Compact Flash cards - why spend a lot?

[tony @ suffolk]

I'm in the process of trying to convince myself to change from my venerable old Canon EOS 300D to a 5D MkII (I've got some nice lenses from my 35mm days & it'd be a shame to waste them - tried out a Nikon 700, didn't like the controls).

Thought I'd get a few bits & pieces before the big spend - flashgun, decent holdall etc. , and a larger capacity card (I somehow suspect my old 512 MB one will run out of storage rather quickly)

On the latter, I confess to being very confused with the huge price differences between the various cards and whilst I want a good quality one I'm not quite sure what else I should be considering here. Are the more expensive ones more secure and durable? Have they some other attribute I might find useful, given that I'm not a professional photographer, merely an enthusiastic and rather ancient amateur?

All help and guidance gratefully received!

[Yandros]

I'd always buy a good 'named' brand for reliability reasons (never had issues with Sandisk). It's work buying something like the Extreme III as this raises your continous shooting rate if you do any action photography. If you shoot RAW, it takes a LOOONG time to write to the card if you shoot a 20 frame burst!!

[RandomLee]

In addition to what Yandros has said, I'd also add that it's worth buying from a reputable source as there is a lot of clones / fakes on the go... even from some of the sites you wouldn't expect. One with a certain jungle sounding name springs to mind, as well as everyone's favourite auction site

One other thing, I wouldn't go lower than 4GB as I've regretted buying my 2GB ever since 1st used it as shooting RAW + Jpeg it fills up far too quickly (only 99 shots on my camera).

[dazza74]

My feeling always been that they are so cheap now memory cards I've been happy to pay the bit extra for a faster card. I have the sandisk 4GB Extreme III and have never had any issues and for £20 can't complain.

[Yandros]

The sweet spot for price/performance/capacity at the moment is the Sandisk Extreme III 4Gb for £15.

[drb5]

£15 delivered from SanDisk CompactFlash 4GB Extreme III Memory: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo so it's worth buying 2 or 3.

[Fozzybear]

Oh yes - when you're spending hundreds on a camera it's not worth scrimping a few quid on a decent card. The fast ones really do make a difference, and not just for quick bursts of shots - a faster card will make reviewing images a lot quicker too.

[dazza74]

Originally Posted by Fozzybear

Oh yes - when you're spending hundreds on a camera it's not worth scrimping a few quid on a decent card. The fast ones really do make a difference, and not just for quick bursts of shots - a faster card will make reviewing images a lot quicker too.

My sentiments entirely, I might not need all the performance but I've got ND filters costing more than double my memory card that spend most of their life sitting in the camera bag. Puts it into perspective for me.

[icemanonline]

Agree with all said above but I use these.......4GB - Kingston Elite Pro 133x Speed@ £7.69 Brilliant cards and lightning fast in firing shots and also processing in camera or onto computer too.

7dayshop.com - Online Store

I also invested in this too....Dane-Elec - USB 2.0 15in1 Memory Card Reader/Writer (SDHC Compatible) @ £5.99 form here

7dayshop.com - Online Store

That reader is way better than the one fitted in the Acer unit I have.......faster and nicer looking too.

Good stuff from the website/company 7dayshop.com

icemanonline

[jonnypb]

probably tempting fate but it's worth buying a known brand, sandisk have never let me down (yet)

[TarMoo]

Extreme III 30Mb/sec are very good cards. I got a couple of 4Gb cards from 7dayshop.

The only non-Sandisk CF card I bought kept on corrupting, so I no longer use it. It pays to get the best.

[D-an-W]

I used play.com for the Extreme III 16GB (30Mb/s), £59.99 with free delivery...

[RobDickinson]

Originally Posted by tony @ suffolk

I'm in the process of trying to convince myself to change from my venerable old Canon EOS 300D to a 5D MkII

300D = 6mp at 3fps = 18mp per second
5DmkII = 21mp at 4fps = 84mp per second.

If you want to shoot at 4fps for more than the 5DmkII's buffer your going to need a fast card, if not it doesnt matter so much.

[senu]

Another vote for Extreme III way more VFM than Extreme IV and worth the extra over Ultra II( IMHO)

[tony @ suffolk]

Thank you very much for all your helpful replies guys - 8 MB Scandisk Extreme III (£35) & 4 MB (£15) on order from Play.com.

Thought I'd get two 'cos the HD video on the D5 will eat up a fair bit of memory I imagine!