Compact Flash Cards

[canaryherd]

Searched for this as I felt sure it would have been discussed before, but couldn't find anything.

There is a huge price difference between high speed CF cards and slower ones. Is it worth the premium? At what point would the CF card write speed impact my 7 frames/second burst speed? Does anyone have a favourite CF card that balances speed with cost?

Cheers.

 

[ka$h]

You won't get your 7fps on anything other than the fastest of cards, and that's providing you are using the correct batteries etc. Do you need 7fps? are you constantly taking lots of hi speed bursts in the largest format possible that your buffer runs out? No? then buy a slower card, you won't notice it. If you do need these things then get your hand in your pocket and pay the premium for the fastest newest tech out there.

 

[schizophonic]

What format do you currently shoot? RAW / JPEG

Do you do burst shots mostly? I recently purchased some 8GB Sandisk Compact Flash IV which are 60MB/s.

 

[andrewc]

If you're doing sports then maybe, but for most people the only benefit the fast cards give is a better download rate at the computer

 

[canaryherd]

I do shoot some sports and some wildlife (eg birds in flight), as well as lots of shots of my kids at play. I've spent a fair bit of cash on equipment which should give me decent throughput and I wouldn't want to limit that for the sake of twenty quid on a CF card. On the other hand I don't want to pay hand over fist where I don't have to. And yes, I do have the right batteries.

Always shoot RAW.