Sandisk CF Extreme Cards

8utters

8utters

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I have a Kingston Tech 4gb Compact Flash card for my 40D.

It came with my 400D so I didn't really bother replacing it or anything.

Are those Sandisk Extreme III cards actually faster by a noticable amount compared to other CF cards out there? Is it worth me replacing my current card to get more speed out of it, I constantly find myself waiting around for the camera to write the photos to the memory card when i'v taken a burst of like 10-20 frames.
 
question you need to be asking is, is your card / camera write speed the issue. there's two areas with buffer underrun, card speed and camera speed.

if your camera is out performing the card, then its time to switch to a higher spec body.

i mostly use sandisk ultra II, and i think shooting in jpg, i can do serious damage to a 2GB card at 6.5 fps before i get buffer underrun

i'm guessing your shooting in Raw though....

edit: if only my typing were as good as the 40D's shooting capacity. wouldn'nt have taken me the best part of an hour to type this message. damn sauvignon blanc
 
I only have Sandisk Ultra II and Extreme IIIs so cant really compare them to much, but the extreme IIIs so seems a tad faster, but not really noticably. I just stick to Sandisk now as I trust them not to fail on me.
 
Extreme 3`s work fine for me.
 
Likewise, I have extreme IIIs and some no-name 133x cards, the E IIIs are faster but not hugely.

The question you have to ask is "do I need the speed?" if you're shooting landscapes or other immobile stuff then no, if sports or fast moving birds say then maybe the seconds you save could mean the difference between missing the shot and getting it.
 
I find my Extreme III's write (and read) faster than my Ultra II's from the camera. I manage about 25 RAW shots (3fps) before the buffer comes into play using III's but only about 15 using the II's.

Using the memory stick adaptor, about 10.
 
I do need speed, i'm not shooting landscapes, i'm a club photographer so I take a quick burst of say 10-20 frames (when the strobes are flashing, you need to do a huge bust so that at least a a few catch the strob when its on), then as soon as i'v done the burst, someone's always noticed me taking photos and want's their photo taken.

I don't shoot in RAW, I shoot JPG at the smallest setting.

And I don't need a new body, i'v only just bought this 40D, the speed of the camera is fine, it just takes ages for the memory card to finish processing (well not ages, but it's not superfast).
 
Well I'd certainly recommend some Extreme III's then, perhaps even some Extreme IV's. The III's are dirt cheap at the moment anyway, and you get the confidence from the cards you're not going to lose anything.*

*Well, in my experience, I've shot about 50000 shots on Extreme III's and Ultra II's and not lost a single image so far (touch wood).
 
Yeah there's an Extreme III 2GB on Amazon for £12, pretty good deal.
 
Extreme III write @ 20m/s, ultra II @10 m/s and a no name 4gb hcsd is 3m/s, i dont know about extreme IV i guess they are better again
 
sandisk basically double their read and write speed

so if Ultra 2 = 10m/s, extreme 3 = 20m/s, extreme 4 = 40m/s.

I know its not what you asked but look at a review of the readers in review section and it shows the difference of read speeds in real world tests.
 
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