What is it with the price of CF cards ?

Sootchucker

Sootchucker

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I have a real quandry with my flash card types. I have 4 DSLR's (I know, we won't get into that right now :lol:), which use the following cards:

Nikon D800 - 1 x CF Card, 1 x SD Card

Nikon D700 - 1 x CF Card

Nikon D7000 - 2 x SD cards

Nikon D5100 - 1 x SD card

So as you can see I actually use both types. I have plenty of SD cards, and recently got hold of some 32gb Sandisk Extreme 45mb/sec Class 10 cards from Mymemory for only £24.00 each.

I also need to get some CF cards to replace my smaller 4GB cards, and the cheapest branded cards (in a decent speed) from Sandisk or Lexar, are typcially about £70-£80 each. Why the 3x price increase over SD, especially when the CF format is a much more mature format and has been around longer ?

I can only assume, 1) that CF cards are slightly faster than SD cards and 2) that it's mainly the Pro or semi pro bodies that use CF, and so card manufacturers think we can all afford them ?
 
kingston do decent cf cards
 
Sootchucker said:
I have a real quandry with my flash card types. I have 4 DSLR's (I know, we won't get into that right now :lol:), which use the following cards:

Nikon D800 - 1 x CF Card, 1 x SD Card

Nikon D700 - 1 x CF Card

Nikon D7000 - 2 x SD cards

Nikon D5100 - 1 x SD card

So as you can see I actually use both types. I have plenty of SD cards, and recently got hold of some 32gb Sandisk Extreme 45mb/sec Class 10 cards from Mymemory for only £24.00 each.

I also need to get some CF cards to replace my smaller 4GB cards, and the cheapest branded cards (in a decent speed) from Sandisk or Lexar, are typcially about £70-£80 each. Why the 3x price increase over SD, especially when the CF format is a much more mature format and has been around longer ?

I can only assume, 1) that CF cards are slightly faster than SD cards and 2) that it's mainly the Pro or semi pro bodies that use CF, and so card manufacturers think we can all afford them ?
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Don't know where you have been looking but Amazon about £17 for a 4 gig- 40mg/sec |CF card
link

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ext...9HSA/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1340958443&sr=8-2
 
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Probably has to do with production volumes as well. I'm sure manufacturers pump out 50 sd cards for every cf if not more.
 
Thanks for the responses guys. Problem is as I mentioned, I'm actually looking for 32GB or 64GB CF cards, as I have a load of 4gb ones, and the D800 just laughs at them and says "is all you got !" :lol:, and the prices I mentioned were for 32gb versions.

I also like the major brands like Sandisk or Lexar as I've never had an issue with any of their cards. Got a couple of 32GB Transcend CF cards recently, and the D800 doesn't really like them, and occasionally it takes 30 seconds to write a NEF to the card (a problem that goes away when I swap to my Sandisk card).
 
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I guess you're just going to have to pay the premium. I do find it slightly odd and amusing that you have in the region of £6.5k tied up in bodies (and probably a few quid in lenses) and you're "in a quandary" about spending £70 or £80 each for a decent, large capacity CF card.
 
grotty said:
I guess you're just going to have to pay the premium. I do find it slightly odd and amusing that you have in the region of £6.5k tied up in bodies (and probably a few quid in lenses) and you're "in a quandary" about spending £70 or £80 each for a decent, large capacity CF card.
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It's like people spending £30,000 on a new car and worry about the tax bracket whether it is £100 or £460 per year.

:suspect:
 
Raymond Lin said:
It's like people spending £30,000 on a new car and worry about the tax bracket whether it is £100 or £460 per year.

:suspect:
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I was talking to a friend the other day and he was moaning about the 400 quid road tax on his 140k bently :thinking:
 
bought a Hama 16GB 30mb/s last week for £17, the cheapest I found, so far it's working fine.
 
I got some 16Gb Duracell CF cards from 7dayshop and I'd have to recommend them to anyone. They are fast uploading to the computer with a USB3 reader and they are very reasonably priced. I've been using 7dayshop for over 10 years and have always had good service from them. Great cards from a great supplier.
 
dennis25 said:
bought a Hama 16GB 30mb/s last week for £17, the cheapest I found, so far it's working fine.
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2nd the Hama 16GB, got one when there was a discount code on mymemory...
Not a bad card, good back up or overflow card...
 
grotty said:
I guess you're just going to have to pay the premium. I do find it slightly odd and amusing that you have in the region of £6.5k tied up in bodies (and probably a few quid in lenses) and you're "in a quandary" about spending £70 or £80 each for a decent, large capacity CF card.
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Have to adgree, :thinking:
 
grotty said:
I guess you're just going to have to pay the premium. I do find it slightly odd and amusing that you have in the region of £6.5k tied up in bodies (and probably a few quid in lenses) and you're "in a quandary" about spending £70 or £80 each for a decent, large capacity CF card.
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simonblue said:
Have to adgree, :thinking:
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I have to disagree - I don't see the OP being "in a quandary about spending £70 or £80 each for a decent, large capacity CF card" - I've looked over the posts and I cannot see where the OP says the bit put in quotation marks by grotty ("in a quandary") at all :thinking:

I did see the bit where the OP says "I also like the major brands like Sandisk or Lexar as I've never had an issue with any of their cards" and I did get from his posts that he wonders why CF is so much more expensive than SD - which is a fair point irrespective of whether you think it worth spending £6.5k on bodies or would only spend £100 on a P&S.

Raymond Lin said:
It's like people spending £30,000 on a new car and worry about the tax bracket whether it is £100 or £460 per year.
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No it's not - it's more like (but still a far from adequate analogy) wondering (if it were the case) why one type of fuel costs twice as much as another - which has no relevance to how much the car cost - again a :thinking:

The OP hasn't complained about paying the price at all - he's just queried why the price difference between CF and SD is so great - and what difference should it make that he's got a few quids worth of camera bodies to him having concerns about the price of memory cards? :shrug:
 
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I think the main problem is,their are more SD cards sold than CF,just a matter of production costs :)
 
weybourne said:
I have to disagree - I don't see the OP being "in a quandary about spending £70 or £80 each for a decent, large capacity CF card" - I've looked over the posts and I cannot see where the OP says the bit put in quotation marks by grotty ("in a quandary") at all :thinking:
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OK, so it's not an exact quotation, but either you missed the first five words of the opening post or you're being pedantic.
 
grotty said:
OK, so it's not an exact quotation, but either you missed the first five words of the opening post or you're being pedantic.
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Oops! You're right, I did miss the first five words! It was late and I had been to the pub;)

I don't think the quandary was about spending the dosh on a decent card but that there is such a difference of price between the two card types - so I apologise (sorry) for my mistake but stand by my point.
 
People tend to break things down to simply. He has expensive gear so why moan about the cost of something so cheap in comparison.
I have also wondered why the cf cards are twice the price, *as someone said volume must have an impact.....*
 
Just to clarify guys, Adrian was completely correct in his assessment. I'm not saying I can't afford the CF cards, in fact ive just purchased some, it was just a query as to why the CF platform appears so much more expensive than SD, that's all.
 
I just ordered a SanDisk Extreme 16GB 60MB/Sec CF card from Amazon for £45.40.

For comparison purposes they have a SanDisk Extreme 16GB 45MB/Sec SDHC card for £12.42. A tad slower but almost a quarter of the price.
 
Often wondered the same, guess sd cards can be used in other devices, cf only is slr's, economies of scale.
 
Sootchucker said:
Just to clarify guys, Adrian was completely correct in his assessment. I'm not saying I can't afford the CF cards, in fact ive just purchased some, it was just a query as to why the CF platform appears so much more expensive than SD, that's all.
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The good thing is,you dont have to feed those cameras with film :eek:

:)
 
what about 32b xqd cards !!! £202 on e bay now theres a bargain, my thoughts is that the xqd card will go the same way the betamax video tapes went unless they come down a lot in price, new canon 1dx have are still using 2 x cf cards, im sure the xqd cards will fall by the wayside:shake:
 
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Apart from lower manufacturing volume, CF cards have to have an UltraATA interface on each card which takes physical space on the silicon. SD cards require a compatible controller in the host device not on the chip. So the die is larger with CF for same size memory hence less chips per wafer which contributes to the higher cost.

You also need to take into account that Cf have a 16bit bus vs 4 bit on SD (more silicon), 50pin interface vs 9pin and probably a host of other reasons!

.
 
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