Nikon D300S Card Slot Choice.

[Trevor Fortes]

I have acquired a Nikon D300S to complement my D200. I am new to digital photography having used Canon F1 and Canon A1 35 mm for the last 30 years. The D300S has a CF card slot and an SD card slot. Which would you use as priority card and specifically why? Thank you, Trevor

[Manfred M]

In general I prioritize the CF slot as these cards have faster read / write speed. I tend to use the SD card only when the CF card is full.

[AllEx]

I sapose it has firstly to do with the quality of the cards you`ll use. Fast cards cost, the photographic ones load your photos faster. The CF `s are known to have bigger capasity therfore are used for video (I don`t know the D300S capabilyties).
My D800 has the same two card slots, I use as a primary the SD one cause my laptop has a SD slot too, in that way I can take the files even when I couldn`t tether my camera with the laptop.
I guess is mainly a mater of personal convinience.
P.S.
Always read the manual of your camera first, I bought an expencive one with bigger capasity that my camera was able to deal with, I use it without any problem till now but I never load it to the end of it`s capabilyties.

Cheers



Alex.

[Black Pearl]

Sold mine recently but I had five years of fantastic service so you should have fun. As Manfred said if speed is the absolute priority use CF cards - if you're not going to be using it flat out and don't need the buffer cleared immediately then you may find SD cards easier to deal with as most computers have a SD slot you can bung it straight in.

[Manfred M]

The CF `s are known to have bigger capasity therfore are used for video (I don`t know the D300S capabilyties)..

Alex - video files are relatively small when compared to the data in a raw file and the high end HD video cameras I have used use twin SD slots. Video files are highly compressed and HD formats are 1920 x 1080 pixels. On my HD camera I can use two 64GB SD cards that will hold 12 hours of video. The 4K format will have larger files, but are still much smaller than what we see in the raw data generated by even entry level DSLR and mirrorless cameras. The ones I have looked at use SD cards.

If one is shooting video with still cameras, one can use either card slot, but frankly there is no additional advantage other than the download speed on CF when shooting video.

[pnodrog]

Recently I was traveling and every few days was downloading the photographs to a laptop and onto a 2 Tb USB drive. However for reasons of security (possibility of gear theft from rental car) I decided I would not delete any images from the cards until I returned home. So I needed to buy an additional card for my D800. A 64gb SD was available and as cheap as the 32gb CF card which was the highest capacity CF card the shop stocked.

I purchased the SD card and used it for the remainder of the trip without any noticeable difference.

You maybe interested in reading the following article. http://www.nine-volt.com/cf-vs-sd-ca...-be-surprised/

[rpcrowe]

I don't yet have a camera with dual slots my DSLR (7D & 5Dii models) only use CF cards while my underwater Fuji and my Canon SX-50 HS use SD cards.

When I sell my 7D and 5Dii to purchase a 7Dii body, I will then be confronted with the 2-card system.

I really like CF cards because:

1. They are pretty indestructible - they have cycled through a washing machine and have been confronted with puppy teeth but, still work fine

2. My Lexar UDMA7 cards are exceptionally fast both in shooting (essential when shooting in burst mode), with a UDMA capable camera, and in downloading when using a Lexar UDMA capable card reader. This is important for me since I always shoot in RAW and shoot large number of images. I never use any of the card slots in any of my computers to download images. I always use the UDMA card reader. If I had a USB 3.0 slot for my computer, downloads would even be faster.

3. In shooting many tens of thousands of images I have only been confronted with two CF cards that had problems and both of these (Kingston brand cards) had the problems right from the start. I have never experienced a CF card which initially worked and then stopped working.

4. I like the size and heft of CF cards because, IMO, they are less likely to be lost...

Therefore I have confidence in CF cards. I keep a selection of older and slower CF cards in my auto glove box - just in case I forget to bring cards in my photo vest. I have done that once and the older CF cards saved the day for me.

[Manfred M]

You maybe interested in reading the following article. http://www.nine-volt.com/cf-vs-sd-ca...-be-surprised/

This article does not align with my experience. I use the same Lexar USB 3 reader that is mentioned in the article and there is no way that my SD cards are even close in read time to my CF cards. I'd suggest that the ones I use (which are not the fastest ones out there, but definitely at the higher end of the speed range for both types), but the CF cards are three to four times faster when being read.

[pnodrog]

SD cards have a serial interface and CF cards a parallel interface so must of course be faster. However my prime concern is how the speed impacts on my capturing photographs. I am perfectly happy to wait a few extra minutes for the images to transfer to my computer in order to have a good supply of lower cost cards..... If my livelihood depended on photography I would of course have different priorities.