question about CF cards

[alwoodruff]

I was wondering if you have any opinions on compact flash cards. Promaster vs sandisk, high speed professional vs ultra vs extreme vs extreme III, etc.

[shnitz]

Faster cards really only come into their own because it's faster to transfer the photos to your computer; going from a decent card to an amazing one, you're likely to see at best a 10% increase in speed in your camera. How much shooting do you do now, and do you feel like your cards are lacking in any way? Are you hitting your buffer limit when shooting? If not, then don't fret over what's out there.

As for quality, I have had good luck with Lexar, Sandisk, and Kingston. The former two seem to be more highly regarded than Kingston among more serious users, but I've had good luck with their mid-speed CF and SDHC cards. Currently using a Sandisk Ultra 200X card in my camera, which I think is definitely enough. Promaster is made by Delkin, one of the cheaper makers.

[danchez]

really depends on what you are shooting. If you are shooting fast paced sports, you will want the higher end of the scale to fully utilize your camera's abilities. If you are just shooting portraits you probably wont need the high speed cf cards. I prefer sandisk, never had any issues with them.

[tc95]

I use Sandisk and PNY...no issues with them...again Dan hits the point if you need the fastest card then get it, everything else will just not do...but for everyday shooting or less stressed shooting...anything over x200 or 30mbs should be ok...

Now if you are going to do video, or move to it later...the faster the card...the better off you will be...

Benchmark Access Times... <--- This is at the end of the article I found...but the whole thing is acctually really informationve about I/O speed and Read/Write times...should be all you need to make your decision...

Also...I follow the rule of more...I would rather have 2x8gig or 4x4gig instead of just one 16gig card...now I do have two 16gig cards that I carry not for shooting but as a back-up for my shooting cards...I make a copy of the images on the other card, just in case...

Hope this helps a little...

[David Alaniz]

I use Sandisk because that is what I started with and have had no issues. One of my cards has been under salty muddy water (in the camera) and the pictures came out great. I might add it is still used today and continues to perform.

[Jim Victory]

I have found that different cards perform differently in different cameras. I have found my Photofast 500x Plus to perform better in a 1D MKIV than the Transcend 600x but the latter seems to be better in the 7D.

Here is two links to help, although they are not up to date with current cameras.

Rob Galbraith DPI: CF/SD Performance Database

Rob Galbraith DPI: SanDisk, Transcend and PhotoFast roll out speedy cards up to 64GB

[island bound]

Hi Amanda,
When the canon guy came, he said sandisc was best for canon, but that was a little while ago.
Maybe John will remember.
Or contact the canon guy.

[Tom]

I use Transcend's 400X 16GIG and 32GIG cards and really love them.

[newtune3]

At this point in time, CF cards have dramatically dropped in price. Sandisk card prices are 1/5 of what they were 3 years ago and 1/2 of what they were two months ago. I would say that if you ever shoot video with your DSLR buy fast. But, with a 32 Gb Sandisk Extreme Pro in the $115 range, and smaller cards even cheaper, it makes no sense to me to buy less. These are 90 MB/s cards, While I agree that in camera I notice vey little difference. When I come home with 4 or 5 hundred images the download speed is remarkable compared to my slower cards. I just lost four 4Gb cards and replace them with 16Gb Sandisk and a month later got on 32 Gb for less than one of the sixteens. So, buying a quality brand card and the best/fastest you can afford makes the most sense to me.