confused about CF cards

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Brad 'Electron-Don' Foster
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hi all.

looking for a new card as a spare to my 8gb, as i always leave it in my card reader when i go out to take pics lol.

but im very confused about the different cards out there.

like CF1 and CF2, ultra, different makes etc.

whya re some better than others, surely they jsut hold the same amount of images, or is ti buffer speed and grantee's etc

really jsut want to know if a £30 8gb will be alot better than a £10 8gb ?


cheers
brad
 
dont know too much about write speeds etc. I know if your a taking shots in continuous mode they will write to the card quicker, freeing up the buffer and therefore letting more shots be taken before the camera stalls.

Im pretty sure the most efficient way to buy cards at the moment is in 4GB (depending on your needs of course.)


this is a great buy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Com...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1226316870&sr=1-2

the 4Gb is 13 pounds while if you step up to 8GB its about £35. So unless having more cards is a problem Id buy two 4GB's.

very high write speed as well as reliable.
 
Ultra II have a slower write speed then Extreme III
Extreme III have a slower write speed then Extreme IV

If you shoot in bursts, then cards with slower write speeds will not write to the card as quickly and will fill up your buffer and lock-up the camera.

Also, they read fast too, so making transfers from your card reader computer faster.

Hope that helps a little. I use Extreme IIIs at the moment for my work

Mike
 
If your going to be shooting sports a lot it's worth having a fast card, i have a couple of sandisk extreme 4s for football, and the rest are mainly sandisk extreme 3s, only because they are quite cheap now, that one on amazon is great value, but it is also worth remembering as has been mentioned the benefits of fast cards being read by your PC, particularly if you have an 8gb or 16gb which can take quite a while at normal speed.
 
mostly the higher speccd are for peace of mind and reliability. dont expect to download much faster as your card reader may slow that up. better to use small cards as well, so if one fails you dont lose eveything. there is a limit to how fast your camera can write to the card, so again buying the fastest you can get wont help in camera. extreme 111s seem to be the most popular and very reasonable. i also have a ultra11 but i cant tell a difference to be fair. and the extreme cards come with recovery software and a little pouch to keep the card in.
 
ok brilliant guys, so it might be woirth getting a 2gb or smaller really fast one for situations that i might need it, but not essential for most of the work i do.

cheers for the links also, think ill try an extreme III or a ultra II as per fletch.

nice one :D
 
Burst speed. The more expensive CF cards will read and write faster. Useful when downloading off the card but on a 400D you may that you reach the limitation of the cameras electronics faster than the CF cards.

I would always choose to buy Sandisk, Lexar or Kingston CF cards. Generic brands are cheaper but they may also have a shorter working life.

Whatever you do don't buy from Ebay or Amazon marketplace.
 
normal amazon ok ?

on y current card i can shoot 10 raw images, in cont, before it needs to buffer

dont think id ever need more than that
 
ok chers for the heads up, i give up with ebay its more expensive on everything lol.
 
Just order from Play, it makes more sense! Haha!
On my 40d, i think i get 17 burst before it fills it, and thats at the 6fps. These figures are not 100%
 
PC world pricematch 110%, so my extreme III 4 gb, was £14.99 at Play.com, and 54.99 at PC world, became 11.97. Bargain.
 
really thats good to hear, did you go to the shop or over the internet.
 
PC world pricematch 110%, so my extreme III 4 gb, was £14.99 at Play.com, and 54.99 at PC world, became 11.97. Bargain.

No longer price match Play (14.99) or Amazon(14.49) but good while it lasted.
 
I don't know if I've made a bit of a cock-up here.
I've bought a load of stuff from Warehouse express (delivery today).
Amongst it all is a SanDisk Extreme III CF 30mb/s 133x.
Firstly it was over 30 quid which is my stupid fault, but secondly is it that much different to the normal III?
 
There is no normal III, if you mean a normal Sandisk card, or the Ultra II then id say yes. I notice a difference when shooting on my Extreme III 2gb compared to my Ultra II 4gb. The buffer fills up alot quicker on the Ultra II as it doesnt write as quick.

This is why i have just ordered 2 Extreme III 4gb cards from Play.com for 14.99 each :D
 
I don't know if I've made a bit of a cock-up here.
I've bought a load of stuff from Warehouse express (delivery today).
Amongst it all is a SanDisk Extreme III CF 30mb/s 133x.
Firstly it was over 30 quid which is my stupid fault, but secondly is it that much different to the normal III?

30mb/s 133x is normal for the Sandisk Extreme III. What was the size of the card?
 
30mb/s 133x is normal for the Sandisk Extreme III. What was the size of the card?

4 bloody Gb. As I said I got it with a load of other stuff, as per usual an impulse buy. I will never have any money!
 
Yeah, still learning about this interweb thing and searching and stuff. Luckily my wife is worse than I am so I won't be mentioning the £18 difference in the price of the same card.
I'm just a shopkeepers dream.:'(
 
30mb/s 133x is normal for the Sandisk Extreme III. What was the size of the card?


The 30MBs/x133 are fairly new, the original extreme IIIs were 20MBs/133,and still widely available, so always worth checking before buying, i think this is what the op may be referring to ;)
 
The 30MBs/x133 are fairly new, the original extreme IIIs were 20MBs/133,and still widely available, so always worth checking before buying, i think this is what the op may be referring to ;)

How new are they? I have them going back to early last year and they are all 30mb/s. I'm pretty sure the Ultra II I got with my camera almost 2 years ago is 20mb/s.
 
How new are they? I have them going back to early last year and they are all 30mb/s. I'm pretty sure the Ultra II I got with my camera almost 2 years ago is 20mb/s.

Im with this guy! :lol:
 
How new are they? I have them going back to early last year and they are all 30mb/s. I'm pretty sure the Ultra II I got with my camera almost 2 years ago is 20mb/s.


Well I'm guessing about 6 months when i first seen them, which i guess isn't fairly recent but maybe it's me just going senile :D, all my extreme IIIs are only 20mb/s, i think the last one i bought was about April time, the 30mb ones have it displayed on the card the 20mb don't, if your looking for good deals on CF cards try MYMEMORY, they have there own brand of 133x speed very cheap :thumbs:
 
Well I'm guessing about 6 months when i first seen them, which i guess isn't fairly recent but maybe it's me just going senile :D, all my extreme IIIs are only 20mb/s, i think the last one i bought was about April time, the 30mb ones have it displayed on the card the 20mb don't, if your looking for good deals on CF cards try MYMEMORY, they have there own brand of 133x speed very cheap :thumbs:

Hmm, have 4 of them (Just checked them), all bought last Christmas so maybe they've been around at 30mb/s for about a year then.
 
Theres some for sale in the FS section which are Lexar 60x

What are they equivalent to, II, III, IV etc? Are they right for a Canon 40d?

Cheers.
 
Theres some for sale in the FS section which are Lexar 60x

What are they equivalent to, II, III, IV etc? Are they right for a Canon 40d?

Cheers.

Take a look at these 16GB 133x speed £20.99 delivered HERE pretty good value i reckon
 
I have memory card snobbery, i only use Sandisks! Haha!
 
Take a look at these 16GB 133x speed £20.99 delivered HERE pretty good value i reckon

I'm a bit bloody gutted now as i ordered another one of these on tuesday, got an email to say it had been posted, and i got another email today with offers on kingston 16GB 133x speed cards for the same price of £20,99 :bonk:
 
plus an extra 4% back if you use quidco...
 
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