What CF card? Are the cheap ones cheap for a reason?

amumonamission

amumonamission

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Hi,

I need to get a new CF card for my camera as I keep managing to leave mine in the card reader of my PC and then when I get the camara out I have no card!!! Very annoying so I have decided to buy another one so hopefully it will remind me to put one in the camera when I upload the photo's on to my PC.

What I wanted to know though, do you get what you pay for? There is a Kingston one on ebay for about a tenner, is it likely to be crap? I don't want to get something unreliable or rubbish but at the same time I don't want to spend more money than what I have to.

Thanks in advance for your advice.
 
You have to watch - there are a lot of fakes on eBay - been caught out myself before. I always use Sandisk and buy from a reputable supplier. mymemory.co.uk or picstop.co.uk for example.
 
I use Kingston, Dane, Sandisk and even a few cheap as chips ones.

Recently I've stuck to Sandisk. They seem to be faster and more reliable, and at not much more than other makes do what I need :D
 
had cheap ones in consumer cameras before and not so much of a problem, however the d300/d3/d700 have spat dummies out on occasion when testing

generally i'd stick with sandisk, i'd go as far as saying they're industry standard and for a good reason :)

lexar are probably the only others i'd consider if pushed
 
:agree:

I only use Sandisk too

CF cards come in a range of 'Write speeds' - the speed at which your camera can write to or pc take images from the card - Pro sports or other action types need fast cards which then cost the most money, but for more normal people they just aren't needed - so don't bother with fast cards IMO - I don't :)

Also, they can go wrong, so I still avoid 16gb or more cards in favour of 8gb ones - but that's cos I shoot a lot at a time and don't want to be swapping cards too often

'Slow' 4gb cards are a safe bet as you may be able to buy 3-4 of them for the same price as a decent 8gb card

Kingston have been around for some time and I know a few who use them, so they should be ok

Here's a link to them from Andrew's recommended site... http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Compact-Flash-Cards/Kingston/Kingston-4GB-Compact-Flash-Card and another for Sandisk's version http://www.mymemory.co.uk/Compact-F...sk-4GB-Ultra-200X-Compact-Flash-Card---30MB_s

Either I'm sure will be fine for you - happy shooting :thumbs:

DD
 
Never buy Kingston.

Never buy anything from Ebay or Amazon Marketplace.

Follow those two rules, and you should be fine. Branding doesn't matter, Sandisk, Lexar, Daneelec, Transcend are all much of a muchness.

Just avoid Kingston (google, as you'll see why - large compatiblity problems)
 
awp said:
You have to watch - there are a lot of fakes on eBay - been caught out myself before. I always use Sandisk and buy from a reputable supplier. mymemory.co.uk or picstop.co.uk for example.
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I sell Memory Cards for a living and have done for 5 years now.

From my experience, some of the cheaper cards are ok for the cheaper cameras but if you are using a DSLR and especially if you are shooting Sports then you want a Branded card with a fast transfer rate.

Why?
If you have a card with a slow transfer rate then you will find that when shooting continuous, you have to waiti longer for the buffer of the camera to be emptied.

To give you an idea, our Top Sellers for CF Cards are Sandisk / Lexar

Ian
 
hope i am not hijacking this thread

write speeds?
sandisk extreme111 30mbs is this the same write speed as the lexar pro 300x
 
puddleduck said:
Never buy Kingston.

Never buy anything from Ebay or Amazon Marketplace.

Follow those two rules, and you should be fine. Branding doesn't matter, Sandisk, Lexar, Daneelec, Transcend are all much of a muchness.

Just avoid Kingston (google, as you'll see why - large compatiblity problems)
Click to expand...


:shrug: I have a kingston elite pro , although I can't see anything elite pro about it, haven't had a problem with it. when I'll get a better body I'm sure I'll be going back to sandisk. as it is a bit slow. oh ! and I bought it from ebay ! :D :p , but it was a huge uk seller :)
 
I used to use Lexar until about six years ago when we had a problem with a batch of them.
Since then I've used Sandisk's 'pro' cards - upgrading them every two years or so or whenever we were issued new cameras...

I now have 32Gb Extreme-Pro cards in the D3x and 16Gb Extreme-Pro cards in the D3's, with all my older 8Gb and 4Gb Extreme III & IV cards as spares.
 
oh as a kind of add on note for consideration, i tend to use the 4gb cards because i know they'll fit on a dvd, i've been tempted to use 8gbs but not sure i cba splitting the files in half :P
 
Zilog said:
How can you tell if a face is a fake Awp?
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Google. Just do a search for the particular brand you're looking for and prepend the phrase "how to identify fake" at the beginning. Often there'll be pictures showing the difference.

This happens with Nikon batteries, camera bags, and apparently even lenses according to recent news, as well as memory cards and other items.
 
If you don't need the transfer rate of the latest cards the Cheaper ones from the good makes are just as reliable. I am still using extreme3's and I have an early basic kingston one somewhere.
 
I always use Sandisk. I have yet to have a problem with any of them.
 
I picked up a couple of fake "Nikon EN-EL3e" batteries from eBay early last year. The boxes in which they came all looked legit, even had the Nikon hologram stickers on both the boxes and the batteries. The big clue was that they both seemed to have the same serial number. :)
 
Kaouthia said:
I picked up a couple of fake "Nikon EN-EL3e" batteries from eBay early last year. The boxes in which they came all looked legit, even had the Nikon hologram stickers on both the boxes and the batteries. The big clue was that they both seemed to have the same serial number. :)
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fantastic !! but are you still using them ? I had 3rd party EN-EL3e , they were all right sort of.

now with sony I wanted to try "genuine" ones. I though of myself - oh ! how cool and clever I am to find sony battery for 13quid when other places sell them for 40+ :D .

the same here hologram, booklets etc, etc. it was kinda strange that the battery was lighter in color and some small differences, but I didn't care. now because of this thread I looked into it.
 
I only use them if my genuine ones all run out (I have 4 real ones, 2 get parked in the D200, 2 in the D300s - if the D300s batteries run out, I'll replace them with the ones in the D200), so I've used them maybe twice.
 
The last thing I would want to happen, having spent thousands on camera and lenses, is for a card to fail at the wrong time. Getting the best card you can should minimise that risk.
 
I have one expensive Sandisk Extreme 3 4gb which cost me £150 some years ago, and about 20 4gb cheap ones, mostly Dane Elec from 7 dayshop, a Kingston and a couple of odd ones. The Sandisk did not transform my life.

I don't do sports and fast action so don't need high speed. However, I can photograph fast jets, multiple quickly successive shots done manually without running in to buffer problems.

I have had most of these cards for years and never once had a problem with any of them. Not one, in many many tens of thousands of photos. And so what if the transfer to PC rate is a few seconds or even a minute or two longer than a Sandisk? One of the Dane Elecs has even been through the washing machine and emerged unscathed with photos intact - which I would expect anyway from any card.

So if it gives you satisfaction buying Sandisk and you have the money to spare, or if you have the need for high speed or job-critical photos, then no problem. But if you're buying them because you have the notion that your pictures are somehow 'safer' then my opinion is that you are mistaken. And I bet many of you don't even have a safe and reliable photo backup regime anyway - including all of you who automatically put all your photos straight on to the C drive as opposed to a different partition or drive.
 
cambsno said:
The last thing I would want to happen, having spent thousands on camera and lenses, is for a card to fail at the wrong time. Getting the best card you can should minimise that risk.
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I have yet to have any card fail, that would seem to be luck what ever ones you get.
 
purely so we know they will be reliable, most of our cards are sandisk extreme 3 4gb cards. the newer 30mb/sec ones.
never had a problem with em yet, and can be had for decent dosh if you shop around.
i can get 1200 ish jpegs on a 4 gig. thats a full days band shoot at a 6 band gig.
or easily a full wedding (although i chance cards half way thru the day, just to be on the safe side.
1 gig cards are pretty pointless anyway.
 
ChrisH said:
I use Kingston, Dane, Sandisk and even a few cheap as chips ones.

Recently I've stuck to Sandisk. They seem to be faster and more reliable, and at not much more than other makes do what I need :D
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Aye, I've got a handful of Kingston and Sandisk memory cards/flash drives and all but one dodgy 8GB has done me a great job.
 
amumonamission said:
lol!! Thats a fair few cards you have there!!
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Sometimes you need that much. :)

Right now, I've got 4x4GB, 5x8GB and 1x16GB cards (and a handful of lower capacity cards).
 
All mine are Sandisk and Lexar pro. Not had a problem with any of them but have had a problem with a Kingston card I bought off ebay that was a fake. I sent it back to Kingston as it packed up and then got an email telling me.
 
Hope this isn't a totally daft question, but what happens when a card fails?
 
cowasaki said:
Read errors or total failure basically.
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ahhhh thanks. I have a Sandisk extreme III that really doesn't like long bursts, after just maybe 3 shots, the camera locks up as though the buffer is full, and will then only take single shots until the camera has been turned off and on again. Not had this happen on the other cards I've got (also extreme IIIs) though I swear the one I was using for red kites last week was no where near as fast as I remember it being.

Are these the early signs of the cards failing?
 
GoLotus said:
ahhhh thanks. I have a Sandisk extreme III that really doesn't like long bursts, after just maybe 3 shots, the camera locks up as though the buffer is full, and will then only take single shots until the camera has been turned off and on again. Not had this happen on the other cards I've got (also extreme IIIs) though I swear the one I was using for red kites last week was no where near as fast as I remember it being.

Are these the early signs of the cards failing?
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It could be but as all Sandisk cards have a lifetime warranty I would return it.
 
DOH - didn't realise that!

thanks for the tip
 
GoLotus said:
Are these the early signs of the cards failing?
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Have you actually formatted the card in the camera each time you use it? or simply deleted the images as they've been transferred over to your PC?
 
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