computer...so many people don't do this and I'm convinced it's the cause of many problems they have...
Formatting clears any dodgy file errors that may have occurred when attached to a PC/Mac...

 

[Jorge]

Lexar Professional 300x 4GB is £29.99 from Amazon.

Lexar Professional 233x 4GB is £19.99 from 7ds.
Same with the Extreme III

Extreme IV is £45.