If it seems to good to be true...

[rpcrowe]

IT PROBABLY IS

I have a few bucks worth of eBay dollars which were burning a hole in my pocket. I looked into CF cards on eBay because that was about the only purchase I could make with the few dollars available to me.

I found a 32 GB Lexar 1066x CF card for under 16 U.S. Dollars. This is less than half the price of the 32 GB Lexar 1066x CF card sold by Adorama which seemed pretty fishy to me. I looked up the reviews of the eBay merchant and most of the bad reviews were because the CF cards people had received were not as advertised, probably counterfeit.

Of course, the moral of this story is that we get what we pay for and there are few outstanding and unbelievable bargains out their, especially on eBay... Buyer beware!

[Manfred M]

Richard - there have been fairly consistent reports over the years, about the memory cards from all sources on eBay, suggesting that the overwhelming majority are counterfeit. It suggests to me that it is not a source I would get these from.

[lunaticitizen]

These kinds of storage media are very easy to fake. I bought 2 SD cards from an Amazon individual seller, and after I performed simple benchmark tests I realized that they are counterfeits. Long story short, I returned the cards to the seller, notified Amazon, and in the end the seller got banned.

[Dave Humphries]

For anything that's easy to fake, I tend to buy only from Amazon UK themselves these days, for the much quicker process getting a refund if it does turn out to be below par for any reason.

Previously I had bought a supposedly branded Canon battery via a Amazon UK re-seller and although I eventually got my money back, it took weeks of gentle persistence and hoop jumping by me to prove to them it was a fake.

[ajohnw]

I seem to have had no problems buying cards of Ebay. What I often find is that the markings on a particular type aren't correct so find ones that are. The fact that I usually buy 16gb cards might help as well. Perhaps they are not worth faking or are decent cards. I find that size is ok event though I shoot raw plus best jpg. They also form my final back up so 16gb is plenty big enough - in my view. Max camera pixel count in my case is 20mp but I have used the same card on cameras with a lot less. That made me feel that in some ways more smaller cards are better.

I did start using these cards when some one from the Channel Isles was selling rather a lot of them. They had a tax advantage which mostly explained the price difference. I'm now out of spare cards so need to get some more. I hope they are still around. Mounted on a card and with a case. The speed rating needed is generally in the camera manual. I doubt if there is much point in going much faster.

Ebay in the UK does have a serious problem of late. People may assume that it's the cheapest source and often these days it isn't. It's not unusual to find that Amazon is cheaper or that some one is buying things in from another retailer and selling them on at an increased price. The worst one of those I came across was some stainless kitchen scales. Also recently a particular brand of electric kettle. There have been others. The Amazon reviews can also be useful.

John
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[ajohnw]

I just ordered some. No case now and all of the ones on ebay were micro with and adapter so bought off amazon. Price wise more or less the same as I wanted 4 plus 20 cases so free delivery.

John
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[rpcrowe]

I don't really need cards but, I am interested in learning if there is a perceivable difference that I might notice using my Canon 7D2 between 1066X and 800X cards. I am sure that there are tests which confirm that the 1066X cards are faster but, would I notice the difference in read/write speeds between the two speeds in normal shooting Actually, anything over 400X seems to work pretty well for my shooting!

Nice thing is that Adorama accepts PayPal, so I might use my PayPal bucks at that vendor to get a 16GB or 32GB 1066X card...

Adorama is offering a 16GB Lexar (IAll my present first line cards are Lexar brand) for $31.95 (USD) while it has a 32GB Lexar card for $38.95 which is a better deal. Twice the capacity for about 25% more cost.
http://www.adorama.com/ilxpcf10632.html

[GrahamS]

I might buy many things from Amazon but when it comes to cards and batteries, of which counterfeits are everywhere, I buy from my local high-street dealer. I may pay a little more, but I can pack them in my bag without any doubts and without having to run tests first. I have had a couple of cards fail which have been exchanged without a quibble. I had a Nikon EN-El-15 battery give me poor performance and that was replaced without question as well. I prefer to deal eye-2-eye on these things.

[ajohnw]

Personally I think that the cameras limit just how fast cards can be Richard so look in the manual and buy one grade higher. I also look for indications that they are genuine.

I haven't used CF cards for some time but from memory they can be pretty variable down to the number of data paths they have into them. Your camera manual should specify a grade and if confusing the wiki may help sort out which is which from the ones on sale. I'm assuming that they do have a page.

Flash cards have changed over the years. I have some that must be about 20 years old, small sizes and the data is still fine on them. These types are now called single level flash or SLC. Each bit of data is stored in it's own cell. All other types now are MLC or multilevel. Data is stored as a voltage in a cell. Last time I heard they were using 3 levels in each cell to represent 3 values. It can't be as reliable but they may use techniques to validate the data that is stored and reconstruct it. Data retention of the old type could be as much as 100 years. Pass on the new stuff. All types have always had one problem - the write life. How many times fresh data can be written to them so I always just fill them once. I've no idea how long they will last of cleared out and used again but at some point they will fail. On industrial stuff it was something like several thousand times but that may have improved now.

John
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[Manfred M]

Richard - I will get the fastest cards that I can, based on affordability, so this rarely means the fastest cards available, but rather one or two levels down from the fastest.

Not being a sport shooter, I rarely fire long bursts that completely fill the buffer. I've rarely gotten into a situation where the write time is a problem, but it does happen. My problem tends to be at the other end when I get home from a trip and download all the images back to my computer. Here a fast card definitely has an advantage, especially when I go with the larger 32GB or 64GB cards. I will fill up at least one card a week while I am on the road, so I have lots of data to download and back up, both on the road and when I get back home, especially when I have been away for a month or more...

[ajohnw]

The Sandisk cards from Amazon turned up today. The listing said no hassle packing. The pictures showed the usual blister pack. No blister pack when they arrived. They were each in a stout cardboard envelope with a tear of strip that actually worked if torn off from one end but not from the other end for me. The envelopes were printed Amazon.com and Sandisk and had the card plus a slip with the usual odd Sandisk guarantee printed on it. Seems that some countries don't allow limited life time guarantees so there are also other terms on it.

So stocked by Amazon so would they be fakes ? I wouldn't have thought so. They didn't come from a UK Amazon warehouse as is often the case these days. Some where in Europe. Might be Spain or Germany. Not sure.

Good job I ordered some cases for them. i suspect they are reducing their costs by having them supplied like this rather than in the usual blister packs

John
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[rpcrowe]

I don't store data on my CF cards for any appreciable length of time. My standard workflow is to download my cards soon after I shoot and transfer the RAW files to a couple of external hard drives when I am traveling or, when I am at home, transfer the RAW files to my desk top PC along with two external hard drives and back everything up on a cloud based backup system.

I never noticed any problems with card speeds until I began shooting with the Canon 7D cameras (I had previously been shooting with a 30D and a 40D). I think that he combination of faster burst rate and larger file sizes of the 7D made the difference.

I used UDMA capable cards on my China trip in 2019 even though the 30D and 40D cameras I was shooting with could not take advantage of UDMA capability. However, the UDMA cards downloaded to my computer far faster using a UDMA capable card reader. After a long day of walk around shooting, it was nice to get my evening workflow over as fast as possible. I purchased three 16GB 400X Lexar cards from a local Calumet store before my China trip in 2010. I got them for ten U.S. Dollars each. Calumet had made an error in a rebate ad and instead of offering a ten dollar rebate on each card, they offered a rebate which reduced the price to ten dollars each total. Lexar and Calumet removed the rebate the very next day but, honored the cards that were purchased on the day the rebate was in effect. By the way, although I have quite a decent inventory of 800X CF cards, I will still have no hesitation in using those 400X cards that I have been shooting with since 2010

I don't seem to notice the difference between my 400X and my 800X cards in day-to-day shooting with either the 7D or my 7D2. However, I have not timed the download nor have I shot in burst mode until the camera could no longer shoot. Generally I shoot about 3-5 shots in burst mode.

[rpcrowe]

I found these statistics on the Bloomberg report. I cannot personally verify them but, until they are disproven, will accept them...

A surprisingly huge chunk — at least 2.5 percent! — of global trade consists of pirated or ripped-off products. Estimates range from $461 billion to $1.8 trillion in counterfeit stuff. Which reminds me — accept no substitutes from the far inferior “Remarkable Figures” column and newsletter. [Bloomberg]

[lunaticitizen]

I don't seem to notice the difference between my 400X and my 800X cards in day-to-day shooting with either the 7D or my 7D2. However, I have not timed the download nor have I shot in burst mode until the camera could no longer shoot. Generally I shoot about 3-5 shots in burst mode.

Hmm let's see.. with 7D2, 5 shots at the highest speed (10 fps) means it takes 0.5 seconds, and produces 120 MB worth of raw files (not exactly 120 MB, just for the sake of easy calculation ).

1066x CF cards (100 MB/s) from Lexar can write 50 MB in 0.5 seconds, leaving 70 MB to write in 0.7 second.
800x CF cards (40 MB/s) from Lexar can write 20 MB in 0.5 seconds, leaving 100 MB to write in 2.5 seconds.

Would you notice the difference (1.8 seconds)?

[ajohnw]

I think in practice Leo that the camera wont match the speed of the level of card that they mention in the manual. They all have it stated somewhere. They are most unlikely to drive it any faster than it's capable of. What might be a mistake is fitting some dubious make that doesn't really match the spec.

My understanding as well is that the write speed is much slower than the read speed. Maybe as low as 1/2 and often not stated.

I think Manfred may have a point about making use of higher speed cards to allow them to download to a pc more quickly. I use a self powered card reader that will also take a hard drive. The hard drive does allow faster download rates than from a card or may do as some of the delay seems to be the pc decoding shots and producing icons for them. USB limits the download speed from a hard drive. Maybe USB3 or SATA ones will appear some day.

There are a number of retailers in the UK especially on the high street that will tell people that the latest super duper high speed card will make their cameras run faster but if that's the case why don't the camera manufacturers say so. I'm sure they would if this was the case,

John
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[lunaticitizen]

You are right, modern CF cards are very efficient they sometimes exceed their transfer speed specification; unfortunately the bottleneck is mostly the camera right now. The simple calculation above assumed that the camera can only write to the cards at approximately half of their rated transfer speed.

My point is that faster cards can make a little difference, in this case it's a 1.8 second difference. The question is whether that difference is worth the money.

The transfer speed to a PC will be much faster though, so maybe just like you said even if you can't really perceive the difference between the cards during shooting, you can experience much shorter waiting time downloading your pictures to PC.

[loosecanon]

I buy from local camera shop - last ones were £24 in shop, I bought 2 for £32. so I got brand I was happy with at reasonable cost. Delivery was quick (over the counter).

[Ken MT]

I bought a Lexar USB3 card reader, and when coupled with USB3 in my new computer, slashed the download times, from the USB2 reader by something like 8 times with either SanDisk CF card, or SD cards. Definitely worth the $NZ88 purchase from my local camera store.

[ajohnw]

I don't really have a local camera shop any more. A company called Curries / PC World knocked lots on the head some time ago now by having plenty of stock and lowest prices. Not much stock now and card prices tend to be well over the top. The ones I bought are packaged by Amazon. Prices with free delivery very similar to Ebay. I bought SanDisk Ultra's. They seem to get faster each time I buy them. I've never had any problems with them but there is always a first time.

I've not looked at card readers for a couple of years now so must check to see if the type I like is available in USB3. I find it handy to be able to plug a HDD into them at times so go for that type that is also self powered. They have a couple of handy USB sockets in them too.

John
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[DickyOZ]

Richard, I recently bought four 128GB USB 3 drives from china for $8 - it sounded too good to be true but I thought at that price why not give it a go - after all AliExpress had a buyer protection safeguard. Needless to say it was too good to be true. They were 128Gb USB 2 drives hacked to appear be 128GB drives. (note the significant difference between 'b' and 'B'). The AliExpress buyer safeguard turned out to be a seller safeguard so I had done my dough. But I salvaged something by hacking them back to 128Gb and they work fine if only at USB 2 speeds. If anyone wants to know how I am happy to give them the (Windows) instructions how to.

I just bought two 64GB USB 3 sticks from Aus @ $Au15 a pop and they are fine and fast - so I don't need to go round and chuck a rock through the seller's window.

Dicky.