Best CF Card for the 7D

[Vishal]

I'm gonna be shooting some fast fighter jets with the 7D,
what would be a very fast CF Card in the $100~$150 range?

Both of these are 600x
Transcend 16GB 600x $79.95/-
SanDisk 16GB 600x $176.95/-
while i respect SanDisk's reputation in the market but such a stark difference?

Your replies are most appreciated - Vishal


These cards are gross overkill, mostly out there for people with too much money.

The main advantage to a fast card is downloading with a UDMA firewire 800 reader. You will not get that advantage with a ordinary card reader, so unless you plan to equip your computer with firewire 800 and buy a reader, don't waste your money, buy a much lower priced and slower reader. 30 mb/s is more than fast enough.

 

[bvukich]

I've probably had 30 memory cards over the last 10 years, of various types and brands. 4 failures over that time. 3 of the failures were Transcend brand. Failures were 2 micro SD (both Transcend, well under a year old), 1 SD (Transcend, only a month old), and 1 CF (off brand)

True, it's anecdotal evidence; but I don't buy Transcend anymore.

 

[unruled]

you dont need much more than 133x to be able to record HD video. Sure, faster is better, but also pricier.

 

[Bob Howland]

you dont need much more than 133x to be able to record HD video. Sure, faster is better, but also pricier.

Maybe 133x work for the 7D, but have you checked the CF card requirements for the Canon XF100/105/300/305 video cameras? Faster may be pricier but it also will be usable further in the future. My guess is that the video on the next generation of Canon DSLRs will require top-of-the-line cards. FWIW, Canon seems to like Sandisk; I'm partial to Lexar.

 

[cyberZ]

Hi,

Sandisk are good, but almost on it's flash cards is only reclame, advertising.
I use Transcend cards, SD microSD and CF, from a lot of year and *never* had a loss of data or a card damaged, *never*. This memory are fast, robust and the price is honest. Had used sandisk SD and microSD too, but Transcend are at the same speed, when at the same class, and sometime a little more fast.
Currently, I use the follow CF on my 7D. I use it from about 1 year:

However, my friends say that Lexar are good too, but I had never tryed it.
Kingston too are good and fast memory, but of these had only used SD and microSD not CF, you can try!

Regards

 

[unruled]

i have a 2gb kingston and a few 8gb kingston cards, havent had any issues

 

[acoll123]

I have a 7D and use it to shoot my kids basketball and baseball games. I use the high speed setting (8 FPS) and will regularly shoot 4-8 frames in sequence (shooting RAW) and have never had the camera slow to write to the card. I use the SanDisk 16GB 60MB/s UDMA Extreme Compact Flash Card. The RAW files are larger than the JPG files so I assume if I don't have problems shooting RAW it is less likely to slow down shooting JPG. I have had the card for about 6 months and use it almost every day for at least a few shots (I post a "photo-of-the-day" every day on Facebook).

You might do some more research but I remember reading that the camera can only write so fast so at some point the speed of the card will exceed the speed of the camera to write to it and you will lose the benefit of a faster card. However as someone else mentioned in the future, faster cameras may be able to take advantage of the faster cards.

 

[pgabor]

The card's speed doesn't really matter... What matters is: how fast the dsrl can write on it. The card's speed is just a guide number, to know roughly what the card is capable for.

The other thing: Everyone comes with "i never had any data loss or problem with my *insert random company name here*". I have a bad news for you: Almost every card uses the same manufacturer's chip (samsung, hynix, etc...) so the reliability is just matter of luck. (but i don't think that this is a huge problem nowadays)
The most important thing about a card is the control "panel" (basicly one chip), this thing defines the true write speed of the card. Just think about it, every card type (even with the same "official speed") produces different result with the same setup, and this "panel" is the reason for this (but the differences are not too huge) In my experience, but online reviews claim the same: sandisk's are the fastest cards in this matter (for canon dslr, maybe for nikon for example lexars work better, i don't know)

3 years ago when i bought my 40D, i had the same problem, and i saw a test (i don't remember where is saw that) where they showed that extreme IV-s have the same speed in the 40D as the extreme III-s, so in this case 40D was the bottleneck. So you don't have to buy always the fastest card, in some cases its just an overkill. I used several sandisk and kingston card with different size and speed (4-8gb sandisks from extreme II to extreme IV, and 4-8-16gb kingstons with 66x-133x-266x speed) In my experience, sandisk extreme III-s are the best. But I'm sure, that they improved the write speed of the newer dslrs, so maybe extreme III's write speed by now are no longer faster then the dslr's write speed.

In the old days (40D, 5D mark I) dpreview done some test for this (under page: "timings and sizes" or "performance") but they gave up this good behave.

 

[cyberZ]

The card's speed doesn't really matter... What matters is: how fast the dsrl can write on it. The card's speed is just a guide number, to know roughly what the card is capable for.

Obviously
The camera before write in the buffer then empty the buffer on the card. I don't know what is the real write speed of the 7D(if anyone know, please say it), but Transcend with its 600x card it is surely fast, because I have about 20-23 raw shots at 8fps without any delay.
However, is simply, in my experience, Transcend cards are the best with honest price(why us pay the advertising for ...??)

Regards

 

[olav]

http://www.traumflieger.de/desktop/kameras/testverfahren/kartentest.php
That's the place to find your Card! Unfortunately it is a german site but the numbers should be the same everywhere!

 

[Vishal]

I don't know what is the real write speed of the 7D(if anyone know, please say it), but Transcend with its 600x card it is surely fast, because I have about 20-23 raw shots at 8fps without any delay.
However, is simply, in my experience, Transcend cards are the best with honest price(why us pay the advertising for ...??)

Right!

If it dosent burn image data on the card @ over 400x then no point spending the extra $$$ on more expensive cards.

So FINALLY the question is, What is the write speed of the 7D?
Slower than 300x? 400x? 600x or faster?

 

[bvukich]

So FINALLY the question is, What is the write speed of the 7D?
Slower than 300x? 400x? 600x or faster?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOALy-tYdUk

Looks like even a 600x card isn't fast enough for a 7D, but getting pretty close. The fastest cards I know of are the Hoodman 675x (100MB/s).

 

[Vishal]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOALy-tYdUk

Thanks Mate

That video & this one >
SpeedTest Transcend: 100x Vs 300x Vs 400x Vs 600x > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqi6BWOyX-U

Things are a lot more clearer now

 

[bvukich]

Off topic, but this is an awesome photo of yours: http://www.airliners.net/photo/Jet-Airways/Boeing-737-85R/1787249/&sid=564c8a35834b5b91b8aa9cd9ba5b4aed

Is it a single photo, or a stack (composite) of multiple of the same plane?

You should start a thread with some of your favorites and how they were taken.

 

[Vishal]

Thank You Very Much!
It is a Single Image - No Manipulations just contrast & sharpened.

Those are a total of 7 planes - Boeing 737s & Airbus A320s of various Airlines of India.

Here's an alternate & a more Head-On view of things > http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=6313404

 

[rhanesworth10]

The canon 7S write speed maxes out just below 53mb/sec. You Would think the a 60MB/sec card would be fast enough, but with the faster 600X cards the camera buffer empty's faster so you can shoot continuously as the camera writes to the card. See attached site.
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-10044-10297 Can't help you with brand I've always used sandisk but am planning on Lexar 32GB 600X as my next card. Good luck

 

[Flake]

The more expensive cards have second interface chip which helps with the speed.

Sorry rhanesworth but the Rob Galbraith test is a joke trying to assess data transfer rates by standing over a camera with a stop watch and timing by when the write light comes on & goes off - well try presenting that as evidence to any engineer. If it were possible to accurately measure the data transfer the manufacturers would have done it, but it's not that simple.

memory cards have a minimal effect on the frame rate, and the maximum number of shots unless they're very slow, now you need a resonably quick card for video on a DSLR, but the single most important thing is reliability. A whole days shooting can be worth over £1000 it's not nice having to go back & do it all again simply because a cheap card has failed!

 

[maharzan]

I am using SanDisk Extreme III CF card 8GB. Its working great over a year and half now, shoot stills/videos just fine. I have 4 of them.

 

[du9gvu]

I have 5 Scandisk 60mb/sec UDMA 8GB cards for my 7D and so far no issues as to speed, read/write and transfer, bought it from Amazon.com at a fairly half the price compared to local camera stores. I tried several cards (30mb) but can't catch up when taking high speed shoots, 7D has dual processor and needs at least 60mb/s fast cards.

 

[K3nt]

I got a Kingston Ultimate 32GB 600x CF card for my 7D and couldn't be happier. The price/performance ratio is spot on. Costs about the same (or less) than the 16GB SanDisk version. I paid 130eur for mine (around 150-160USD).
I'm gonna get me some more of these babies.
Whether I need the speed or not is another question. I just like knowing the card has the performance when I do need it + I'm a tech geek in general. ;D

I'm not going to argue pros and cons, this card worked for me and might be worth looking in to in your case too.