memory cards

fini · 24 May 2006 at 00:42

Is it worth going for a decent brand of memory card or will it not make an awful lot of difference? I'm not going to be using it in any sort of proffesional capacity so it doesn't have to be uber reliable I guess - just as long as it doesnt die a month out of warranty.

I can get a Kingston 1GB CF card for £16.09

I can get a high speed kingston one for 24.99

Sandisk 27.99
Sandisk ultra II 32.19
Sandisk extreme 38.79

I realise that as it's getting more expensive they're also getting faster, but is the speed difference very noticeable? It just seems silly to me to spend double what I could be spending for the same amount of space - or am I being naive?

fini

rpstewart · 24 May 2006 at 09:18

Whether you see the speed difference will be down to the camera, some can take advantage of faster cards and others can't - check out the cf database at robgalbraith.com for further details.

Personally I use Sandisk UltraIIs most of the time, they're just about quick enough to deal with 8fps bursts in RAW. I have a couple of iPro cards too which were cheaper at the time but I find it's very difficult to shoot action with them as they struggle to flush the buffer as quickly as I'd like.

The other thing to think about is how quickly they'll empty when you get back to the PC, Ultra IIs give me about 9-11Mb/s download speed. When you've got a couple of 2Gb cards to empty that does make a difference.

yak.h'cir · 24 May 2006 at 09:27

Sandisk cards are well known for being reliable so I'd stick with them. Never used another brand so cant comment, but I've had the same 2gb ultra 2 in my camera for over a year now, it must have been written to and formatted a fair few thousand times and now problems at all.

As for speed, I think most people stick to the UltraIIs. From what I've heard the only cameras that make use of the extremeIII speeds are the 1series cameras. But you do get some free software with them that is awsome for recovering accidentally deleted files, even if you've formatted the card.

I have got the basic sandisk as well (a free 256mb that came free with camera), never used it that much but when I have I havent really noticed a speed drop on my 350D.

If your interested I've got a spare 2gb sandisk ultra II, was on holiday recently so brought an extra one that I dont really need now. It's only about 4 weeks old, still has box and everything. Can RMSD it for £50.

mrgubby · 24 May 2006 at 09:53

All the brands use Flash memory from the same sources , you can't have a cheap memory factory

, however Cheaper brands 'may' advertise their cards as faster than they actually are and use connectors which don't last as long.

yak.h'cir · 24 May 2006 at 16:04

Does anyone know of a free program for testing the actual read write speed of a cf card?

Humpty · 25 May 2006 at 16:57

yak.h'cir said:
If your interested I've got a spare 2gb sandisk ultra II, was on holiday recently so brought an extra one that I dont really need now. It's only about 4 weeks old, still has box and everything. Can RMSD it for £50.

/Thread hijack

I'd be interested in this but only got £45 to throw at it. I know it's a little low, but it's a 'want' rather than a 'need' and my good lady will be having words if I throw too much more money at camera equipment! Let me know your thoughts.

MSN in sig' if needed

/hijack ended