CF Cards in D800

[lightblood]

This is Sunday and my shoot wrapped not long ago - some high fashion-style environmental portrait work. I'm in Buffalo but home base is Washington DC. I picked up a new D800 with new firmware just because it was in stock at a camera store I popped into in Amherst today. My work camera is a 5DMKII, but since I had the D800 I decided to use the vaunted Nikon with new 50/1.4 G lens for a couple of sets. Guess what - the D800 locked up using Kingston and two other brands of CF cards. This is outrageous. Please, a professional grade camera should work with any freakin' memory card you throw at it. Period. I don't want to hear about resolution, noise, DR, IQ or any of the other crap that's been gushed out about the D800. None of thatmatters if you can't get your shots. Whatever it is I know what it is not - a true pro-grade tool that you can throw any card into no matter where you are in the world and get your shots. End of story. That sucker is going back tomorrow.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Did you take a card out of your Canon camera and use it without formatting it? I formatted my cards and removed the special Canon folders before trying to snap images in my D800. It has worked perfectly.

Does your D800 have the new firmware released last week? It supposedly fixed a lockup issue that was happening under certain circumstances.

Update the firmware, if its out of date, its a critical update. Format your CF cards if you haven't already.

 

[lightblood]

Thanks for your question. Cards were NOT taken from a Canon and placed into a Nikon without first attempting to format in the Nikon. (Been doing this a couple of decades now, ahem...) But that is indeed a good point to be heeded by newbies. I bought two other brand new cards in the store and NEITHER OF THEM would format in the D800 except my Sandisk Extreme IVs. I have enough experience under my belt to have been caught in situations where the cards I brought along were lost/stolen and I had to use what ever I could get my hands on. I have probably taken it for granted that my cameras so far have never had CF card issues. Today, that is something that should be taken for granted if anything is. The main point is that we should not even be having this discussion in 2012 - and particularly not about a $3000.00 camera from Nikon. I cannot trust it. Would you take an exotic new car that wouldn't start all the time on an important trip? Or would you hop in something that you knew was going to get you there?

 

[NormanBates]

I aggree that this shouldn't happen
and I still think that, for most people, it doesn't
I also visit everyday a forum of video shooters using all kinds of cameras, and on the D800 section I've seen no complaints like this one
maybe your camera was faulty
I'd be interested to hear from other users, but I doubt I'll find many at a site called "canonrumors"

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Thanks for your question. Cards were NOT taken from a Canon and placed into a Nikon without first attempting to format in the Nikon. (Been doing this a couple of decades now, ahem...) But that is indeed a good point to be heeded by newbies. I bought two other brand new cards in the store and NEITHER OF THEM would format in the D800 except my Sandisk Extreme IVs. I have enough experience under my belt to have been caught in situations where the cards I brought along were lost/stolen and I had to use what ever I could get my hands on. I have probably taken it for granted that my cameras so far have never had CF card issues. Today, that is something that should be taken for granted if anything is. The main point is that we should not even be having this discussion in 2012 - and particularly not about a $3000.00 camera from Nikon. I cannot trust it. Would you take an exotic new car that wouldn't start all the time on an important trip? Or would you hop in something that you knew was going to get you there?

What brand were the Cards?

While almost all cards work with it, some will not. Some Delkin, Dane-Elect, Kingston, and "My digital Discount" have been reported as not working,

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_wb_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-12451

I have a whole pile of CF cards, I usually use Sandisk Extreme 60 mb/sec, but I also tried a older Lexar Professional 300X, A really old "Lead Data" 8MB", a really old Sandisk 512MB, a old Transcend 8GB 133X, a old Lexar Pro 4GB 300X. I could likely dig out more from my junk box out in my studio, but we are in the middle of a thunder storm and I'm staying dry.

Only the old 8MB (MB, not GB) card would not format, but it did not lockup the camera either. Obviously, it could not store even one image in any event.

The rest of the cards I tried formatted perfectly, and I took images with them as part of testing. The camera took everything I could throw at it, the same as my 5D MK III did.

It works fine with my SD cards as well.

On the other hand, the 5D MK III worked with all of them! http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_wb_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-12452

 

[lightblood]

It was sort of magical to have Rob Galbraith jump in here. Your honor, I rest my case. For the record, a message kept popping up on the D800 top LCD: CF Err, or something to that effect. The camera could have well been defective. But I have read elsewhere of CF card issues with the D800 and I repeat, please, not in 2012!
I'm sure it is an amazing camera. But this is a Canon forum and what I'd really like to convey is that Canons have NEVER failed to get the picture for me and that is really the bottom line.. I delivered 20 x 30 portraits. The clients were thrilled. At first, the lady complained that she could see too much detail in her face and asked why didn't I soften it (Gee, I used Tiffen Glimmer Glass). Clients could care less what made the portrait as long as it was made. If I had had to rely on that D800 with the cards I tried in the camera I would have been toast. I wish the trashing Canon would stop. The chatter ends up being relatively arcane talk about relatively esoteric issues that border on the elitist when the name of the game is creating images.
Anyway, I still ended up being toast. You see, my wife was along. And I have been carefully and patiently setting her up for the "hey, Hon, I'm going to get the new Nikon camera because its the second coming for sure. (How old are we? I started shooting fashion in Montreal in the 70's. She was one of my main muses. I started with Nikon Fs and had everything up to the F4. I switched for Canon's lens tech. I still have my original NPS Canada card - black and yellow). So she was in the friggin' store with me. We're back in DC now. She still looks at me and bursts out laughing. Darn straight I'm pissed. ;D This is a great forum and thanks for the replies.

 

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I did a search on Delkin, and found some stores with a warning that they were incompatible with the D800. It sounds like a firmware update is needed.

 

[briansquibb]

There was a very recent Nikon firmware release to stop D4/D800 lockups - dont know if it applies in this case?

 

[psolberg]

sorry, but no D800 ships with the new firmware which was just released, you have to update it manually.

I've experienced no lockups even withouth the update so I'm curious about your experience. If you suspect a problem, just get it exchanged.