What CF card do you use on your Canon 7D

[rpcrowe]

I have a multitude of CF cards collected over the years and usually purchased at times when they were on sale. They range from rather slow cards which are both name-brand and generic along with four, fast 4GB Lexar 300x UDMA cards. I have noticed a great difference in write times between the slower and non-UDMA cards and the fast Lexar UDMA 300x cards...

I never noticed great differences in the time the red "write light" was shining between the slower cards and the fastest cards when shooting with my 30D and 40D cameras. I attribute this to the fact that the file sizes are smaller on the 30D and 40D and that those cameras do not have the capability to take advantage of the fastest CF technology such as UDMA...

I use my burst shooting most often when acquiring images for HDR imagery and I shoot in three shot bursts. The 7D writes the images to the UDMA Lexar cards quite quickly but, the red light is on for an extended time when using slower cards. I realize that the camera buffer will allow me to continue to shoot, even when the red light is on and I also realize that I need the high speed cards mostly for still imagery and that a bit slower card will work O.K. for video...

I would like to get 16-32GB more CF memory and have been researching the different cards available. The least expensive cards are usually made by Kingston. However, I have been recently burned with my last two Kingston CF cards which were purchased from Frys Electronics (a U.S. electronics chain) and were defective. I also found some Patriot 8GB 266x non-UDMA cards advertised at Frys at a great price but, have read reports that the Patriot Cards were 266x "read" cards and operated at a slower 133x when "writing". I guess that you get what you pay for. The Lexar 4GB 300x UDMA cards run $65 (USD) while I can get Patriot 16GB cards for $23 (USD) after rebate. These Patriot cards are advertised at 266x but are supposed to be 133x write speed cards...

For those of you who have 7D cameras' what cards do you use for still imagery and for video? If anyone knows of sales or rebates on fast Lexar or equivalent UDMA cards in the USA, please let me know about the good buys. I purchased a very capable camera and don't want to reduce its capability to save a bit of money on CF cards. However, I don't really want to pay a LOT MORE than I have to for my next 32GB or so of memory.

Apparently, Lexar is not producing the 300X UDMA CF cards any longer. They are offering 400x cards which read/write at 60MB/sec and 600x UDMA cards. I am thinking that the 400x UDMA cards will be quite sufficient for my uses. I can get two Lexar 16GB Professional 400x UDMA compatible CompactFlash Cards from B&H Photo in New York City for $120 (USD) with free shipping and no California Sales Tax. What do you think of this selection? These Lexar cards are quite a bit less expensive than the SanDisk Cards of equivalent speed and capacity from B&H. The SanDisk 16GB 400x Extreme CF cards run $100 (USD) EACH!

Thank you...

[ktuli]

Richard,

I know they are usually more expensive, but I use SanDisk cards almost exclusively at this point. I still have a couple Lexar 1GB cards, but my wife uses them for her stuff (she usually only takes a couple shots at a time for sharing on her crafting blog).

At this point, I have 3x8GB 30MB/s (I think they are Extreme III cards before SanDisk switched to the Ultra tag for the 30MB/s class of cards) and 2x16GB 60MB/s cards. I find that combination covers me pretty well. I went on a two week trip to Indonesia and only had to reuse one of the cards... and that was done without doing much (if any) deleting of shots while on the trip - though I was shooting just JPG then too... but I did come back with over 6000 JPGs.

I got the cards at various points when SanDisk had rebates on buying multiple cards at a time, so it brought them down to the full price for some of the "cheaper" brands. Unfortunately, I don't see any rebates on them right now. However, when they were running those rebates, they were only through smaller camera stores... ie: you could not get the rebate when buying from Amazon, but places like B&H and Adorama had the rebate - which I thought was an awesome thing for SanDisk to do to support their smaller retailers and earned them a bit more respect in my opinion.

The 16GB 60MB/s cards are UDMA capable which the 7D will take advantage of, and at $100 each aren't too terrible (I think when I got mine with the rebate they were $80 or $75 each after the rebate).

I'd honestly say buy something now to hold you over and give yourself some time to delay and wait for a good rebate offer to come up on cards you'll be happy with for a long time.

Or just buy two of these... and send one to me!

Hahaha! Just kidding. I actually don't even know if I would trust using a 128GB card... I think I'm happy with 16GB, and might push it to 32GB some day, but it scares me to have a card fail being full with that many photos!

Though, to be honest, the SanDisk cards are rugged. One of those 8GB cards I mentioned actually went through the washing machine in the pocket of my pants! Luckily I found it before they went into the dryer!!! I let the card dry for a month then gave it a shot... and it works! I have it marked and only use it as a last resort option just to be safe. I keep meaning to setup the intervalometer to just take photos continuously until the card is full (and repeat a few times) to stress test it to give myself a little more confidence in it, but to me the fact that it managed to survive going through the washing machine is pretty impressive.

Hope this helps. Sorry it got lengthy, and sorry it turned into a SanDisk sales pitch.

- Bill

[Colin Southern]

I know they are usually more expensive, but I use SanDisk cards almost exclusively at this point.

Me too. Just be sure they're genuine, as approx 100% of the "Sandisk" cards on the likes of eBay are fakes.

To be honest Richard, I have a 32GB CF and 32SDHC cards in my 1Ds3, and they're all I ever need (approx 1200 full resolution RAWs), and that's only to the CF card (I send low res JPEG to the SDHC card to display on my 40" TV when shooting tethered in the studio). Never had a problem with Sandisk, and they're relatively inexpensive these days (unless you go for their new 128GB!).

[wilgk]

Richard I use Sandisk as well.
I have 2 8GB with a 60MB/s speed that I use mostly.
I also have a 16GB with a 90MB/s that I use if going to a whole day event and am likely to shoot a lot of sports action in bursts in RAW.
I have never had a problem with this brand, but then I haven't tried any others to compare it with either.

[Snarkbyte]

I use SanDisk Extreme Pro (UDMA 6) 32GB in both the 5DMkII and the 7D. I know they're pricey, but they perform well, and they're reliable. Perhaps there is a better deal out there, but I don't like to risk a cheaper, lower quality card if I don't have to. I buy mine from B&H... again, there may be a better price available, but I always get "as advertised" products and very good service and delivery from B&H, so I don't shop around a lot.

[DTruex]

I have used several types of flash cards. My favorite with the 7D and 5DMKII have been SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro 16GB cards. I have never had a write or read failure with those cards, even in the rain. Other brands, not so much luck.

[Bill Yeung]

i use Sandisk Extreme UDMA 16 Gb and bought another Sandisk Extreme Pro 32GB 90mb/s UDMA card last month when attending my neice's wedding.
people said I don't need 32 GB.
but, manual said video eat a lot of memory and that's why I choose 32 GB
I think I don't need to buy anymore.

[ktuli]

If you happened to take my advice and wait for a Sandisk sale, now's a good time....

B&H has the 16GB 60MB/s UDMA cards on sale here... the price shows $95, until you add two of them to your cart, then the price drops to $60 each! $120 for 2x16GB 60MB/s cards is a nice steal.

Not sure how long this deal is running... I am actually debating adding two more myself...

Best thing, this isn't even a rebate deal, so no waiting to get your money back!

- Bill

[arith]

I haven't had problems with the 4GB smaller brother of this; don't know if it is fast or not though.

http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-Speed.../dp/B003O98TV6

[Letrow]

I am also a happy Sandisk user. In the D7000 I have two Sandisk SD Extreme 8 GB HC 30Mb/s cards. I use the second one as backup currently and the first one can be emptied onto the computer as often as I want.
I do reformat them whenever they are emptied, just to make sure that the chance of errors is as small as possible.

[Marie Hass]

Ditto on Peter.

I never have had problems with any of my SanDisk cards, be it CF or SD card. I also reformat after I empty the card - but only after I made a backup on my external hard drive.

Marie

[rpcrowe]

Thanks for the update on the Sandisk pricing at B&H. I have purchased 2 16GB Lexar Professional 400x UDMA CF cards also for $120 (USD) total but, I don't remember if I bought them from Adorama or B&H. They are blazing fast and I have had no problems with Lexar cards.

In fact, I have had no problems with any cards except Kingston (two failed cards 8GB and 16GB). I even have an unbranded 4GB CF card which I was told was manufactured by Samsung which (although not blazing fast) has been very reliable. I have never experienced a card which was working fail me. Both of the Kingston cards I had problems with were faulty from the start. It was a shame because the Kingston cards were very inexpensive from Frye's Electronics. I have, several smaller (2GB) Kingston CF cards which work fine and which I will continue to use when I don't need great speed.

The only time I really needed a really large amount of CF memory was during my trip to China. I was shooting 10-12 hours a day and downloading when I was in my hotel at night (despite being dead tired from the day's walk-around shooting). If I had video capability during the trip, I would have used even more memory. When I am shooting based at home or in my motor home, I download and back up after every shoot and reformat my cf cards.