[Peakoverload]

I'm off to the Lake District in a few weeks time and am just thinking about memory cards. The last time I was there I shot thousands of photos and hope to do the same again.

As usual I will be taking my digital wallet to copy my memory cards to but the battery on it is failing and so it only holds enough charge to download about 2-3 cards before it dies. I will be taking it's power supply with me so downloading cards back at the cottage we are renting with it plugged in will be fine but that won't help me when we are out and about. Therefore I'm thinking about buying a couple more memory cards.

Currently I use Sandisk Extreme III 4GB cards which are the old Extreme III's (20MB/133x) ones. These are plenty fast enough for me on my Canon 30D and seeing as the 30D doesnt support UDMA there's no point in me buying the new Extreme III's of Extreme IV's as I won't be able to utilise the extra speed.

The cheapest price I can find for a Sandisk Extreme III 4GB is £19.99 from a reputable retailier

However from the same retailer I can also get the Kingston Elite Pro 133x 8GB for £15.99 which is stupidly cheap, £4 less and twice the capacity of the Sandisk and the same speed as the old Extreme III's which I'm currently using.

I've used Kingston RAM for years without issue so are their memory cards just as good?

I'm seriously considering buying 2x 8GB cards (8GB is the max size that the 30D can format in camera) but reliablity is a big issue for me. The fact that the Kingston cards come with a lifetime warrenty is reassuring in some ways but it's not the failure of the card I'm worried about but the loosing of irreplacable photos that were on it. Does anyone here use Kingston Memory cards, are they reliable?

[RvanR]

I have bought 2 8Gb Kingston cards and have used them without any problem for about 4 months. Probably reformatted each about 5 times. No problems at all. Write speed is fine, I don't do a lot of sport photography. I would buy them again and save lots of money.

[T0MAT01]

My only experiance with kingston CF cards was when I went to the London motor show a couple of years ago and a mate was using one in his 1Dmk2 N. It seemed perfectly fine until he switched to using burst mode and suddenly his card stopped working. Not only had it not captured the burst but had corrupted the images he had taken before as well.

If it was me, I'd stick to using Extreme 3s even if it is only to get the benefit of faster upload times to the computer.

[cedmondson]

I've had a couple of the 8Gb 133x Elite Pros for 3-4 months and they seem fine to me. As you say, no obvious performance difference from Extreme III's & no issues so far...

[kempez]

Kingston are a huge company and produce some great products. I've got a 4GB SD card of theirs and it does the trick

[OrbitalPete]

Yes, used Kingston and they're fine.

by far the best value card I've ever bought though was MyMemory 16GB:
MyMemory 16GB 133X PRO Compact Flash Card £31.99 - Free Delivery

Very reliable, plenty fast enough for anything other than 6+ shot bursts.

[tomson]

Used them for wedding shoots for the last few years - must have shot 10's of thousands of images and never had a problem.

[dave_bass5]

Been using Kingston CF for years. I even use their SDHC now as well.
Never had a problem with them.

Nice and cheap.

[electrolyte]

I have used a Kingston 1GB 133x CF for the last 2 years without a problem and I bought 2 4GB versions a month ago and both have worked perfectly.

[Peakoverload]

Cheers all for your replies. I've now ordered 2x 8GB Kingston Elite Pro 133x cards for the stupidly cheap price of £14.49 each delivered from here 7dayshop.com - Online Store